I went on the record during my CBC Radio interview about the challenge of including multiple characters in a book without creating character soup. In Elliot Jelly-Legs, I wanted to include an entire hockey team (or most of it). The solution was hockey cards inserted in the text as each character is introduced. In Those […]
Tag: 2022
Better Connected
You can tell from my past reviews (Under Pressure, Mya’s Strategy to Save the World and When the Worst Happens) that I’m a big fan of Tanya Lloyd Kyi. Now, in addition to middle grade nonfiction and fiction, she’s done something I’ve contemplated doing too–a collaborative book with her daughter (only in my case it […]
Maizy Chen’s Last Chance
I love a story within a story! At the start of Maizy Chen’s Last Chance, 11-year-old Maizy and her mom travel from their home in Los Angeles to Last Chance, Minnesota where her Oma and Opa run The Golden Palace–a restaurant that’s been in the family for generations.. Although her mom has a strained relationship […]
Eight Days
On the surface, Eight Days is a road trip from Toronto to Chicago with a diverse characters and an unfortunate set of circumstances. Underneath the surface, it’s a story about judgement, racism, addiction, forgiveness, guilt, shame and feeling “haram”–an Arabic term that means forbidden or unwanted. For Sami (the 14-year-old main character) it’s about finding […]