Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison is a moving story about a 15-year-old girl who is locked in a prison with her premature baby (named Faith). Narrated by Trista in a stream-of-consciousness style, she tells her past through memories while living in her current situation. Her narrative style and speech shows the reader her weaknesses and mental instability. At times Trista is barely coherent, or downright crude, and other times she is so lyrical in her speech that it’s quite beautiful.

Against the stark and haunting landscape of Canada’s Far North, fifteen-year-old Trista chronicles the events of her life from her room in the Polar Girls’ Prison. Caught in the decline of sexual abuse, drunkenness, and failed motherhood, Trista tries to make sense of her past, especially the events that led her to jail. With heartfelt compassion and rare insight, the stunning new voice of debut novelist Cathleen With lends light to the hardships and suffering of the teenage girls and clash of cultures in this remote region that has never before been represented in literature.

From the publisher, Penguin Group Canada

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The BC Book Prizes announced the 2010 Finalists on Thursday, March 11. Yes, this is self-promo since I work with the BC Book Prizes, but I really believe in what we do so I don’t care! There are some great authors and illustrators listed for seven different awards. We also organize a free Soirée and right now we’re planning our 7th annual BC Book Prizes On Tour. This tour takes finalist authors all over the province — we’re planning three legs: Northern BC, Kootenays, Okanagan and Vancouver Island. Sign up for email newsletters on our website to get all the updates.

Canada Reads 2010 also concluded the debates on Friday, March 12. The winner was Nikolski by Nicolas Dicker, translated by Lazer Lederhendler. In my review of Nikolski, I mention I was pleasantly surprised by the translation. However, I’d like to comment that the Canada Reads debates weren’t as intriguing for me this year compared to last year. I remember painting my bedroom last March/April and listening to the debates. I kept thinking “oh I want to read that” for each of the books. I loved The Book Of Negroes and still really want to read Fruit: A Novel About A Boy and His Nipples by Brian Frances and Outlander by Gil Adamson. I think that this year they spent too long debating what makes a book “Canadian”, which was never really the point of Canada Reads. I guess that they [CBC/Canada Reads] need to make their criteria less vague (“A book that all Canadians should read”) so that they [the champions] spend more time talking about the books themselves.

The UK’s Orange Prize for Fiction also released the 2010 longlist today. The Guardian newspaper in the UK has a great mini-site set up so you can browse through the titles. Some of the books have now been added to my TBR mountain, including Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel which also won the Man Booker Prize in 2009 and The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison, one of seven debut novelists.

Also, of note:

• The 2010 Pulitzer Prize (Pull it, Surprise!) awards will be announced April 12.
• On March 8, 2010, the Jury for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize was announced. The Gillers announces their longlist in September, shortlist in October, and winner in November.

P.S. If anyone knows of anything I missed, please let me know! I love hearing about new things in the publishing community.

I picked this book up at the office, and it has been recently shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes’ Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. I think it is best to start with the publisher’s description, because if I had been handed this book without recommendation or any idea what to expect, I would have been quite confused.

Shockingly original and intensely intelligent, 8 × 10 is a series of snapshots of a world torn apart by war and migration.

8 x 10 is a work of fiction, written in spare prose. Its title is derived from a commercial portrait format (the 8×10 glossy) and is related to the structural layout of the book: the lives of eight people — and the lives they come in contact with — told over ten events, each.
With respect to who these people are, no one is known by their names or their ethnicity but by their relationships to each other — son, mother, sister, father, aunt, etc. — and by their occupations — tailors, sales representatives, art gallerists, bartenders, soldiers. doctors, gangsters, musicians, etc. Some are known by their circumstances — émigrés, immigrants, refugees; others by their actions — thief, bully, murderer.

We never know what year we are in, nor are places referred to by name. Events are fashioned so that we are unsure whether we are in North America, Africa, South America, Europe or Asia. All events are interrelated. A portraiture based on behaviour.

[From the publisher, Random House Canada]

Even though I had an idea what to expect, I was a bit shocked by the structure of the novel (can I even call it that?) 8 x 10 is not a novel in a traditional sense, but like Nikolski by Nicholas Dickner, the unnamed characters are all intertwined somehow, but none of them really know it.

One thing that is odd now that I think about it, is that there were no physical descriptions of appearances. I didn’t even find myself wanting them. What I did find myself wanting was a name or a specific trait to classify them (purely to remember them by). There was Spinal Cord guy, Tailor man, Speed Skating boy, Cancer woman, and a handful of other characters that kept cropping up at different stages in their lives. It was actually kinda nice not having physical descriptions now that I think about it.

