Surely Great: P.S. Be Eleven Review

When I first heard there was to be a sequel to the wonderful One Crazy Summer, I squealed, just like Vonetta is wont to do. It is one of the most highly decorated middle grade titles of the last ten years and deservedly so. To see why I loved this book so much, click here.

P.S. Be Eleven begins on the plane, when Delphine, Fern and Vonetta are returning home to New York after spending ‘one crazy summer’ with their free-spirited activist mother. But one can never come home again, as Delphine discovers that things have changed in her absence over the summer. Delphine is surprised to find that her beloved father has a girlfriend and can’t make heads or tails of her uncle’s strange behaviour.

This book is as close to bottled adolescence as you can get. Delphine’s instant love for The Jackson Five and her unmitigated glee when they come on the radio is so charming and realistic I can barely stand it. I want to reach through the pages and squeeze her cheeks. Just as authentic is her distrust of Miss Marva Hendrix, her father’s love interest, and her deep love but disappointment in her loved Uncle Darnell who is back from Vietnam and not the man he was before.

The classroom scenes are my favourite. They are vividly and hilariously rendered. Group dynamics, especially among children, can be extremely hard to convey but RWC does this with ease. It helps that every single student and their teacher have such distinct personalities, even in the brief, shining glimpses we get of them.

While in no way a history lesson, Rita Williams-Garcia* is able to bring history to life through vivid, imperfect but lovable characters who readers can relate to, despite having little (or no) historical context. Fiction is a great means to learn history. Case in point, I have read exactly one work of nonfiction on WWII but have read innumerable fictional novels set in the era. Williams-Garcia touches on Vietnam, civil rights, racism, drugs, poverty and feminism without ever straying from Delphine’s hilarious and unforgettable voice.

P.S. Be Eleven can be read as a standalone, but do yourself a favour and read One Crazy Summer first. One can never have enough Delphine in her life. Fans of Susin Nielsen, Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Gordon Korman and my books (ahem) will love reading about these unforgettable sisters.

P.S. Be Eleven is available in hard cover from HarperCollins.

*Rita Williams-Garcia is all kinds of awesome. Check out this great Q&A from the Indigo Kids Blog.

The Recipe for a Perfect Summer Novel

We are now three weeks away from the launch of my new book, Summer Days, Starry Nights- an ode to summer, the 1960s, and friendship- three of my favourite things! I thought I’d answer some basic questions here to get people excited.

Q: Why the 1960s?

Carole King in 1962

A: I love the 1960s, particularly the music. For the first time, women were singing songs that other women could relate to. I read Girls Like Us, an amazing in-depth triple biography of Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon and Girl Groups, Girl Culture, a great book about popular music in the 1960s, which helped flesh out what was going on with women, music, and social change during the time period.

Music and identity play big roles in Summer Days, Starry Nights. Both Gwen, mysterious wayward ballerina, and Reenie, dependable country girl and a classic middle child, are trying to figure out who they are and what their place in the world is. Gwen introduces Reenie to girl bands like The Shirelles, The Crystals, and The Chantels. It seemed natural to set a coming of age story at a time where the whole world was coming of age.

Q: Is the resort Sandy Shores based on a real place?

A: When I was young my family spent a number of summers at a resort near Orillia, Ontario called Lake Dalrymple Resort. I have fond memories of the resort, and the layout of Sandy Shores is based on the layout of this resort, more or less. Of course I changed things to suit the plot, which is one of my favourite elements of fiction writing.

Q: What inspired the book?

A: The name Reenie Starr came to me first. I started to think about who this Reenie Starr was, how she did or did not live up to her name. I gave her two siblings, Scarlett and Bo, and then I wondered who would name their children after movie stars and lo and behold their mother- a woman who prefers to be called Mimi, not Mama- was born.

Margaret Langrick in My American Cousin

I also wanted to write a summer book and for me summer is always connected to the 1960s, probably because of movies like Dirty Dancing, My American Cousin, The Man in the Moon, and A Walk on the Moon. I remembered how much I loved the resort on Lake Dalrymple and how as a kid I thought it would be absolute heaven to live there all year. So through the magic of fiction I got to experience that by having my protagonist live on a summer resort.

