Picture Book: Leon the Chameleon

"Leon the chameleon was different from all the other chameleons.
When the others sat on a green leaf, they turned green.
When they stood on yellow sand, they turned yellow.
And when they swam in the blue pond, they turned blue.

But not Leon. When Leon sat on a green leaf, he turned red."

Leon the chameleon is an adorable story that parents and children will both enjoy. Children will love the vivid colours of the illustrations and will be intrigued to discover the world of the chameleons, while parents will appreciate the story's moral. Leon is different. He stands out in a crowd and sometimes not being the same as his peers makes him feel frightened, embarrassed or lonely. However, by the end of the book, he comes to realize that the others also feel scared at times and they really aren't so different after all. Leon finds he can help contribute to the greater good while maintaining his individuality. This is a story for everyone whose son or daughter marches to the beat of their own drummer or for those who feel shy in social situations.

Rating: 5 stars/5 stars

Recommended for ages 4 and up.

The details:
Watt, M. (2001). Leon the chameleon. Toronto: Kids Can Press.

Graphic Novel 3

Mariko Tamaki's Skim, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki, tells the story of Kimberly Keiko Cameron who is nicknamed Skim by her classmates because she isn't slim. Skim wants to be a Wiccan and dresses like a Goth, so when a suicide awareness group forms at her high school they assume she must be depressed and in need of an intervention. Nothing could be further from the truth. Skim is confused and questioning but she is resilient and high spirited.

Skim finds she is growing further and further apart from her best friend, Lisa Soor, and feels like there are few people in her world who comprehend her point of view. Free spriited Ms. Archer, who teaches English and Drama, really connects with Skim on a deeper level, which causes Skim to think about her sexuality.

The book deals with first loves and heartaches (gay and straight) as well as suicide, popularity and cliques while remaining hopeful about the power of human connection to help us through it all. Highly recommended for ages 14-18.

The details: Tamaki, Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. Skim. Toronto: Groundwood, 2008.

Historical Fiction

I'd like to tell them that my father's name was Shipu, that he was a great moose hunter and great fisherman, a friend to the animals, the wind, the sun, the trees and the water. I want to tell them that my name is Nipishish, and that I'm his son. That I decided to come here to become educated, to be free, and that I'm ready to do whatever it takes to rebuild my life, leave the miserable reserve, forget the damned residential school.

There are so many things I'd like to tell them, but the words won't come out. I don't know who I am anymore. Larivière? Nipishish? Métis?

Michel Noël's Good for Nothing tells the story of how 15-year-old Nipishish grows to become a man in northern Québec in the 1960s. Nipishish has managed to escape the abusive residential school system and returned to his ancestral home, only to discover the Canadian government has decided to build white people's homes on the land. Watching the poorly thought out reserve decimate the spirits of his community, he decides he must escape to the city.

The Government decrees Nipishish attend school in Mont-Laurier, an all-white town, and live with foster parents there. Deciding this wll be his chance at freedom, Nipishish agrees and begins school in the community. However, there is no place where he really fits in and after much pain and anguish Nipishish discovers he must return to his roots and uncover the mystery surrounding his father's death.

Good for Nothing tells the story of a neglected period in our history from the point of view of people who seldom get to talk about their experience of it. The book has something for everyone: politics, romance, mystery and should make people reconsider what they think about Canada's residential system and the reality of racism in this country. Recommended reading for men and women ages 15 and up.

The details: Noël, Michel. Good for Nothing. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2004.

Realistic Fiction

Clearly, these Blondes, my Blondes, were a whole lot more complicated then they looked.

When I began reading Teresa Toten's Me:) and the Blondes I thought I knew exactly what I was getting into but, it proved me wrong. Funny enough, that's exactly the point of the book.

Pink cover. Smiley face. One lunch bag representing what it means to be different in a school full of bland boring similarities. I thought this would be your stereotypical, run-of-the-mill, Mean Girls-esque tale about a young woman who's gone to a million different schools and figures out the "rules" of becoming popular (i.e. attach yourself to the blondes). At first Sophie Kandinsky feels this way but as she gets to know the blondes she discovers they are not, in fact, interchangeable pod people. They all have dramas equal to her own, including bulimia and a secret family history. Sophie comes to understand how everyone struggles just as hard to get by.

Sophie has not had an easy go of it. It’s the 1970s, she is Bulgarian-Canadian and her father has been wrongly imprisoned. Her mother, an obvious immigrant (her accent is rendered phonetically by Sophie in the book) , attempts to live her life as a single parent and wife of a convicted felon. Sophia watches her mother fall to pieces after each weekly call from her father and somehow has to make a go of it at school while holding everything together at home, working a part-time job at Mike's soda fountain, playing varsity basketball and trying to avoid letting the truth about her life seep into the high school rumour mill.

The book examines the ways we hide behind secrets but also how we can overcome these barrier by forming open and trusting bonds with others. Me:) and the Blondes is a coming of age story replete with all the awkward girl moments: first make out, first tampon, embarassing parents, the rules of slow dancing. Toten's book is recommended for 12-16 year old girls encountering the same sorts of firsts. It will make you laugh but it will also make you think and that's always a good combination (for dating or reading).

