Canadian Fiction

Finished March 3
Wind Tails by Anne DeGrace
This is one of the ten finalists for the Evergreen award this year, and a great read.
The story is set at a cafe on a mountain pass highway in B.C. As the various characters pass through the cafe, we learn their back stories and how they came to be where they are. As you can guess from the title, the book is inspired by the wind and each chapter has a wind theme to it, from Tailwind to Wayward Wind to Wind Shift the action in the chapter matches the heading. All of the story takes place in the late '70s. Local characters range from the owner of the cafe herself, Cass, to the truck driver Archie who drops the occasional waif on her doorstep, to the local police officer, Bob. Passing through are Jo, a young teen out of Calgary; Pink, a young man from the U.S. travelling with the wind; and many others with shorter appearances on the road for their own reasons. I loved the characters and how their stories led into each others' experiences, as well as the location, where the author allows you to picture the scene in your mind. I found it very engaging and thought-provoking. While the time setting may be different, it speaks to the world today as well.

Children's Fiction

Finished January 3
Schooled by Gordon Korman
This novel has an interesting plot. Capricorn Anderson has been raised by his grandmother, Rain, on an organic farm. She has home-schooled him and he has had no real contact with the outside world. She has, however, taught him how to drive and when she gets hurt falling from a plum tree on their farm he drives her to the hospital. She has to go into the hospital for a while and he ends up staying at the home of a social worker and going to middle school from there. He is out of his element regarding a lot of the world he now lives in, but how he adjust to it with a good attitude is what this book is about.
A good character and the plot opens lots of possibilities.

Fascinating book about growing up

Finished October 12
Flower Children by Maxine Swann
This novel follows the maturing of four children growing up in rural Pennsylvania with parents that can best be defined as hippies. The parents divorce when the children are quite young and the story moves back and forth between living with the mother, and her various boyfriends, in the countryside, and visiting the father, and his various girlfriends elsewhere. It takes into account the grandparents on the father's side, also somewhat of a hippie nature, with many people coming and going, no focus on financial security and lots of free thinking. The one visit to these grandparents that is described is enchanting and sad at the same time. The visits to their maternal grandmother are quite different. They are on their best behaviour, dressed tidily and behaving politely.
The children are mostly free to spend time on what interests them, and yet are aware of the differences between their home life and that of most of their friends at school. The father in particular treats the children as small adults and talks to them of things like his sex life and other adult subjects.
The last chapter is one of reminisence, as the children visit their childhood home as adults and see it all with adult eyes.
The characters come alive and, with much of the book told from a child's perspective, the observations seem very honest and factual, without the overtones of approval or disapproval.
I really enjoyed this novel.