Anna Paquin in A Walk on the Moon

I had a lot of fun (and spent a LOT of time) creating and seeking out inspirational playlists, like this one from songza. You can check out some of my inspirational images, girl groups, etc on the Summer Days, Starry Nights pinterest board here.

Toronto friends I hope you’ll join me at 3030 on May 28th for the launch. I will also be making appearances in Woodstock, London, Brampton, Erin Mills, Creemore and Orillia in the next two months- stay tuned for dates.  Remember you can pre-0rder on Amazon, Indigo, or at your local bookstore. 

The Passage for Kids: The Fifth Wave Review

Those of you who have heard me say ‘I don’t really read much sci-fi or fantasy’ probably have a hard time believing me given the number of speculative books I’ve reviewed recently. The truth is I LOVE a well told fantasy or sci-fi novel, I’m just EXTREMELY picky about what I read. The Fifth Wave is is one of better ones. If you’re looking for a fast-paced survival story with a touch of sci-fi, this should be your go-to summer read (in addition to Summer Days, Starry Nights of course).

Despite being a standalone book, The Fifth Wave has the scope, range of characters, and the same taught tension as Justin Cronin’s best-selling The Passage. We are introduced to Cassie, sixteen, paranoid and alone, hiding from an unknown alien foe in the woods. Cassie tells us about the previous waves of invasion and how quickly earth’s population has been decimated in a matter of months. Next we meet Ben, a schoolmate of Cassie’s who has been recruited by a covert military operation who are training children to become ultimate alien-killing machines, a la Ender’s Game.

The teens in this novel are up against some pretty serious odds. Parts of the book are vivid and brutal, including Cassie coming upon a dying soldier in an abandoned convenience store, and scenes of cruelty involving a rather sadistic commander and his child soldiers. It’s not gratuitous and helps build up the characters of Ben and Cassie, but it may be hard for some younger readers to stomach.

The strongest part of the novel is how plausible it all felt. I like my sci-fi near-fetched, as opposed to far-fetched. Rick Yancey‘s ‘waves’ of invasion feel frighteningly possible: power outage, natural disasters, viral outbreak, etc. I don’t want to give too much away because the joy of reading this novel is having it unravel as you get deeper into the story. There is a moment when Cassie, who is the character we spend the most time with and grow the closes too, mentions her few possessions, one of which is a box of tampons. YES. Even when on the run from unseen alien invaders, a girl needs tampons. I wish more survival novels acknowledged the necessities of life.

At times The Fifth Wave dips into melodrama in the form of some teen angst and relationships, but I appreciated how Yancey acknowledges that even in the middle of an apocalypse, teens are going to have feelings, much like the teen angst that rears its head in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Overall I could not get enough of this well-paced, suspenseful read. Yancey is an accomplished storyteller who reels you in from the very beginning. This book feels tailor-made for adaptation, perhaps as a miniseries. This is one of those rare books that appeals to both male and female readers, and fans of The Passage, Ender’s Game, The Hunger Games and well-told survival narratives with eat this one up.

The Fifth Wave will be available from Penguin Canada on May 7th.

Meet the FitzOsbornes, The Crawleys of YA: FitzOzbornes in Exile Review

Downton Abbey fans you need to be reading this series! The FitzOzbornes in Exile is the second in an unique YA trilogy about a group of young royals from a fictional island nation off the coast of France in the 1930s and early 1940s. Told in diary form from the perspective of sensitive and observant Princess Sophia, it has a distinctly Downtown-esque vibe and is the kind of YA adults of all ages can also (thoroughly) enjoy, which is why I included the series in my Top Ten Under-Sung Series post .I am so thankful for Shelf Elf, who loves this series and convinced me to read it.

Warning! This review contains some spoilers.

