FernFolio » death

Ingo by Helen Dunmore

fernfolio — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:57:19 +0000

Sapphire and her older brother, Conor, live with their parents in a small cottage at the edge of the sea. Together, Sapph and Conor spend their summers climbing down the cliffs to the small sandy cove near their home, where they explore the narrow caves, study the tidal pools, swim in the ocean, and eat picnics on the beach. Though they must watch for the changing tide, so they won’t be caught by the its rip and swept out to sea, the two stick close together, looking out for each other, as they have promised their parents.
Their father, Mathew Trewhella, a fisherman and photographer, shares their love of the sea, but cautions them to respect it; their mother, Jennie, is terrified of it, having been told long ago by a fortune-teller that she would die by drowning. Though her parents occasionally fight about Mathew’s fascination with the sea, and her mother’s fears, the family seems happy enough until one summer, when Sapphire is ten, Mathew go out in his boat, the Peggy Gordon, and never returns. After the Coast Guard’s search ends, and the Peggy Gordon is found wrecked upon the rocks, the family is forced to accept that Mathew Trewhella is dead.
Their father has been gone just over a year, and Sapph is still struggling to adjust to the changes his absence have brought to the family. Her mother, who used to be at home full time, is struggling to pay the bills by working long hours as a waitress. Her mother’s growing friendship with Roger, a diver, has Sapph feeling resentful and uncertain. When Conor starts avoiding her to spend long hours on his own down in the cove, Sapph follows him and discovers that him talking with a dark-haired girl out on the rocks. Confronted by his sister’s assertion that he’s been gone for hours, Conor seems bewildered.
When her brother takes off on his own again, Sapph returns to the cove and find a boy Conor’s age sitting on the rocks. The boy beckons and she joins him, only to discover that he isn’t a boy at all, but one of the Mer folk, half boy and half seal. Faro tells Sapph that Conor is away in Ingo with his sister, Elvira, and invites her to go there with him. With her hand on his wrist, the two dive into the sea and swim into an alien world of breathtaking beauty that enchants Sapph. With Faro’s careful coaching, she discovers that she can survive in Ingo without air, and that she seems to understand what the Mer folk are saying. Indeed, at times she feels that she can even comprehend the fish and the dolphins.
But the more time she spends in Ingo, the more Sapph struggles to remember her life up in Air, her mother, her brother, Conor, and the cottage. When she returns home, the hours and days seem out of balance; at times, long hours passed in Ingo are minutes on land, at others, short visits with Faro have her brother frantic with worry, trying to explain away her absence of more than twenty-four hours to their mother. Though Conor has enjoyed his visits away in Ingo, the underwater world exercises a pull on Sapph that she finds increasingly hard to resist. When he brother insists that she stop her visits to Ingo, Sapph is torn between her love for Conor, and her need to escape the sadness and confusion of her father’s disappearance in the oblivion of the sea. Then danger threatens the family’s fragile stability, and Sapph must make a final, desperate journey away to Ingo.
Written by Helen Dunsmore, Ingo is a beautiful and moody story about grief and loss, and a girl’s journey in search of understanding and acceptance. Sapphire, her brother, Conor, and their Mer friends, Faro and Elvira, are nuanced characters whose strengths and weaknesses are entirely credible and compelling. Ingo is magic!
FernFolio Editor

Payback by James Heneghan

fernfolio — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:02:11 +0000

For thirteen-year old Charley Callaghan, the new school year is proving tough. A recent immigrant from Dublin, he has made one good friend only to see him depart Vancouver for Ontario. Though his father has found employment, he isn’t making much money and has to be away from home several nights a week. And, worst of all, by far, shortly after her arrival in Vancouver, Charley’s mother suddenly died of cancer. Somehow, he can’t get interested in school or in the assignments, which are piling up, and has fallen into the habit of skipping school altogether when his father is away and his little sister, Annie, has been delivered safely to her junior elementary school for the day. Home alone, he takes naps in his mother’s closet, surrounded by her clothes and the smell of her that still lingers on them.
The school bullies, Sid Quinlan, and his nasty sidekick, Rebar, lean on Charley pretty hard in the first weeks of the new year, mocking his Irish accent and making fun of his bright red hair, but Charley knows a little bit about bullies, and stands up to them just enough that they go in search of a new victim.
They find that victim in Benny Mason, whose gentle manner, soft, sweet face and long hair make him an instant target. Before long, Sid and Rebar label Benny a ‘faggot’ and set out to make his life a constant misery. From his observation point as a classmate of the three boys, Charley watches as Benny buckles under the weight of the bullies’ abuse, silently willing the boy to fight back and then mentally shaking his head in disgust when Benny does nothing to stop it. On one or two occasions, Charley thinks about stepping in to take on Sid and Rebar for Benny, then reminds himself that he’s got his own problems.
Then tragedy strikes, and Charley knows that he bears responsibility for doing nothing to help Benny. He sets out to try to balance the scales, and ends up learning a little about himself as well as coming to terms with both his mother’s death and what happened to Benny.
Told in the first person by Charley, Payback is terrific book about bullying and the consequences of doing nothing. As Charley reads in his history text, “In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.” Martin Niemoeller
FernFolio Editor

