2 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010

34 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010
reviews
by Tanya Lloyd Kyi
art by Ross Kinnaird
A red-hot feast of fiery
facts for ages 9 and up.
TROUBLED TEENS
At-risk girls; escaping a convent; confined to a
wheelchair; and the mystery of stolen dinosaur bones
|annick press | www.annickpress.com | available from your favourite bookseller
Best Laid Plans by Christine Hart (Lorimer $9.95)
AS AN EMPLOYMENT COUNSELLER MEETing
at-risk youths, Christine Hart of
Victoria has written her second
young adult novel Best Laid Plans about a
teenage girl, Robyn, who tries to leave her
family in order to attend university even
though her parents want her to stay in the
Okanagan and work on the family's failing,
20-acre apple orchard at Coldstream.
“I had been exposed to at-risk youth as
a high school student," says Hart, “and then
later as a working professional. In both
cases, I was repeatedly meeting young people
who were being held back by their own
parents. I wanted to communicate how difficult
it can be for young people when it’s
your parents who are the barriers to your
future plans.” 978-1-55277-446-5
Wheels for Walking by Sandra Richmond
(Groundwood $12.95)
BORN IN INDONESIA IN 1948, SANDRA RICHMOND
was a mother of two and schoolteacher
who died of breast cancer in 1998. Based
on her own accident that made her into a
quadriplegic, Richmond’s teenage novel
Wheels for Walking, first published in
1983, is about a young heroine
who is confined to a wheelchair
after her spine is
damaged in a car accident.
Royalties from
the new edition will
benefit the BC Cancer
Society and GF
Strong Rehabilitation
Centre’s spinal
research program.
978-0-88899-866-8
The Girl in the Backseat by Norma Charles
(Ronsdale $10.95)
LIKE HER BOOK RUNAWAY IN WHICH A GIRL FLEES
from a convent, Norma Charles’ The Girl
in the Backseat is a YA novel of escape,
but this time on a larger geographical scale.
Trapped within a repressive Bountifulstyle
religious community (in which young
girls are forced into marriages with much
older men), a young girl named Toby takes
flight from her marital fate by hiding in
the back seat of a mini with the help of
Jacob and Minerva, black children of a Caribbean
mother who has recently remarried
a penny-pinching Englishman. As
they make their way towards Winnipeg, a
place in which Toby will take refuge with
her sympathetic aunt, the threesome
share adventures and expand their horizons,
literally and figuratively.
978-1-55380-056-9
Dinosaur Fever by Marion Woodson (Dundurn $11.99)
IN MARION WOODSON’S LATEST TEEN NOVEL,
Dinosaur Fever, 15-year-old Adam Zapotica
of Calgary befriends a 15-year-old girl
named Jamie on a contemporary dinosaur
dig—even though participants are supposed
to be eighteen years of age
or older. Together they uncover
the mystery of who has been
pilfering some of the important
finds made by the
paleontologists on Milk
River Ridge near Writing-on-Stone
Provincial
Park in southern Alberta.
978-1-55002-690-0
Christine Hart:
“I think my setting is
unique, for young
adult readers, in that
I try to authentically
represent rural
British Columbia.”
A wildly entertaining and poignant novel, THE BRISS explores, on a personal
level, family relationships, and on a political level, the continuing debate
about Jewish identity and its connection to Israel and Palestine.
The Briss
Michael Tregebov
People’s Co-op Bookstore
FIND IT HERE
• Pulpfiction • Blackberry
Books • Cadboro Bay Books, Victoria •
Hager Books • Tanners Books, Sidney •
Abraxas Books, Denman Island • 32 Books,
North Van • Chapters • Indigo • amazon.com
• chapters.indigo.ca
NewStarBooks.com
DANI BOYNTON PHOTO