After narrowly escaping the bombing of their beloved home by Nazis, the FitzOsbornes are thrown into society life, Sophie and Veronica preparing for the first season in London. Sophie is thrilled at first, but the presence of Veronica’s would-be-assassin Rebecca, the arrival of orphaned Basque children, and trouble brewing in Europe keep her attentions divided.

Author Michelle Cooper seamlessly weaves the fabricated history of Montmaray with real historical events and people to the point where I found myself thinking wait, IS there such a place as Montmaray? Is my memory of world geography just that bad? But no, there are helpful notes in both books that clarify what is true and what is fictional. Veronica, a ferocious feminist and loyal subject and one of my favourite YA characters, is forever immersed in history and politics and I found myself enjoying her political debates with Simon Chester, illegitimate son of the King and her chief rival. I don’t normally go in for heated political debates about Spanish history and communism versus fascism  but Cooper imbues her characters with such passion and clarity of speech that one can’t help but be equally fascinated.

It is gratifying to see how Sophia matures, getting over a girlish crush on Simon and taking interest in a quiet young aspiring veterinarian, having her first piece of writing published. and coming to Veronica’s rescue in innumerable ways. Veronica is a formidable character but instead of standing in her shadow, Sophia is finally learning to stand apart while still loving and admiring her cousin. She learns a few hard lessons about love and marriage, and this book is particularly feminist in its approach to women’s issues and politics, but in a way that seems plausible. At the end of the book both Veronica and Sophie have amazing, character-defining moments that made me want to stand up and cheer. Alas I was reading in my office and despite working in publishing that sort of thing is generally frowned upon.

I am fascinated by how Sophia approaches and accepts her brother Toby’s preference for men, which feels progressive for the time and yet is a bit reserved in a way that seems natural. In fact she approached all matters of sex and relationships with this curious open-mindedness that is refreshing and distinctly contemporary.

The language is this book is period without feeling complex or too flowery and even in dire situations there is so much hope and humour in Sophia’s voice that you are laughing in life or death situations. How does the author do this? Genius, methinks. Veronica and Aunt Charlotte, who reminds me very much of the Dowager Countess, have some fantastic one-liners.

This book is heavier on the politics than the first, which makes sense as it leads into WWII, but it also features a number of assassination attempts, a few parties featuring some amazing dresses and jewels, a bit of mystery, and a cross-country train race that elevate the series even more. Fans of historical fiction,war novels, and books such as Code Name Verity, Anne of Green Gables or I Capture the Castle will eat this series up. I cannot wait to see what Cooper does in The FitzOsbornes at War. I have a feeling no matter what happens, I will be sobbing at the end.

Hey BBC, miniseries please?!

The FitzOsbornes in Exile is available now in paperback.

Hope, Grief & A Pizza Boy: The Boy on Cinnamon Street Review

Phoebe Stone is a master of contemporary voice. Despite a tragically misleading cover*, The Romeo and Juliet Code was (and remains) a favourite book of mine. She has done it again in the funny and cathartic The Boy on Cinnamon Street, the second of two MG books I’ve read recently dealing with grief.

Warning, this review contains spoilers!

Louise has quit the gymnastics team and given up her name for the more apt, outrageous Thumbelina. Unfortunately only her best friends Reni and Henderson are willing to call her by this new moniker. Her grandparents, who she lives with, are too busy calling her Louise and being in love to notice any changes. She is contemplating moving in with Reni and Henderson’s family when a pizza boy leaves a note and suddenly the whole world looks different.

I can’t say I’ve read a lot of books in which the narrator has repressed memories about a parent’s suicide. Even if I did, I doubt they would be as well-rounded, empathetic and hopeful as The Boy on Cinnamon Street. Louise (or Thumb, as Henderson calls her) is irrepressible, even in the states of denial, grief, and anger she experiences throughout the book. She is self-effacing but also totally hopeful, latching on to the idea of the pizza boy as her secret admirer so wholeheartedly that you can’ t help but cheer for her. Of course the pizza boy is not the one with a crush on her, but the reader is very aware of who Thumb’s true admirer is, and you root for him the whole time.