The tales are certainly not linear and to be honest, the themes of war and migration didn’t jump out at me. Although I think this is to the book’s credit; the themes and ideas portrayed aren’t shoved down your throat by repetition. The book left me with a sense of wanting to know more. I felt, unfulfilled because there were a number of characters I would love to know the whole story for. However, despite wanting more, I think that the book was a good length and snapshot just as it was. Anything lengthier in the same format and with the same narrative structure would have started to grate on my nerves. I would have become frustrated that none of my questions or wants were fulfilled. So yes, the story left me wanting more details and information about the events, but it was satisfying in itself. Hard to describe!

I would not recommend this book for everyone. If you like plot-based stories and linear structures and characters with names… this book is not for you. However if you’re open to unique structures and narratives and interested in meeting these unique, honest, and real (yet unnamed) characters, I think this book pushes the boundaries and can change perspectives.

Dante thinks high school is an earthly version of hell. She hates her new home in the suburbs, her best friend has moved away, her homeroom teacher mocks her and her mother is making her attend a social skills group for teenage girls. When a stranger shows up at school and hands Dante a flyer that reads: Woof, woof. You are not a dog. Why are you going to obedience school?, Dante thinks she’s found a soul mate. Someone who understands. Someone else who wants to make real changes in the world. But there are all kinds of ways of bringing about change…and some are more dangerous than others.

[back cover copy, Orca Book Publishers]

This is an engaging book about a young girl (formerly named Emily) who is trying to find herself within an oppressive high school and disappointed mother. She has an interesting journey and although the content is a little mature (maybe 12+) the writing is very accessible. The book is written from Dante/Emily’s point of view which was bang-on for the voice and age of the character.

I don’t have much more to say without giving anything away; it’s really about Dante’s personal journey. I enjoyed the book and it was a quick, engaging read for me. The writing was fast-paced and the teenage voice was very real. I was also very impressed with how Robin Stevenson deal with the GLBT content and proud that a BC author and publisher put this in a YA novel.

Click here to read the first chapter (PDF link)

Michael Nicoll Yahgulaanas (MNY) is the creator of a new style of graphic novel, Haida Manga. Haida Manga combines First Nations’ art style and tales with the Japanese graphic novel form of manga. MNY uses his distinct style of art to bring Haida Gwaii tales to life. Haida art is very distinct and popular in Northwest art.

The Haida people live in the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of British Columbia. Red: A Haida Manga, published by Douglas & McIntyre, is based on an oral Haida narrative about Red and his sister Jaada, both orphans. “When raiders attack their village, Red, still a boy, escapes dramatically. But Jaada is whisked away. The loss of Jaada breeds a seething anger, and Red sets out to find his sister and exact revenge on her captors.”

I read Red: A Haida Manga all in one sitting. As I admired the watercolour illustrations and the unconventional layout of the pages, I felt I was almost missing something in translation. Each page was such a beautiful work of art with minimal dialogue or narration. Because there wasn’t a clear cut “panel 1, panel 2, panel 3, panel 4″ format, I had trouble following the story’s details. I have read another story by MNY, The Flight of the Hummingbird, a parable for the environment. This had a more conventional layout and I feel that helped me grasp the morals of the story better.

One really neat thing about Red is at the end, MNY gives you permission to rip out the pages of two books to recreate the original piece of art. (Due to copyright, I can’t show the image here, but if you visit the publisher’s website, there is a series of photos of MNY creating the original 16-panels.)

Honestly, I don’t know what all the fuss was about. This book took me a long time to get through and I wasn’t particularly enraptured with the story. The prose is quite poetic, and it is definitely character driven, but right off the bat I felt like there were too many characters. By halfway through the book we’re whittled down to just a handful, but by that time I was bored.

I picked it up because Patrick Lane is a well-known BC writer, and Red Dog, Red Dog became a National Bestseller and was nominated for several awards. The synopsis on McClelland & Stewart’s website just gushes about it:

Red Dog, Red Dog is set in the mid-1950s, in a small town in the interior of B.C. in the unnamed Okanagan Valley. The novel focuses on the Stark family, centring on brothers Eddy and Tom, who are bound together by family loyalty and inarticulate love.

There is Tom and Eddy’s father, Elmer Stark, a violent man with a troubled past, and Lillian, who married as a girl to escape life on the farm with her widowed mother, and now retreats into her own isolation. Unrepentant, bitter, older brother Eddy speeds freely along, his desperate path fuelled by drugs and weapons, while Tom, a loner, attempts to conceal their secrets and protect what remains of the family. Eventually, an unspeakable crime causes him to come face to face with something traumatic that has lain hidden in him since he was a boy. Narrated in part by one of the dead infant daughters Elmer has buried, the story unfolds gradually, as it weaves in family stories that reach back to the depression days and the harsh life of settlers in the 1880s West.

This is also a novel about a small community of people, about complicated loyalties, about betrayals and shifts of power. Filled with moments of harrowing violence and breathtaking description, of shattering truths and deep humanity, Red Dog, Red Dog is about the legacies of the past and the possibilities of forgiveness and redemption. With this astonishing novel, one of Canada’s best poets propels himself into the forefront of our finest novelists.

