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Eastword, September-October 2008imPRESSed!: The newest titles by WFNS members
Bone Cage is a poetic and darkly humorous portrayal of life in rural Nova Scotia, where stripping the environment means stripping your soul. Jamie is twenty-two years old and works twelve-hour shifts operating a wood processor, clear-cutting for pulp. At the end of each shift, he walks through the destruction he has created looking for injured birds and animals and rescues those he can. Jamie's desire to escape this world is thwarted by his fear of leaving the place where he has some status. Bone Cage examines how young people in rural communities, employed in the destruction of the environment they love, treat the people they love at the end of their shift. Catherine Banks’ body of work includes seven plays. Her plays have been performed across Canada. Her play, Bitter Rose, about a 43- year-old woman who chooses creating art over bitterness, has had 4 productions and was broadcast on Bravo! Canada. Catherine lives in Sambro, near Halifax.
Part memoir, part adventure tale, part political thriller — Dust from our eyes is a compelling read that dissolves stereotypes and exposes paradoxes about Africa. Joan Baxter draws on more than two decades of living in and reporting from Africa to reveal that there is more to the continent than poverty and suffering, and far more to Western involvement than benevolent charity. Alternately funny, chilling, moving and disturbing, Dust from our eyes is a fast-paced, passionate narrative told with journalistic accuracy and anthropological acumen. Joan Baxter is a Canadian journalist, award-winning author and anthropologist. In 2002, she was one of the first journalists to gain entry to the rebel-held Côte d'Ivoire to report on the civil war. She reported for many years for the BBC World Service, The Associated Press, and has contributed various features to a variety of CBC programs.
In the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University there lay a 400-year-old document that no one had been able to decipher. The manuscript’s Vatican-appointed guard for the past twenty years, Father Ronald McCallum, is overwhelmed when an autistic child visiting the library appears to read from the manuscript’s pages. Father Benicio Valori, priest and clinical psychologist, is sent halfway around the world to verify the boy’s ability to read the manuscript, but when the manuscript is stolen, things begin to unravel. Brad Kelln is a clinical and forensic psychologist and special consultant on hostage negotiation to both the Halifax Regional Police and the RCMP. He is a fan of fast-paced, action-driven stories that include real-life mysteries and phenomena. Brad lives in Windsor.
Every Autumn strange figures start appearing around the town of Kentville, Nova Scotia, sauntering down the sidewalk, sitting in a tree, cavorting on a lawn — who are these peculiar people? Why, they're the Pumpkin People! Constructed from cornstalks, straw, and, of course, pumpkins, these folkloric figures are put together every year to celebrate the harvest in the Annapolis Valley in a most creative way. Sandra Lightburn is a children's writer who lives in the Annapolis Valley. Her first book, Driftwood Cove, won the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize for text and illustration and was shortlisted for the Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children's Literature. Ron Lightburn's career as a children's book illustrator was launched with his Governor General's Award-winning artwork for Waiting for the Whales in 1991. Since then, he has illustrated numerous other bestselling picture books and has become internationally renowned for his sensitive storytelling skills and range of illustration styles.
Just 365 days — that's how long Travis has agreed to his dad's experiment of moving to a tiny coastal community in Newfoundland. But in no time he's counting those days. Only a few kids show interest in him: Hector, a strange boy who grunts; and Prinny, a girl as scraggly as her ponytail. And then there's Hud, the school's meanest bully, who's just itching for a fight with the new "townie." But there are worse things than loneliness. When Travis discovers a colony of abandoned cats and attempts to care for them himself, it isn't long before he's in over his head. Who will help him keep the starving animals safe from the likes of Hud and his pals? And how many of his lives will Travis use up in the process? Jill MacLean is the author of a collection of poetry, The Brevity of Red, which was shortlisted for the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the Acorn-Plantos Award. She has also published a history of Prince Edward Island, Jean Pierre Roma: of the Company of the East of Isle St. Jean. Jill lives in New Bedford, Nova Scotia.
In this Early Bird series title, readers learn about the physical characteristics, habitat, and behavior of the harp seal. Lerner’s Early Bird books use vivid photographs and clear, concise sentences to describe the life cycles of animals and plants. Each title meets the life science standards for lower middle graders and develops vocabulary and language skills. Especially useful for reading hours, Chapter One programs, primary classrooms, and reluctant readers. Kathleen Martin is the author of six non-fiction books for children: Sturdy Turtles, Building Beavers, Floating Jellyfish, Gentle Manatees, Soaring Bald Eagles and Swimming Salmon (Lerner Publishing Group). She is the Nova Scotia representative for the Canadian Children's Book Centre, has edited children's fiction books for Front Street/Cricket Books in Chicago, and was an acquisitions editor for the Cricket Magazine Group.