I admire how Phoebe Stone creates unlikable (or at the very least) unreliable parents, but not in a comedic, absurdist Roald Dahl way. These are adults who are ill-equipped to parent, and Stone explores the ramifications of this in her books.  When we do learn about Thumb’s mother and her absentee father, you feel horrified and sad, but this is mitigated because her new family, consisting of her grandparents and The Elliots, are so wonderful. Just like in The Romeo and Juliet Code, when we realize  Felicity’s parents have left her with distant family in order to pursue their careers as spies and are likely not coming back, instead of outrage and numb horror we are happy that she has found her new family.

Stone is also very good at creating a male friend/potential love interest for her heroines, Henderson in The Boy on Cinnamon Street and Derek in The Romeo and Juliet Code. Both Derek and Henderson are interesting, sensitive, and though the romance may not be fully realized in the book, the reader has the sense that it will be at some point. Which brings me to yet another thing I love about Stone’s work- the sense of that these characters will leave and breathe beyond the last page. As a reader, I love feeling like I have caught a glimpse of the characters and the author has created an open ending in which I can image all sorts of lives for them.

One of the things that separates straight-forward issue-driven fiction from just plain good fiction is a well-rounded experience. This isn’t a book solely about grief, it’s also about first crushes, friendship, family, bullying, giving up and starting over again, and body image. You may think, how on earth can all of that fit into one book, but even in a tragic or low point in life chances are there are other things going on. Life is never one plot line. Stone handles this incredibly well, probably because she is a middle-grade genius.

So many of her phrases stick with me but I especially liked how she dealt with body image and weight. Thumb meets Reni in fat camp, where Thumb is teaching gymnastics. Reni is worried about her weight and always trying to lose a few pounds, but it is clear that the Elliot family are all on the heavier side. When Reni wonders why boys love her big sister but not her, Thumb points out that perhaps it’s because “Annais acts pretty.” I loved the awareness and age-appropriateness of this line.

If the premise of this book doesn’ t make you weepy, than the author’s note definitely will. Like Louise, author Phoebe Stone lost a parent to suicide at a young age. She is careful to point out the differences in her experience and Louise’s story, but it is clear the story is personal.

The Boy on Cinnamon Street is available now in hardcover from Scholastic. I picked mine up at the charming and wonderful Curiosity House in Creemore, ON. If you can, make sure you drop in and ask for Jenn- one of the most passionate, charming, and generous booksellers I know! I mean how many bookstores offer free wishes? (see below)

*Upon further reflection, it appears Arthur Levine may be branding Stone’s books by using shoes on her covers. I’m not opposed to shoes on covers, in fact I rather like it. This cover is very effective. But when the shoes in question are coloured high-top Keds that are supposed to evoke WWII, I have some issues.

I Wanna Be a Bank St. Irregular: Kiki Strike & The Darkness Dwellers Review

I adore the Kiki Strike series. I still can’t believe it’s not bigger than it is. It is one of my missions in life to make The Irregulars a household name.One can only hope with all the spy and international intrigue “Bourne books” on the rise that people will get another chance to discover The Irregulars.

A good part of the book takes place in Paris, but author Kristen Miller does not abandon her beloved New York completely. NYC is just as much a character in the series as any of the girls, and I’m glad she found a way to include it yet again. The Darkness Dwellers refers to a secret society living in the catacombs of Paris. Throw in an upscale girl’s finishing school, some WWII intrigue, and two cases of mistaken identity and you have the recipe for a killer adventure.

For some reason I never think to categorize these books as fantasy, despite obvious made-up elements (a fake European kingdom complete with it’s own history & traditions or massive man-eating rats that live in a made-up city underneath NYC). Instead, I consider it a kick-ass mystery series featuring a troupe of almost super-hero like teenagers.