The details: Toten, Teresa. Me and the Blondes. Toronto: Puffin Canada, 2006.

Hi/Lo Book

I was relieved we were okay. Still, something in me kept saying, He took off and left me alone out there. Why didn't he say he was sorry?

Beth Goobie's Kicked Out tells the story of 15-year-old Dime, a Winnipeg girl who often feels she's worth about as much as her nickname dictates. Dime worries that her family cannot be normal, and fears that as much as she would love to get along with her parents, they may be doomed to yell and scream forever. She also fears that her boyfriend, Gabe, will return to his ex-girlfriend and that the ex is going to pound her face in outside of school. Things come to a head when she comes in three hours past her curfew one Friday, only to find her college-aged brother Darren waiting there the next morning, ready to help her move into his apartment.

Darren and Dime's relationship is different from the one she has with her parents. Although he can be authoritative, he never puts her down or makes her feel stupid. Sometimes it feels as if he is the only person in Dime's world who doesn't feel she's a freak or an alien. Darren is also a quadriplegic, paralyzed when he hit a moose while driving with a young Dime in the back seat. Dime sometimes wishes that she had been the one to lose her limbs since she thinks everyone believes she is a waste of space anyways. Can Darren help her to see her true value? Is it possible she can turn this whole mess around and escape grade ten?

Kicked Out is part of the Orca Soundings series of Hi/Lo books for readers looking for shorter, plot-driven, exciting reads. This book will resonate with 13-16 year old young adults who find themselves at odds with the world because they dress "differently" from the mainstream crowd (skulls, nose piercings, metal t-shirts) or girls who find themselves dealing with a boyfriend who is sometimes great and sometimes frustrating or just plain wrong for them.

The details: Goobie, Beth. Kicked Out. Victoria: Orca, 2002.

Graphic Novel

Sometimes I wonder: Can I go through with it? Am I committed to art all the time? Does art save? And is it going to save me?

Cecil Castellucci, a French Canadian author who now makes her home in LA, has written a funny and fun story about a girl named Jane whose world is turned inside out by a terrorist attack in Metro City (clearly an analogy for NYC). Jane's parents move to Kent Waters, Suburbia, in a misguided attempt to find somewhere where they can shield themselves from the true nature of violence in our world, as Jane notes, "as if ANYWHERE is really safe."

Jane's life is altered not just by the physical reality of the move but by seismic shifts in her own values. She immediately cuts her long blonde hair and dies it black in an attempt to signify to the outside world that something new has happened and the girl she was before died in the explosion. Jane begins to notice all the little bits of beauty that we take for granted. In the aftermath of the attack, she cradles one tiny, hardy, LIVING dandelion that managed to grow out of the steel and concrete death of the city. And she adopts the man whose life she's saved, a man now named John Doe, whose sketchbook she brings with her to suburbia.

Rather than fit in with just anyone, Jane holds out for kindred spirits. She fills the sketchbook with their dreams for a better world, a place where public acts of art bring colour and life to dreary, dying cities devoid of personality. Of course, not everyone welcomes creativity. The police begin to crack down on what they deem to be defiling of public property and the P.L.A.I.N. gang find themselves confronted with a choice: give in and live the lives expected of them or continue to be an "art girl gang." (And I use the term girl lightly since their members include the school's only openly gay male and they embrace the help of all of the teens in the city).

This book is funny and funky and highly recommended for anyone interested in the effects of art, terrorism or high school cliques on the human psyche. All ages.

The details: Castellucci, Cecil and Jim Rugg. The Plain Janes. New York: Minx, 2007.

Award Winning Fiction

"Take away the ceiling and there's millions, trillions of stars...Out on the prairies on a clear night, you can see every one of them. As long as you can find the stars, Noreen, or even imagine them, you can convince yourself that you don't feel lonely."

Martha Brooks’ True Confessions of a Heartless Girl is an examination of the power of community to heal the wounds that each of us silently endures Although subtly tied to the perspective of seventeen-year-old Noreen, the book provides a multiplicity of perspectives that compel the reader’s interest in the secret struggles of each character inhabiting the small town of Pembina Lake, MB, where citizens live shoulder to shoulder without ever really knowing each other. Playing with the metaphor of stars, Brooks examines the hopes and dreams of three generations yearning for something more.

The beauty of this novel lies in its language (veins of light flashed across the sky, an immense and rounded womb) and in the little moments of connection that overcome the loneliness that lies beneath the delicate surface of our skin. Essentially we are all, at some level, screw ups like Noreen. And only in the fleeting and rarest of moments where we reach out to another human being can we overcome all this pain we cause ourselves and others.

A lovely book, utterly lovely, but sad too. Hopeful in the end (which keeps Confessions from teetering into tragedy). Recommended for 16-18 year old readers or older. Mature themes and language.

The details: Brooks, Martha. True Confessions of a Heartless Girl. Toronto: Groundwood, 2002.