In the mid-nineteenth century a man who became known as Jerome was alleged to have been found on the shores of Baie Sainte-Marie, Nova Scotia, mute and missing both legs. He lived for over forty years with a local family. Many attempts were made to locate his relatives, with hopefuls rumoured to have travelled from as far away as Alabama and Milan, but when he died in 1912 the mystery of his background was still unsolved. The story of Jerome, the Mystery Man of Sandy Cove, has turned up in various collections of folk history over the years. Now, best-selling novelist Ami McKay has written a play centred on Jerome’s appearances as a sideshow curiosity. Ami McKay was born and raised in Indiana. She moved to Scot’s Bay, Nova Scotia, in 2000. Her first novel, The Birth House, is a Canadian bestseller and was nominated for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She is currently at work on her second novel.
A sequel to Sylvanus Now, What They Wanted explores both new and familiar terrain: the wild shores of a Newfoundland outport and the equally wild environment of an Alberta oil rig. After Sylvanus Now suffers a heart attack, family tensions come to the fore. Daughter Sylvie must deal with her feelings of estrangement from her mother, Addie, while her brother Chris, a natural artist, frustrates his dreams by going to work on an oil rig. A novel about guilt, responsibility, tragedy, and the enduring ties of family, this is vintage Donna Morrissey. Donna Morrissey was born in The Beaches, a small village on the northwest coast of Newfoundland that had neither roads nor electricity until the 1960s. When she was sixteen, Morrissey left The Beaches and struck out across Canada, working odd jobs from bartending to cooking in oil rig camps to processing fish in fish plants. She went on to earn a degree in social work at Memorial University in St. Johns. It was not until she was in her late thirties that Morrissey began writing short stories, at the urging of a friend, a Jungian analyst, who insisted she was a writer. Her previous novels, Kit's Law, Downhill chance and Sylvanus Now won numerous awards. She lives in Halifax.
New tools and techniques have brought new life to the traditional craft of quilting, reviving interest in the many attractive designs which are part of Canada's cultural heritage. Among the distinctly Canadian quilts featured in the book are the Maple Leaf Signature, the Log Cabin, and the Mariner’s Compass quilts. Patterns include suggested colour schemes and fabrics, an introductory history about the quilt type, templates and detailed, tested directions.
Who were the first people of Nova Scotia? What massive star-shaped fortress can be found in Halifax? What type of water plant not only provides food and shelter to Canadian wildlife but also lessens coastal erosion? The answers to these questions, along with many other facts, traditions, and history can be found in B is for Bluenose: A Nova Scotia Alphabet. Born in New Jersey, Susan Tooke received her professional training from Virginia Commonwealth University and the New School in New York. She moved to Canada in 1980, and has made Halifax her home. Working predominantly as a painter, Susan illustrated her first book in 2000, and has received the Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration and the Mayor's Award for Brave Jack and the Unicorn.
It's 1970, and the optimism of Trudeaumania is giving way to fears of wage and price controls. In Varnum, Ontario, where the smell of industry is the smell of money, a lot of that money's heading south just like Bobby Orr. The Checkout Girl is the story of Kathy Rausch, who, after sneaking out on her boyfriend in Vancouver, moves back to Varnum and hides out in a room in the basement of her high school buddy, Penny Lehman. When Kathy isn't checking out groceries, she skates. And when she isn't ice-skating, she's sharing her room with a skittish boa constrictor named Freddy, warding off advances from fellow basement dweller "Little" Barry Bender, ignoring her well-meaning mother, Connie, hanging out with her best friend, champion baton twirler Darlyn Smola, and dealing a bit of marijuana for Penny's husband Pete. But when Kathy stumbles upon a brutal murder, she is finally driven to put her hockey stick where her heart is: on the ice. Susan Zettell is the author of the short story collections Night Watch and Holy Days of Obligation. Her stories have been anthologized in Quintet, Spider Women, When The Men Went To Town, a collection of stories by Cape Breton women, and The Company We Keep. Born and raised in Kitchener, Ontario, Zettell has lived in Cambridge, Vancouver, Halifax, Ottawa and Whitehorse. She now makes her home in Cape Breton. |
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Canadian Heritage Quilting: Quick Creative Designs