Picking a favourite Irregular is like picking  a favourite Spice Girl: impossible, and I resent being asked to choose. Why can’t I like ALL of them equally? I love how vindictive but surprisingly sensitive Oona is, I love Ananka’s deadpan narration, and I love Iris the 12 year old side-kick who kidnaps delivery boys when she has crushes on them. But this book was an ode to Betty Bent, the kind-hearted master of disguise who until now, is often underestimated by the rest of the team. Betty could come across as sickeningly sweet, but Miller avoids this and instead she projects quiet confidence. I loved the image of her in a super-hero esque catsuit with killer boots when she descends into the catacombs of Paris. There were so many get up and cheer moments for Betty that I lost count and just continued to grin through the whole book.

Miller does a great job juggling not only a number of plot lines, but a large cast of characters. The Irregulars never feel interchangeable and even the supporting cast members feel distinct. I loved the addition of a love interest for Kiki (who would have thought!)

My only question is WHY hasn’t this series been made into a movie yet? The books are fabulous on their own, but they would make one fist-pumpingly good movie. Seriously with all the superhero flicks out there what’s stopping producers? It would be like Kick-Ass meets The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants only set in NEW YORK!

I think everyone should read this series, but fans of The Red Blazer Girls, Nancy Drew, Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls books, Maureen Johnson fans will especially love it.

Kiki Strike and the Darkness Dwellers is available now from Penguin Canada.

I laughed, I cried, I read: My Favourite 2012 Reads

Like Audrey, I also like to read next to a stack of ball gowns.

Looking back at my year in reading is always a fun and enlightening trip down memory lane. I review less than half of what I actually read, due to pesky time-consuming things like work and my own writing. I try to give space to new authors, trends, interesting work, and my personal favourites. In retrospect, 2012 was a year of great YA but not enough middle grade.  Let 2013 be a year of great middle grade! I also seem to be developing a taste for steampunk…

MIDDLE GRADE

Susin Nielsen finally gets the literary cred she deserves with her Governor-General award for the wonderful The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen. The topic of bullying is approaching saturation point in children’s books (it’s so widespread it has become it’s own sub-genre, one that I have written in myself) but Nielsen balances the bullying with friendship, awkward almost-romance, and humour.

The Peculiar was a beautifully told, harrowing tale of changeling children being hunted in a re-imagined Victorian Bath. With political undertones and visceral prose, it also marked the arrival of a hot young talent in Stefan Bachmann.

Middle grade graphic novel Drama deepened my love for author/illustrator Raina Telgemeier. Her work is always frank, funny, and positive without feeling cheesy or too after-school-special-y. I wish someone would give her animated TV series already.

Splendors & Glooms defies categorization. I’d love for people to read it and tell me what THEY thought. Middle grade? YA? Gothic horror? Fairytale? It is masterful, haunting, and yet another feather in Laura Amy Schlitz’s impressive literary cap.

YA

Code Name Verity knocked my socks off and took me back to my youth when I couldn’t get enough novels set in WWII.  An excellent, page-turning mystery that is also a beautiful novel about female friendships.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post was so flawless I couldn’t believe it was a debut novel. It is probably the novel I have recommended the most to a vast range of people this year. I meant it when I said it was a new classic, right up there with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn . I cannot wait to see what author emily m. danforth does next.

Masque of the Red Death was an unexpected gem. I don’t go in for love triangles, but this one was hard to resist. I loved the decrepit Paris meets New Orleans setting, and the vaguely steampunk-ish elements were well developed and made for some excellent escapist reading.

Mister Death’s Blue-Eyed Girls by middle grade horror author Mary Downing Hahn is the kind of book that leaves you unsettled after reading it. Based on a true incident in the author’s past, it examines the after-effects of a shocking murder on a group of teens in the 1950s. Part true-crime, part coming-of-age, part-period piece, this novel stuck with me for a long time.

And of course Sorta Like a Rock Star, which was not a 2012 release but I read it this year and loved it so much I could not exclude it from the list. I have since forced this miracle of a book on many friends and coworkers and all of them felt just as strongly as I did. Read it! You won’t regret it.

