May 1, 2024 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
Myriam J.A. Chancy’s Village Weavers captures the origins, intersections, and ruptures of a lifelong friendship between Simone (Sisi) Val and Gertude (Gertie) Alcindor. The novel’s scope is ambitious, as it leaps between 1940s Port-au-Prince, 1970s ... Read More »
A Planet Is a Poem intertwines the worlds of poetry and science in 14 poems. Written by Amanda West Lewis and illustrated by Oliver Averill, each poem pairs a planetary body with a poetic form: ... Read More »
May 1, 2024 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books
“The most interesting part of architecture is the non-functioning,” writes Cassidy McFadzean in “Pier Evil,” one of the poems in her third collection. In a later poem, McFadzean clarifies this observation: “Fluting’s the only feature ... Read More »
Author Christine Read shines a light on the thoughts and feelings of kids with ADHD in her debut middle-grade novel, Queenie Jean Is in Trouble Again. Queenie is a Grade 5 student who gets herself ... Read More »
April 24, 2024 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books
Even as she grieves the death of her father, 8-year-old Abioye finds herself leading her small West African community. (In many Yoruba communities, when the king dies without a son, his daughter rules the community ... Read More »
April 17, 2024 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books
Dallas Hunt’s Teeth is a stirring follow-up to Creeland, his first book of poetry. In “Cree Dictionary,” from his debut collection, Hunt begins with a witty redefinition of terms: “the translation for joy / in ... Read More »
April 10, 2024 | Filed under: Indigenous Peoples, Poetry, Reviews
In Li Charmaine Anne’s debut, Crash Landing, high school senior Jay Wong finds herself re-evaluating her life after meeting Ash Chan. On discovering a passion for video-editing, Jay’s focus shifts from academics to making skateboarding ... Read More »
April 10, 2024 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books
Faith Arkorful’s debut book, The Seventh Town of Ghosts, is a collection of lyric poems suffused with a heart-centred intelligence. These poems move through grief, memory, and joy with the insight of “a black girl ... Read More »
In his genre-bending debut novel, Dayspring, Toronto writer Anthony Oliveira has crafted a truly one-of-a-kind depiction of the life of Jesus Christ – reimagined from the perspective of the apostle John, described in the Bible ... Read More »
April 3, 2024 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
The Lantern and the Night Moths is an exceptional book of translations and literary criticism by poet-translator Yilin Wang. Wang’s original translations of five Chinese poets and her accompanying essays (one per poet) make for ... Read More »