The Wild by Owen Laukkanen My rating: 4 of 5 stars There’s something about this book that makes me think I’ve read it before. We don’t get deep into main character Dawn’s history before she’s thrown into The Wild, a camp to rehabilitate young people into conforming with society’s standards. Dawn’s story is a familiar […]
Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan My rating: 4 of 5 stars I really liked this book. I found that Zara’s story was compelling as it was told in first person (without any competing voices) and it flowed through to its conclusion in a present tense, chronological order. I think it would be a […]
Don’t Breathe a Word by Jordyn Taylor My rating: 5 of 5 stars I really enjoyed this book! The pace was fine at the beginning, but when Erik entered Eva’s story, I couldn’t put it down. It reads like a grown-up Trixie Belden — sneaking around a private school, having teen morals tested in two […]
Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury My rating: 5 of 5 stars Having read some really strong female BIPOC fantasy lately, Tomi Adeyemi Cherie Dimaline Jael Richardson I was immediately skeptical about how much I would enjoy this, but I loved it. It was filled with diverse characters and real settings in Toronto without being […]
The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur My rating: 5 of 5 stars After reading June Hur’s The Silence of Bones last year, I was eager to see what her newest novel would bring. Hur has a way of embedding the reader into her setting that allows you to fully immerse yourself in the […]
The Doomsday Book of Fairy Tales by Emily Brewes My rating: 4 of 5 stars I want to confess that I’m having trouble reading anything dystopian these days because the truth is just too imaginable during the pandemic. I absolutely loved the setting of this book….something homegrown where I can imagine the PATH system in […]
The Witch’s Hand by Nathan Page My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’m totally biased towards graphic novels and include a lot of them in collection development. This reads like a cross between Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Road to Riverdale Vol. 1 and Scooby-Doo! and the Haunted Castle. For a first in a series, […]
I haven’t had such a big crying cathartic end to a book in a loooong time.
The Dime Box by Karen Grose My rating: 5 of 5 stars For a debut novel, this is an author to watch. Karen Grose carefully weaves the present with the past in the story of Greta….neglected, abused and isolated with her parents in the woods of Muskoka. In the present, she is the prime suspect […]
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood My rating: 5 of 5 stars Masterful. If I could write like anyone in the world, it would be Margaret Atwood. Make time to read The Handmaid’s Tale, binge watch the series, and read this book. We finally get to understand the Gilead system inside and out. We find out […]
Trickster Drift by Eden Robinson My rating: 5 of 5 stars Eden Robinson you have created such delicious characters. If Jared or Georgina or any of them knocked at my door and said, “There’s an emergency! The coy wolves are eating the dolphin people and they need your help!” I’d shape-shift into my amphibious alter-ego, […]
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson My rating: 5 of 5 stars A set of this book was generously purchased for our school by our First Nations, Metis and Inuit (FNMI)consultant at the board office. 5 pages into it many of our teachers were too scared to teach it and put it down. Boldly […]
Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is my favourite book that I’ve read this year HANDS DOWN. It first came to my attention because I enjoy reading from the Ontario Library Association’s Evergreen book list each year. I enjoyed the audiobook version through Audible as Hernandez narrates her own book. […]
Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan E. Coyote My rating: 5 of 5 stars Ivan’s voice is so refreshingly Canadian…I feel so strongly about this voice (new to me but not new) and its place in the Canadian canon. Ivan speaks from the heart of the Yukon, and then BC and although they have had lots […]