I also read quite a few adult books. You can check out some of my favourites on Goodreads:

The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones

The Emperor of Paris by C.S. Richardson

How To Be a Woman by Caitlan Moran

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carla Rifka Brunt

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Stray Love by Kyo Maclear

Above All Things by Tanis Rideout

Magnified World by Grace O’Connell

The Power of Why by Amanda Lang

The West End Front by Matthew Quick

A Gothic Masterpiece: Splendors & Glooms review

Be prepared- this review contains spoilers and incessant gushing.

A Drowned Maiden’s Hair remains one of my favourite contemporary middle grade books and I could not wait to read Schlitz’s next book Splendors and Glooms, which seemed perfectly Victorian and gothic and creepy. The wait was worthwhile, and this book has vaulted into my best books read in 2012 list (post coming soon!)

Clara Wintermute is lonely. After a cholera outbreak takes the lives of her four brothers and sisters, she is the sole child left in a sad, mourning household. But Clara is determined to have a good birthday, and so she begs her father to allow Gaspare Grisini to put on a puppet show for her guests. Clara is enchanted by the puppets, but also by the two children who work with the puppeteer, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall. She hopes to befriend them. Little do the three children know that Grisini has a dark past steeped in magic and horrors involving a curse and a series of kidnappings.

Set in London and Northern England in the 1860s, this is a masterful gothic fairytale from one of my favourite contemporary writers. Something about the tone and structure of this novel reminded me of  old-school fairytales, particularly The Snow Queen. It is dark in the same way fairytales are dark, which is to say there is an element of fantasy or disbelief employed that keeps the reader from crying throughout the whole book. We believe we are reading a fable and therefore we are affected but not traumatized by the story. There are many people who disagree with me, especially on Goodreads, where I made the mistake of browsing some of the reviews and came across a number of angry adult readers who found the book too disturbing for children.

Schlitz and I share a love of prickly protagonists. Maude (from A Drowned Maiden’s Hair) and Flory (from The Night Fairy) have a lot in common with Parsefall the pickpocket-turned-puppeteer. Orphans and fairies tend to be sympathetic, hard-done by, sweet characters, but not so in Schlitz’s work. All three of these characters are independent, selfish, conflicted, and damaged, but not so far-gone that they can’t experience transformation.I have a friend in social work who finds a lot of children’s literature frustrating because the protagonists seem untouched by the horrible and often traumatic situations they have to deal with (Harry Potter comes to mind. There is a kid who in the real world would need some serious therapy). I think she would appreciate Schlitz’ s work, which is more realistic in terms of the psychology of her troubled characters.

Parsefall, for example, is impulsive, selfish, and slow to trust others,  but his loyalty to Lizzie Rose and especially to Clara, when she is turned into a puppet, is touching. Lizzie Rose’s desire to be good no matter what is heartbreaking and inspiring.  The combination of complicated characters and truly striking prose is what makes Schlitz stand apart from the crowd.

This book has an interesting denouement, which is bit longer than most middle grade or even YA novels. It’s very spiritual and cleansing in a way, and Schlitz takes great pains to explain the actions of her villains, if not exonerate their guilt completely. The children’s goodness and forgiveness lightens the heavier aspects of the book and I finished the book with a sense of catharsis that happens to rare these days. A true masterpiece.

Splendors and Glooms is available now in hardcover from Candlewick Press, distributed by RandomHouse in Canada.

BSC Forever: Reflections and a Round-up

After the announcement that Ann M. Martin’s beloved The Babysitter’s Club series would be available in e-book format, the interweb has been buzzing about the BSC, which has made it a good week on The Twitter for me. The BSC remains one of my all-time favourite middle grade series. As a kid, I devoured these books and even read The Babysitter’s Little Sister series about Karen, even though I was really too advanced to be reading that series at that point. I just wanted more of that cozy, relatable, addictive world. I strive to capture even a little of Martin’s magic in my own books. Along with Judy Blume, she is a major writerly inspiration.

