The 6th Canadian Book Challenge- June Round Up (Sticky Post— Scroll down for most recent post)

How to add your link:
1. Click on the icon above
2. Add a link to your review. (Please link to your specific review, not an entire webpage.)
3. Add your name and in parentheses the title of the book, such as John Mutford (Anne of Avonlea)
4. In the comment section below, tell me your grand total so far. (ex. This brings me up to 1/13)

***PRIZE ALERT!!!***

As this is the last month for the 6th Canadian Book Challenge, as an added incentive for those participants that have not yet reached the goal of 13 or more books, if you do so this month (and it's your last chance!), you will have your name entered in to win Four Homeless Millionaires by Rik Leaf!!!

Rik's story is truly an inspiring one! If he can do this, surely you can do that.

Reader's Diary #1027- Oscar Wilde: The Selfish Giant

The Selfish Giant's cousin, the Envious Giant

Yesterday I read an article by Brian Galindo called "11 Literary Giants Who Have Penned Delightful Children's Books." I wasn't terribly surprised to find Oscar Wilde on the list, though I didn't know he'd had a couple sons of his own. It certainly didn't seem to fit with the bohemian lifestyle I believed him to have led. Then again, I realized, I didn't really know much about his personal life.

So, in honour of this unexpected father, I decided that today's short story would belong to Oscar Wilde. One of the five stories in The Happy Prince and Other Tales, "The Selfish Giant" is about a giant who drives children away from his garden only to discover that in doing so he has also banished the spring and summer.

Trying not to give away the ending too much, I hope it suffices to say that there's a twist. Unlike most twist endings in which the story seems to depend on it, I actually felt this twist was unnecessary and a little over the top, especially as I'd been thinking the story was charming up to that point. The ending did, however, offer another surprise about Wilde himself as I'd not pegged him as a religious sort.

(Did you write a post for Short Story Monday? If so, please leave a link in the comments below.)

Reader's Diary #1026- Ashley Spires: Binky the Space Cat

When I was tracking down Ashley Spires' children's graphic novel Binky the Space Cat, it suddenly occurred to me that all of those fantastic reviews I'd read were online. I grew nervous. It's not like the Internet folks are unbiased where cats are concerned.

Don't get me wrong. I like cats. I have a cat in fact. (He's on my shoulder right now.)  But I've never considered myself a "cat person." I don't know if that's akin to hipsters who make fun of others for being hipsters or not, but I wasn't sure if this wasn't a case of cat fanatics being just a bit overzealous in their praise.

However, now that I have the book, I can honestly say it's delightful. Cat lover or not, it's funny, charming and if Binky's quirky, inquisitive and determined personality doesn't win most of his readers over, I'd be shocked. It's a great introduction for kids to the world of graphic novels and let's face it, quality, appropriate examples aimed at this age group (the publishers at Kids Can Press list it at ages 7-10) are few and far between.

I think what makes Binky so interesting and charming is how his innocence never gets in the way of his determination. As he plans to venture into "outer space" (outside), he starts himself on a vigorous training routine. He has his rare moments of doubt, but when he thinks of how "his" humans need his protection, he gets over his fears in a hurry.

The artwork is stellar. You may have your doubts. After seeing the cover you might ask yourself, "is that supposed to be a cat?" (When I'm not wearing my glasses, he looks like a moose footprint.) But when you see the other cats in the book, it's clear that Binky is just highly stylized. The scenery and grey shading are also quite well done.

I'd definitely read the others in the series, even if I'm not in the target demographic and I'm not really a cat-person. Really I'm not. I'm just a... cat appreciator.

Not representative of my actual wardrobe.

Are You A Well Read Canadian?

