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 […]
News & Views
Happy Book Birthday, Elliot Jelly-Legs!
And Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone! I’m certainly feeling all the feels as Elliot Jelly-Legs and the Bobblehead Miracle officially hits the shelves today. A good friend reminded me that the seeds of Elliot’s story were sprouting on walks we took over five years ago with my beloved dog, Rover, who’s no longer with us. […]
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 […]
The Words in my Hands
This is my first book review (well, actually it’s more of a recommendation) in over a year! And it comes with a bit of a warning: The Words in my Hands is Young Adult (recommended for 13 to 16-year-olds) and not Middle Grade, like most of the books on my website. It’s also dystopian and […]
One Year Later
I can’t believe it’s been a full year since I last posted an update. Here’s a pretty good summary of what the year’s been like: I’m grateful for the opportunity I had to work at Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre as a Knowledge Translation Coordinator. I learned tons and really enjoyed the people I […]