It’s supposed to be “an epic novel of unrequited dreams and forestalled lives”, but I think the story began to late. In my mind, if it had begun when Eddy (the older brother) had first been sent away to juvenile detention, we would have seen more of the family struggle, fall apart, and have come to known Tom and the father better.

Perhaps I’m just more of a plot-driven fiction reader. Or, maybe this would have been a better “book club discussion” book where you can talk about “unrequited dreams”, the “possibilities of forgiveness and redemption”, and the “family loyalty and inarticulate love”. Either way, this book was not for me. However, my coworker just loved it (and she likes very serious books).

“On the eve of her first day of senior high, May Sutherland’s mother gives her a diary in which to record her experiences. It’s 1948 and the entire student body at Magee High in Vancouver is divided according to their preference for Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra. After losing her two best friends overnight, May struggles between her disdain for the debate and her loneliness as one of only a handful of neutrals.”

It was really neat to read a novel placed here in Vancouver in a high school that I considered attending. This short novel was a quick and enjoyable read. The voice of May felt very authentic and it was well-written. Being a big fan of Frank Sinatra, it was really interesting to read about the history of the Crosby/Sinatra debate among teens in 1948.

Sometimes the direction of the novel felt questionable, and although the debate between Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra remained central, nothing was particularly resolved. I do think that the format of a diary is hard to write — on one hand you risk over-informing the reader, and on the other, it’s difficult to move forward quickly.

I would definitely recommend That Tune Clutches My Heart, by Vancouverite Paul Headrick. It was also shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and received 2nd prize for Prose Fiction for the Alciun Society’s Awards for Excellence in Book Design.

The Old Brown Suitcase narrates the story of Slava and her family as a Jewish family living in Poland during the Second World War. The story details her childhood, a war-torn Poland, being forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, having to leave her parents and her baby sister, and many other events. When Slava and her family finally made it to Canada, she had to become “Elizabeth” and still hide their past in towns in Quebec and Ontario.

The story juxtaposes heart-wrenching scenes from a child’s life in war-torn Poland with the life of a teenager trying to adjust to a new country in time of peace. In Canada, it is not easy for Slava to build a bridge between two cultures; nor is it easy to live with the turmoil of her immediate past. At the same time she must face the new challenges involved in being an immigrant, a Jew and a teenage girl. [Publisher: Ronsdale Press]

It was really unique to read a story about a Jewish family during WWII that didn’t actually practice Judaism, but were still persecuted. This award-winning story was written by British Columbian author, Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, who survived the Holocaust in Warsaw, Poland. It’s a straight-forward plot, but it is a story with a lot of power and emotion. I think this novel especially important for youth studying WWII to read as it relates directly to the humanist aspect of war-torn communities, not only the historic facts. Highly recommended children’s literature.

I have a confession, I can’t finish these books! I am just not feeling into them. I normally don’t read more than one book at a time, but I couldn’t get into one, so I put it down and started another, and one thing led to another… and I have four novels on the go right now. I think it is easier to throw in the towel and say why I couldn’t finish these, than force myself to finish them just to post a review.

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Flight of the Hummingbird: A Parable for the Environment is a very short, but powerful book by local BC artist and writer, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. This book came into work, and it’s one of my bosses favourites this year. We are often sending it to clients, friends, and sponsors of our projects because it has such a strong message: doing something, however small, is better than nothing at all. This story is not a new one, the hummingbird parable has been around for a while. Here is what the press release has to say:

The hummingbird parable, with origins in the Quechuan people of South America, has become a talisman for environmentalists and activists who are committed to making meaningful change in the world. In this inspiring story, the determined hummingbird does everything she can to put out a raging fire that threatens her forest home. The hummingbird—symbol of wisdom and courage—demonstrates that doing something is better than doing nothing at all.

The parable itself is quite short, and takes only a few minutes to read, but you have to pause and admire the artwork of Yahgulanaas, who draws in a Haida Manga style which embodies the Native American origins of the parable yet makes it relateable to a much wider audience.

This courageous little book features artwork by internationally renowned artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. His distinct and lively Haida Manga style engages perfectly with this inspirational story that encourages every individual to act on behalf of the world’s limited and precious resources.

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas challenges native stereotypes through illustrative story telling.  [He] takes traditional Haida stories and turns them into manga (Japanese-style comics).

The book includes two essays as well, that took me a while to read and absorb fully. In fact, I still feel like I haven’t full appreciated the words and wisdom of these essays and the individuals who wrote them.

The parable is embraced by two of the world’s most influential leaders: Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from Kenya who launched the Green Belt Movement, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who has spoken widely about his commitment to preserving the environment.