Chicken Boy by Frances O’Roark Dowell

fernfolio — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 23:25:44 +0000

For twelve year-old Tobin McCaully, seventh grade begins pretty much as every other grade, even though he’s now attending a middle school. He’s still saddled with the reputations of his hell-raising older brothers and sister, he’s still the butt of Cody Peters’ jokes, and he’s still trying to lay low enough to fly under the radar of his teachers, his school mates, and his family.
Since his mother’s death from cancer, Tobin’s family has lost its centre; his older brothers and sister are rarely home, stopping in only long enough to catch a quick night’s sleep or change their clothes, and his father, a construction worker, puts in long hours on the job, followed by longer hours in the local bar. Dishes don’t get done, laundry isn’t washed, the trash piles up for weeks on end and, for a young boy the worst thing of all, the house is frequently devoid of anything edible. Every chance he gets, Tobin heads to his grandmother’s house. His granny loves her truck, though it’s debatable whether she ought to be allowed to drive it, her endless string of “boyfriends”, fishing and Tobin.
When Tobin tackles Cody Peters after he makes lewd remarks about their English teacher, another boy, Henry Otis, jumps into the fight to help, and Tobin reluctantly discovers that he has landed himself a friend, one who ignores rebuffs and eagerly shares his passion for chickens. Tobin finds himself drawn into Henry’s extra-credit science project on chickens, listening with growing interest to his new friend’s daily lectures on the art of raising chickens, and his musings about the chicken soul. He meets Harrison, Henry’s younger brother, and a tycoon in the making, who is determined to make the boys’ fortune selling the eggs produced by their flock of five, and then ten, birds.
With Henry as his friend, it isn’t so easy, anymore, to ignore homework assignments and daydream in class. Tobin finds himself taking an interest in school, and making friends among his classmates for the first time in his school career. He approaches his grandmother about coming to live with her, but she tells him she’s too old to look after a young boy.
But, when his grandmother reports his father to children’s aid and social workers arrive to inspect the state of the house and interview Tobin, the tension between her and his father explodes into anger, and Tobin finds himself torn between his unconventional grandmother and his negligent father. In the end, it’s Henry and the chickens who offer Tobin solace and hope.
Chicken Boy is a wonderful tale about a family who loses its way following the death of a loved one, and about a boy who simply needs the love and companionship of a friend and five chickens to turn himself, and his family, around. A moving story, beautifully told by Frances O’Roark Dowell. Not to be missed.
FernFolio Editor

The Royal Woods by Matt Duggan

fernfolio — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:49:47 +0000

When their mother dies and their father sinks into a depression and stops noticing them, twelve year-old Sydney and her eight year-old brother, Turk, decide to run away and return to the farm where they spent the happiest summer of their lives.
The two children sneak onto a train going west and ride the rails from Toronto to Manitoba. As their long journey reaches its end, Sydney and Turk are filled with excitement at the thought of seeing Uncle Frank and Aunt Lily, and of spending another summer roaming the wide fields and playing along the banks of the Rat River, which runs through their farm. However anticipation turns to disappointment when they arrive at the farm and find it gone. In its place stands a new housing development, The Royal Woods, and a shopping mall.
With the farm gone and Uncle Frank and Aunt Lily moved away, Sydney and Turk must find somewhere to live and somehow to make enough money to eat. With the help of a Shep, a homeless man who lives in a shack along the Rat River, the children manage to unlock the door to one of the houses sitting empty and ready for sale in The Royal Woods.
After a rather comical run through a car wash, without a car, Sydney and Turk come to the attention of Kumar, the gas bar attendant. Kumar, an illegal immigrant from India, rapidly realizes that Sydney and her brother are runaways. He makes sure they eat properly and worries about whether they have a safe place to sleep. Kumar urges them to contact their father, but doesn’t insist when Sydney refuses to do so because he does not want to come to the attention of the police.
Sydney and Turk also make the acquaintance of three boys, Morton, Chad and Brad, who live in The Royal Woods, and who delight in looking for trouble. When this gang decides to have some ‘fun’ with Shep, Sydney and her brother come to the homeless man’s defence and start an escalating series of skirmishes that nearly ends in disaster.
The Royal Woods is an engaging story about two very likeable kids who set off to reclaim the past and find themselves, instead, in the midst of a suburban comic nightmare. They meet some very memorable characters, Shep, Kumar, Chip and Rene, and learn a thing or two about human nature and about themselves, too.
This is a lovely book, worth a read by children from Grade 4.
FernFolio Editor