 Over at Loni's The Eye of Loni's Storm, she linked to a Book Riot post entitled "From Zero to Well-Read in 100 Books." The author acknowledges his cultural biases but I think he makes a valiant effort coming up with a varied sample of books that would make someone "well-read" as per his own definition of that term. It started me thinking of what books could be on a Canadian-only well read list. Here's what I came up with:

1. Lucy Maud Montgomery- Anne of Green Gables
2. John Vaillant- The Tiger
3. Modecai Richler- Barney's Version
4. Rohinton Mistry- A Fine Balance
5. Miriam Toews- A Complicated Kindness
7. Susanna Moodie- Roughing it in the Bush
8. Wayne Johnston- The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
9. James Houston- White Dawn
10. Michael Ondaatje- In the Skin of a Lion
11. Robert Munsch- The Paperbag Princess
12. Christian Bok- Eunoia
13. Pierre Berton- the Last Spike
14. Margaret Laurence- Stone Angel
15. Seth- It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken
16. Ken Dryden- The Game
17. Farley Mowat- Never Cry Wolf
18. Carol Shields- The Stone Diaries
19. M. G. Vassanji- the In-Between World of Vikram Lall
20. Michel Tremblay- The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant
21. Elizabeth Hay- Late Nights on Air
22. Sheila Watson- the Double Hook
23. Robertson Davies- Fifth Business
24. Richard Van Camp- Lesser Blessed
25. Ann-Marie MacDonald- Fall on Your Knees
26. Kit Pearson- The Sky is Falling
27. Kenneth Oppel- Silverwing
28. Margaret Atwood- The Handmaid's Tale
29. Marshall McLuhan- Understanding Media
30. Alistair MacLeod- No Great Mischief
31. Alice Munro- The Love of a Good Woman
32. Guy Vanderhaeghe- The Last Crossing
33. Emma Donoghue- Room
34. Guy Gavriel Kay- The Summer Tree
35. Douglas Coupland- Generation X
36. Tomson Highway- The Rez Sisters
37. Leonard Cohen- Beautiful Losers
38. Phoebe Gilman- Something From Nothing
39. The Complete Poems of Robert W. Service
40. David Adams Richards- Mercy Among the Children
41. Joseph Boyden- Three Day Road
42. Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki- Skim
43. Ivan Coyote- Bow Grip
44. Naomi Klein- No Logo
45. Will Ferguson- Why I Hate Canadians
46. Lisa Moore- February
47. Mary Watson- Crow Lake
48. Alan Bradley- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
49. Cory Doctorow- Little Brother
50. P.K. Page- Planet Earth: Poems selected and new
51. Lawrence Hill- The Book of Negroes
52. Timothy Findley- The Wars
53. Margaret Atwood- Alias Grace
54. Jane Urquhart- The Stone Carvers
55. Mavis Gallant- From the Fifteenth District
56. Hugh MacLennan- Barometer Rising
57. Joy Kogawa- Obasan
58. Wayson Choy- Jade Peony
59. Chester Brown- Louis Riel
60. Yann Martel- Life of Pi
61. Gabrielle Roy- The Tin Flute
62. W.P. Kinsella- Shoeless Joe
63. Elizabeth Smart- By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
64. Thomas King- Green Grass, Running Water
65. Sara Gruen- Water for Elephants
66. William Gibson- Neuromancer
67. Margaret Laurence- The Diviners
68. Marie-Claire Blais- A Season in the Life of Emmanuel
69. Brian Moore- The Luck of Ginger Coffey
70. Ethel Wilson- Swamp Angel
71. Stephen Leacock- Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
72. W.O. Mitchell- Who Has Seen the Wind?
73. Robert Sawyer- Flashforward
74. Roch Carrier- The Hockey Sweater
75. Eric Walters- Camp X
76. Bryan Lee O'Malley- Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
77. Jeff Lemire- Essex County
78. Hubert Aquin- Next Episode
79. David Bergen- The Time in Between
80. George Elliott Clarke- Wylah Falls
81. Lynn Coady- Saints of Big Harbour
82. Michael Crummey- Galore
83. Esi Edugyan- Halfblood Blues
84. Rawi Hage- De Niro's Game
85. Bernice Morgan- Random Passage
86. Peter C. Newman- The Canadian Establishment
87. bpNichol- The Martyrology
88. Louise Penny- Still Life
89. Paul Quarrington- Whale Music
90. Sinclair Ross- As For Me and My House
91. Nalo Hopkinson- Brown Girl in the Ring
92. Vincent Lam- Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures
93. Dennis Lee- Alligator Pie
94. John McCrae- "In Flanders' Fields"
95. Zoe Whittal- Bottle Rocket Hearts
96. Andrew Davidson- The Gargoyle
97. Al Purdy- Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets
98. Pierre Berton- The Arctic Grail
99. Stephen Galloway- The Cellist of Sarajevo
100. Lynn Johnston- Something Old, Something New

