The Barren Grounds

Finished July 25

The Barren Grounds by David A. Robertson

This is an amazing beginning to a series of books for kids. The two main characters are indigenous, and the main theme is around the environment and respect.

As you can see from the top of the cover, the series is called The Misewa Saga, and Misewa is the name of the village that the children travel to in the book.

Morgan has been in foster care as far back as she can remember. The couple she is with now are trying hard to make her feel welcome and at home, but she has a problem trusting them due to her past experiences. Eli has only been in care more recently and he has a lot of memories of his family and ties to the indigenous community. He has arrived at the same home as Morgan more recently.

Eli likes to draw and one drawing he made intrigues both children. 

Morgan has ventured into the attic of the house they live in, an area that is unfinished, but has some construction work partially done. A small closet-like space there has the door painted over, not opened in a long time and she retreats into that space when she needs to be alone. When she and Eli attach the picture he drew to the wall there it seems to come alive and connect their world to the wintry one they can see there. And the animal they see moves toward them. 

As the children react, Morgan is fearful, but Eli is curious and wants to explore this new world. When Morgan follows him, they discover a world where an outsider has upset the balance of nature and caused immense damage to the environment and the creatures who live there. Their initial contact is the creature they saw, Ochek (Fisher). With Eli familiar with the indigenous language, and some of the behaviours and activities, Morgan finds herself connecting to her own past in an unexpected way.  As they encounter another creature Arik (Squirrel), the discover that they may be able to help this world recover what has been lost.

I found this book reminded me a bit of the world of Narnia, with a doorway into a wintry world where creatures talk and walk like humans. But it has a distinctly indigenous element, with the language and the ties to the living world. 

This promises to be a very interesting series.

Oh My Stars

Finished September 5
Oh My Stars by Sally Kilpatrick

This feel good novel is set in small town Tennessee. Ivy Long lives in Ellery with her mother and younger sister, a place she moved back to after the death of her husband from cancer a few years ago. Her mom helped get her a job at the Dollar General, and she's been mostly keeping her head down and trying not to think about the book her contract says she must submit by the end of the year, after many extensions. Her first book was very popular, but she can't seem to focus on the humour and romance that the next book in the series requires. It's an unhappy coincidence that her series was titled the Merry Widows shortly before she became a widow herself.
This year, her mom signed her up for a week posing as Mary in the drive-thru nativity scene just outside the store she works at. But then she meets the man posing as Joseph, Gabriel Ledbetter, a man who lived most of his life in the city, returned to help out his dad at the farm, and to wait out a malpractice case he is fighting. As a pediatrician, he is a bit out of his element on the farm, but finds some compensations in the people around him, and gradually getting to know his dad better, as well as his own history.
The title of the book comes from a phrase often voiced by Ivy's mom, when she is surprised, and Ivy and her sister Holly have a bet on about who can make their mom say it.
When a real live baby is laying in the manger one evening when Ivy reports for her nativity shift, Gabe is enlisted to check her health before the authorities become involved, and Ivy soon finds herself involved in a situation that takes her out of her resigned state of apathy and into a future she never dreamed of.
With characters that have interesting backstories, and a unique setting, this book brought both tears and a smile to my face as I read.

Shallow End

Finished November 8
Shallow End by Brenda Chapman

This is a mystery novel, part of a series featuring Stonechild and Rouleau, but the first I've read. Taking place in Kingston, Ontario, the book starts as a woman is getting released from prison. She's spent four years in jail after being convicted as a child predator. Jane Thompson had been a teacher, and was accused by one of her students, one that she'd been spending extra time helping. Throughout the trial, she insisted on her innocence, but more recently she made an admittance of guilt. Her husband, Adam, divorced her while she was in jail, and has been keeping their children, Ben and Olivia, away from her, despite her being approved for visits with them. She's got a small apartment and a part-time job, but seems to be living in a kind of limbo. A month after she has got out, the student who accused her, Devon Eton, is found dead on a beach. He's been murdered, and Jane immediately becomes a suspect.
Jane's ex-husband has a new woman living with him, a student teacher that he'd been having an affair with before Jane went to jail. Naomi is young, jealous of Jane, and insecure enough to snoop on Adam when he isn't with her.
We also see into the lives of the police investigating the case. Rouleau is in charge of major crimes, and still mourning the death of his wife. He assigns Kala Stonechild, a female native officer with a history of drug abuse, and Paul Gundersund, who's been separated from his wife for a while and is now considering a divorce. Kala has made a new start, although her past has meant that the niece she was caring for was taken from her and placed in foster care, something she is fighting to change. Paul's wife Fiona, is a local coroner, and is fighting to keep her marriage from ending. Other police officers include Woodhouse, an older male officer who resents Kala and who is often abusive to those he works with. Bennett is a younger officer, recently recovered from a gunshot wound, and eager to get back to work. Another character with a meaningful role here is local reporter Marci Stokes, who tried to make it in a bigger city, but is now back and working to regain her reputation for good reporting. As she tries to approach various players in this story, she also finds herself trying to do the right thing, especially for those who are vulnerable.
A great read.

