Aislinn has lived by Grams’ rules since she was very small; don’t react to faeries, don’t do anything to bring yourself to their attention, and never, ever, underestimate their power. As long as her rules are followed, Grams will let Aislinn attend high school and continue her growing friendship with Seth, the gentle free-spirited young [...]
Ms. Vallis’ Grade 8 students are in for a special treat. It just so happens that her cousin is married to Nick Thompson, rock music icon, and that Nick Thompson is going to visit the class, share with them everything that 30 years in the music business has taught him about writing, and then [...]
By day eleven year-old Edgar labours in the fig groves tending the saplings, picking the highly prized ripe figs, and culling the oldest trees before they can become toxic, poisoning the groves where they stand and those who must touch them. By night, he rambles the hidden pathways among the fig trees and explores the [...]
At the start of a new school year, Ms. Wurtz hides an empty notebook in the class’ writing centre. On the first page of that notebook, she writes an invitation to her students to write and draw whatever they like, and adds that she will read their work at the end of every month. She [...]
When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert request an orphan boy to help around the farm, they are sent, instead, a little girl named Anne Shirley. The child has red hair and freckles and big green eyes, and possesses plenty of spirit and imagination. Shy, gentle Matthew Cuthbert, who is sent to fetch the orphan [...]
I recently re-read Endymion Spring, and found myself taking copious notes about references to books and libraries. Since I share Matthew Skelton’s evident love of print and books and library collections, I am sharing some of my reflections here.
Endymion Spring is an adventure about two boys who overcome their fears of inadequacy to safeguard knowledge [...]
Constantly picked on, called names and beaten up by Dec Bowker and his gang, fifteen year-old Moo Nelson has retreated into a solitude that is punctuated only by music, food, and his nightly visits to a footbridge over the nearby A12 motorway. From that bridge, Moo watches the vehicles, observes the ebb and flow [...]
At eight years old, after she stood on a kitchen chair to read the names of paint colours off a chart posted on the wall, Saffron Casson discovered that she was adopted. She learned that her sisters, Caddy and Rose, and her brother, Indigo, were, in fact, her cousins, and that, following her mother’s [...]
Struggling to care for his severely depressed mother, whose illness has meant their downward slide into extreme poverty, Owen must also cope with the whispers and knowing looks of people in the village. “Like father like son. He’ll go the same way,” the neighbours say, not very comforting or supportive when those same neighbours state [...]
Thirteen year-old Samantha Gwynn has a secret that she needs to share, and no one whom she can share it with. Sure, she has some good friends, Angie, Tracey and Vanessa, the type that you can hang around with at school and spend every single Saturday night with having sleep overs, but she can’t [...]