I tried not to just pick Canadian books that I've read, which was difficult because I've kind of made it my schtick to be a well-read Canadian. In any case, I scored 46/100 on the original Book Riot list and 58/100 on my own Canadian list, so I've still got a ways to go.

In compiling my list, I tried to pick a mixture of best-sellers and critically acclaimed, classics and contemporary, various cultural backgrounds that span the entire country, and forms and genres. I also tried to spread the love as much as possible, meaning only three authors have 2 books on the list and the rest just have one. Like all such lists, there's still bound to be subjectivity as to what should or shouldn't have made the cut. But it is what it is. Out of curiosity, how many have you read?

Feel free to meme this list if you like. And if you're so inspired, why not join the 7th annual Canadian Book Challenge to knock some of these off of your to-be-read pile?

Reader's Diary #1015- Donna Morrissey: Kit's Law

I've mostly lost my Newfoundland accent and vocabulary since I moved away more than a decade ago, though every now and again something will surface that I didn't even know was a Newfoundlandism. It's just in very recent years, for example, that I realized not everyone called the steps and landing up to a door of a house a bridge. I've lost so much of the Newfoundland dialect over the years that I decided to at least keep that one.

In Kit's Law, Donna Morrissey does an incredibly authentic job with the language. I nearly got homesick while reading it and had so many flashbacks. One that jumped out at me as one of the idioms that I've long since lost is the use of wouldn't in place of wasn't, as in "They wouldn't coming." And it wasn't just the grammar, it was also some of the vocabulary. At one point, Morrissey mentions "vamps," which, as I Newfoundlander I recognized immediately as wool socks, though I know most non-Newfoundlanders wouldn't get it at all. (I know this because when my wife Debbie, who's from Ontario, first came to meet my parents it was in the winter and we were planning to go tobogganing. When she turned down the vamps my mother had offered her earlier and then complained of cold feet later, I had to ask why. Long story short, she thought "vamps" were some sort of tawdry lingerie and felt weird being offered it from my mother.) In Kit's Law, I loved how unapologetic Morrissey handled the language. She didn't explain the grammatical choices that I'm sure some non-Newfoundland readers must have at first thought were mistakes, she offered no glossary for unfamiliar vocabulary at the end, and in my opinion the book was all the better for it. I've read books from other cultures before, and I don't think I'm unique in saying that I want writing that feels authentic. And besides, I don't think any of it would prevent a reader from understanding the plot.

Kit's Law is largely a character-driven book focused on the titular Kit, a girl born to her mentally handicapped mother Josie and fathered by any one of those locals who had been cruel enough to take advantage of Josie's condition. Usually when I say a book is character-driven I also go on to say that it's a bit on the boring side. But Kit's Law has loads of drama. However, it's Kit that I suspect will stick with most readers, including me, long after the book has been read. (I should note that the other characters are also superbly crafted and rich.)

Kit's Law does have its fair share of tragic moments, and therefore, along with the character focus and well-defined rural setting, it's susceptible to the charge of being yet another example of geography-heavy, dreary CanLit. However, I think there's just enough humour and drama thrown into the mix that it rises above the stereotype. Great writing.