What’s not to like? Girls being independent! Girls helping each other out! Girls expressing their individuality! Girls being entrepreneurs! In this rather bleak and unfriendly girl-hating climate that leads to tragedies like Amanda Todd’s death and the proliferation of Todd Akin’s ignorant theories, we could all use a little more BSC in our lives.

As a certified fan, I own the movie (a faithful adaptation in my humble opinion), the board game (well, one of a few boardgames) and just about died with happiness when Raina Telgemeier was hired to adapt the series into graphic novel form.

In celebration, here are some of my favourite BSC links, guaranteed to make you laugh and distract you from whatever it is you SHOULD be doing right now:

Texts from The Babysitter’s Club

Ann M. Martin Picks her Top Ten Babysitter’s Books

12 Facts About the Babysitter’s Club That Will Blow Your Mind

The Babysitter’s Club: Where Are They Now?

The Babysitter’s Club: Which Babysitter Are You?

BSC forever!

Lois Lowry Keeps On Giving: Son Review

Warning- this review contains spoilers, not just for Son, but also for The Giver. If you have not read The Giver, get thee to a bookstore or library NOW!

The Giver lives in my permanent top ten. It is a little slice of literary perfection. The ending, which may be too ambigious or open-ended for some, is an excellent example of how the end of a book should blow the world open for the characters, not tie everything together neatly. So I wasn’t craving a sequel (or ‘conclusion’ according to the book copy*). That being said, I think Lois Lowry is a master at her craft and will read anything she writes.

Son opens with a captivating scene of a girl, referred to by her watchers as a Vessel, being blindfolded before ‘the process’ begins. The process is birth and the girl is Claire, a first-time Birthmother. She has been told little about ‘the process,’ but becomes even more confused as things get complicated and ‘the product’ (the baby) has to be surgically removed. After the process Claire is reassigned, but she can’t stop thinking about her baby. She finds a way into the Nurturing Centre, where all the babies are kept until ready to be assigned to family units. Claire finds her child and from that moment forward her live changes.

Her child, of course, is Gabe, the baby who comes to live with Jonas’ family in The Giver.

The book is divided into three distinct parts. Part one happens simultaneously as The Giver, only we are experiencing the story through the very limited and unaware perspective of Gabe’s mother, Claire. Part two takes place in another community, where Claire struggles to regain both memory and strength before she is able to continue to search for her son. Part three takes place some years later in a third community that has achieved relative peace, with the exception of a dark force known as The Tradesman who stands between Claire and her son.

Each section felt like a complete novella. The middle section reminded me of classic historical fiction that takes place in fishing villages or small hunter-gather communities. It is here we meet my favourite character, Einar. He is the strong, silent type, crippled from a meeting with The Tradesman (a truly horrific and frightening creature). Einar is a gentle soul who trains Claire for her dangerous climb out of the village. Their love story is unusual and unrequited and beautifully rendered.

Like many other final books in series, Son dips into philosophical waters and Lowry makes eloquent statements about desire versus love, service versus sacrifice, and destiny. This often divides readers. Some people get caught up in the concept, story, and world-building of the first book in a series and are unsettled when the final book rocks the boat in terms of spirituality or social commentary. (Think of The Amber Spyglass, Mockingjay, and to some extent, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows). Fortunately, Lowry’s great strength is her subtlety. The book is simultaneously sophisticated and accessible. Like a well-written fable, it appeals to all readers, regardless of age, though I do think some of the themes will resonate more deeply with readers who have read the previous books in the series and are in that 11+ range. The whole book is a great display of craftsmanship, but some paragraphs (the final one in particular) moved me to tears. Her language is full-bodied: rounded, sharp, salty. I would love to have this book read aloud to me.

Son will be available in hard cover from Thomas Allen publishers in Canada on October 2nd 2012.

*Though it is not necessary to read these books in order (The Giver, Gathering Blue, The Messenger, Son), I do strongly recommend it. When characters like Kira and Matty pop up, knowing their histories add so much more depth to the novel. Those moments are little gifts to the reader, something you don’t want to miss out on.