The Boy on the Porch

Finished November 3
The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech

This children's novel begins with a young couple, John and Marta, living on a farm waking up to find a young boy of about six or seven sleeping in a chair on their porch. He takes a long time to wake up, and when he does, he doesn't seem either able or willing to talk. He does however produce a note from his pocket that says "Please taik kair of Jacob. He is a god good boy. Wil be bak wen we can."
They aren't sure what to do, but offer the boy food, comfort, and other things they can. John asks some questions in town, without disclosing the situation and doesn't hear about any missing children, so they continue to live quietly.
As the days go by, and they learn what interests the boy and what he has aptitude for, they try to do the right things: find him a friend his own age, provide a loving environment, clothe and feed him. But as the new school year approaches, they feel they must make more of an effort to find out who left him and why. They approach the sheriff, a man they find gruff, authoritative, and unsympathetic, and he berates them, but also lets them keep the child for the time being.
Then the unthinkable happens, and they find their lives changed forever.
An interesting premise, and the fallout from the crisis is a story of its own, that is only filled out lightly here. John and Marta seem a good-willed couple that don't have children of their own to nurture and love, and this incident brings them a way to fulfill those needs.

Untethered

Finished October 3
Untethered by Julie Lawson Timmer

This novel begins just after the death of Bradley Hawthorne, husband of Char and father of Allie. Char gave up a fulfilling career as a journalism professor in Washington, D.C. when she met Bradley, moving to small town Michigan. Allie has been living most of the year with Bradley and Char, with brief visits to her mother Lindy in California. Now Char realizes that she has no legal parental rights with Allie, despite being one of her primary parents. Char has always been careful not to tread into Lindy's role as mother, and she doesn't know what to do to keep Allie living with her.
Allie takes seriously a role she herself stepped into as a tutor to a younger, troubled girl, Morgan. She meets Morgan formally once a week for sessions, but also has taken on the role of big sister to the girl. Morgan's parents are also dealing with some health issues for their younger child, Stevie.
As Char and Allie walk carefully into their new roles with each other, they are waiting for Lindy to make a definitive move. With Morgan's problems escalating, a move by Morgan's parents creates a crisis for Allie and Char, once that will have lasting changes to their lives.
This is a story today's complex families, with step parents, foster parents, adoptive parents, and friends and other family members complicating the family dynamic. When things are going well, everyone gets along, but when things aren't going well, power and feelings take on deciding roles that may not always look out for the best interests of all family members.
This is a story of families in all their complexity, with the mixed up feelings that go along with that. We are all human and some of us become stronger with adversity. Char and Allie are ones that become stronger, but it takes them awhile to figure out their new relationship and realize all they have to lose.

Doggy Read

Finished July 12
One Good Dog By Susan Wilson, read by Fred Berman and Rick Adamson
There are two voices in this novel: Adam March, a man who was abandoned to foster care at the age of 5 and pulled himself up to the top of his profession, until he made a terrible mistake; and Chance, a dog bred to fight and now at the end of options at the animal shelter.
As the book says, both need a second chance, and in this story they offer it to each other.
Adam has been haunted by his past the deeper he tries to push it. In a single moment circumstances, emotions, and that haunting past have caused him to lose self-control and, in doing so, lose everything else he values. He loses his job, his home, his family, and serves his community service hours working in the kitchen and dining room of a homeless shelter.
Chance doesn't like his life as a fighter, and the first chance he gets, he takes off for the streets. But he finds street life hard and the authorities hard to dodge and ends up in the shelter.
When circumstances bring the two together, both think it is only temporary, but they might need each other more than they think.
A good story and the audio is well done with different readers for the dog and the man.

Foster Child Memoir

Finished March 30
Hope's Boy by Andrew Bridge
This memoir is from the former CEO/General Counsel of The Alliance for Children's Rights. Bridge was born into poverty, and lived first with his grandmother and then with his mother in extreme poverty. When his mother began to struggle with mental health issues, he was removed from her and placed first in institutional care, and then in foster care. His story as he learns to survive in all his environments shows how he clung to the love he was offered by his mother and grandmother through all the difficult years that followed. From the descriptions of how the social system failed his family, and how many of the people around them showed no concern, this memoir is open and honest. Bridge was not a perfect child, and he doesn't claim that he was, but he shows how he learned the system and did what he had to in order to get out of that system.