Reader's Diary #1015- Emma Donoghue: Room

Very early into Emma Donoghue's Room Jack, the narrator, contemplates where he was a year before he was born, two years before. He's talking about negative numbers and he has just turned five.

Questioning how developmentally accurate such profound mathematics are, I was nervous. Back in November of last year I read Beth Goobie's Jason's Why which was supposed to be told from the perspective of a nine year old boy. I didn't buy it. Thankfully I ended up so immersed in Jack's story that I almost forgot about the authenticity all together. (And Jack's advanced math skills are explained further on.)

Since Room has been wildly popular ever since its publication 3 years ago, I hardly feel the need to summarize the plot but just in case, it's essentially about a boy who has been born to a captive woman. For the first five years of his life, all he has known and all he believes to exist is the small room where they are imprisoned. The plot can be broken down into two halves: the first involving life in the room, the second involving life after escaping.

Room is intense and engaging and heartbreaking. Jack is wise, funny, and occasionally frustrating but understandably so. Donoghue does a remarkable job making you relate to the overwhelm that his mother must sometimes feel, loving her child unconditionally and wholeheartedly but never getting a break from him.

I don't think Room was a flawless book. The whole escape plan I thought was a bit poorly thought out and unlikely, but it worked and I suppose sometimes poor plans do work out despite their odds. Once or twice I thought Donoghue used characters as mouthpieces for her own views (in particular, when Ma speaks her mind to a talk show host). And there are a few occasions when Jack watches media reports and recalls words and concepts he'd not understand which I thought— momentarily— weakened the authenticity of his voice. There's one scene at the end, for example, when he watches a panel discussing what Jack symbolizes. Not only did it seem implausible that he'd remember all the psychology/ philosophy jargon, but it seemed thrown in as book club fodder, just in case readers needed more talking points.

Nonetheless, I found Room enthralling and (unfortunately) topical.

Reader's Diary #1014- The New King James Version Bible: The Gospel of Matthew

No, I don't know why he didn't just make Harry's pillow a portkey.

When I read the Old Testament, I noted that most of the well-known stories come in the first five books. Starting the New Testament with the Gospel of Matthew, I think I'll end up saying the same. In this one book, Jesus is born, takes up a career in ministry, dies, and is resurrected. And there's 26 books to go?

I know that the next three books, the rest of the Gospels, also tell of same time line but right now I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I think it's interesting to hear another side of the same story. (Wasn't that the gimmick behind Carol Shields' Happenstance?) On the other hand, four different versions sounds like it might be overkill.

In the meantime, Jesus as a character is quite interesting. So many are suspicious of his motives but Jesus tends to respond with questions and parables, which really doesn't help his case. Not his immediate case, anyway.

Reader's Diary #1013- Helena Bell: Robot

It eats tiny particles of your flesh.

Thanks to Loni at The Eye of Loni's Storm for pointing out Helena Bell's brilliant sci-fi story "Robot" last week. While she had me hooked on the premise alone, what she hadn't mentioned, to my pleasant surprise, is that the story is told in the 2nd person. You are the robot. You are, throughout the course of the entire story, given instructions from a woman to whom you have become a personal servant.

For all of the this, the story is not yours. It is the narrator's. It is one of the best voices in a short story I have come across in some time. There's such loneliness and bitterness in the way she gives instructions, simultaneously bossy and needy, that her story is almost told entirely through tone. Of course the details help as well, and those details tell of a woman who is clearly nearing the end of her life. Oh, and the robot eats "the diseases out of [her] flesh."

It's certainly a difficult story to walk away from. The analogy, if that is what it is, seems to just hover there waiting to be grasped. I suspect there are many ways to interpret it. Loni said it was about the "slow progression toward death." That makes sense to me. I also think it could be someone haunted by the realization that she has not become the woman she set out to become. In my interpretation, the robot could represent that idealized self, now coming back to haunt and "consume" her.

It's a compelling story in any case.