Porcupine by Meg Tilly is a YA Novel following the story of Jack (Jaqueline) and her younger brother and sister, Tessa and Simon. After their father is killed by “friendly fire” in Afghanistan, their mother falls to pieces and stops paying the bills and buying food. After all their furniture has been taken and their heating shut off, Jack’s mother picks up the kids from school claiming they’re going on a “vacation” to see their Great Grandmother in Alberta. Jack doesn’t even have time to say goodbye to her home in Newfoundland before she and her siblings are packed into their crumbling car to drive across Canada.
When they arrive at their Great Grandmother’s, Jack’s mom admits that Gran never knew they were coming, and then shortly after they arrive, their mom leaves them. Gran sets Jack, Tessa, and Simon to work on the farm, enrolls them in school, and scrounges to provide for the kids. While Jack struggles with the responsibility of the farm, as well as looking after Tessa and Simon, all the kids worry about the fact that Gran won’t live forever.
This was a really good story — it was realistic enough that you could really get into the characters, but it was fictional enough that you could enjoy it as a story. I really liked Jack as the narrator, and I think her logic was perfect for her age, maybe even a bit older (she is 12, I think she could have been 14).
| Read an excerpt | BC Book Prize Finalist 2008 | Tundra Books |
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7 Comments
I love the sound of this book and will put it on reserve at the library today!
That sounds like a good book – thanks for the review!
Thanks for the sugestion! YA books are my favorite genre (I temper them with lots of non-fiction). I’m always on the look out for something to read.
ooooooo. I’m loving the re-design! Very nice!
I still haven’t read any of Meg Tilly’s work but I did have a chance to hear her speak at NV08. I never realized how funny she was! I have another of her books on my TBR pile. I’ll get to it eventually!
Sounds like a great book – I’m a high school English teacher, and I’m really interested in female coming-of-age stories. I’m putting that on a “to read” list for sure – thanks for sharing!
I really love road trip stories– especially Canadian ones. Another good one is Volkswagen Blues.
Interesting that it starts in Newfoundland but is called Porcupine. Did you know there are no porcupines in Newfoundland (the island portion of the province anyway– I’m not sure about Labrador). Nor are there skunks, racoons, chipmunks, crickets, or fireflies. Moose were even introduced.
This book sounds really good. Even though I’m 42 I find a lot of the YA novels quite good and love reading them along with all the other stuff. I especially like something taking place in Canada being a Canadian myself. Thanks for the great review!