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 […]
School Library Makerspaces: Grades 6-12 by Leslie B Preddy My rating: 3 of 5 stars As a secondary librarian, without planning time, without my own students focused on design/construction/creativity, I’m launching a full-time makerspace this fall that is filled with mostly donated items from the now-extinct home economics and fashion programs at my school. We […]
The Pain Eater by Beth Goobie My rating: 4 of 5 stars Maddy is gang-raped by her masked classmates when she is alone and vulnerable but she knows another person was witness to it. At first, she is only able to calm her traumatic thoughts through self-harm. Going to school each day everyone notices the […]
Subject to Change by Karen Nesbitt My rating: 4 of 5 stars Declan’s family is falling apart as his single mother works beyond her limits to keep the family together, and his brother struggles with addiction as a way to avoid confronting responsibility. Declan battles with which of his family’s secrets to keep and which […]
The Magicians Trilogy Boxed Set by Lev Grossman My rating: 4 of 5 stars Do you remember how you felt at the end of the Harry Potter books…you couldn’t believe it was all over? Lev Grossman’s world renderings have left me feeling like I have been to another world and back again. Truthfully, I didn’t […]
Baltimore, Vol. 1: The Plague Ships by Mike Mignola My rating: 3 of 5 stars It’s dark and dingy but it has this throwback, homage feeling to it that really appealed to my sense of design. The story uses many archetypes and predictable twists and turns as there is a plague, and zombie-esque creatures and […]
“Our approach to freedom need not be identical, but it must be intersectional and inclusive.” – Janet Mock, writer, TV host, transgender rights activist Today I feel compelled to put into words my choice to broadcast the inauguration of the 45th U.S. President in my school library yesterday. Living on the other side of the U.S. […]
They Left Us Everything: A Memoir by Plum Johnson My rating: 5 of 5 stars I first became interested in Plum Johnson’s They Left Us Everything as it has won the Ontario Library Association’s 2016 Evergreen award for best in Canadian adult fiction. This book is my surprise read of the year. Aging parents and […]
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins My rating: 4 of 5 stars Being a librarian, I rarely buy books anymore just for me but every now and then one leaps out at me, circulates through my family, and then makes its new home in my library where I recommend it to my secondary […]
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’m gradually working my way through the Amnesty International Book Club recommendations and this book This book is written in a simple style, at times, overstating the emotion involved in this heartwrenching tale of gendercide and survival as Asha searches to find the […]
Punishment by Linden MacIntyre My rating: 5 of 5 stars MacIntyre masterfully combines a serene small town setting with the incestuous secrets of the past. Tony, a retired guard from the nearby penitentiary, returns home to create some space between himself and the drama of his former employment only to discover that his past won’t […]
Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor The entire Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy is just delicious. For anyone new to fantasy it gently eases the reader into the world that author Laini Taylor builds by starting us with our protagonist, Karou who is an art student in Prague with a mysterious past […]
A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee My rating: 4 of 5 stars Mary Quinn finds herself in a bit of a Nikita situation….as she reforms her life, she is given a proposal to give up her traditional woman’s destiny and become part of The Agency. The really interesting part happens though when Mary […]
The Art of Getting Stared At by Laura Langston My rating: 5 of 5 stars I read this book as it is nomineed for an Ontario Library Association White Pine Award. I have been criticized for praising books too highly but honestly, the White Pine selection committee does such great work. I loved this book […]
