Category: book reviews
Join me on Nov 23, 2014
JoAnne Richards’ little library in the near north
Library Ladies extraordinaire Karen Upper and JoAnne Richards invited Natalie Hyde and myself up to the Parry Sound area for a series of carefully coordinated school visits. Karen and JoAnne kindly hosted me and Natalie in their own homes, and we were treated like royalty! We also got a chance to see for ourselves JoAnne’s famous little library of the near north, which is at the end of her drive. Here’s JoAnne, me and Natalie, little library in the background.
LibrisNotes review of Dance of the Banished made my day!
Wow! Speak about thorough and enthusiastic review! Thank you, Libris Notes!
My favourite quote is this: “Dance of the Banished is an excellent piece of historical fiction and Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s best work to date.”
Thank you Penny Draper and the National Reading Campaign for this wonderful review!
Children’s Book Review: Dance of the Banished
Zeynep, fierce and bold, and Ali, caring and principled, live in the same village in Anatolia and plan to marry. Unexpectedly, Ali is sent to Canada and Zeynep is left behind. Each writes in a journal for the other, but as war comes to both countries it is unlikely their words will ever be shared. Still, they keep on. Zeynep writes an eyewitness account of the genocide from the point of view of the Alevi Kurds, telling a little known side of this tragic story. Ali, in turn, gives an accounting of life in an internment camp in, surprisingly, Kapuskasing. For each, the journal entries are a coping mechanism, a way to bear witness to the atrocities of war and ultimately, to bring justice.
Skrypuch’s compelling characters give an authentic voice to this well researched story. It is definitely a book for adults as well as teens. And although it is a story of war it includes moments of great joy, making it much more than a tragedy. Whether together in Turkey or alone in banishment, both Zeynep and Ali are able to lose themselves when they dance. Their troubles are momentarily forgotten in an ecstasy of whirling that reminds us of the cyclical nature of human events. Preserving the past, as Skrypuch does so well, is part of that cycle.
Dance of the Banished
By Marsha Skrypuch
978-1-927485-65-1
Pajama Press
August 22, 2014
288 pp
Ages 12+
Penny Draper lives in Victoria, British Columbia. She is the author of the award-winning “Disaster Strikes!” series, historical fiction that places young protagonists at the centre of real Canadian disasters.
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Bombs is #1 in Winnipeg!
Friday in Winnipeg: Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Day!
What a thrill it was to see all the cars and buses pulling up to the theatre as I snuck inside unnoticed. Many kids were clutching copies of Making Bomb for Hitler, Stolen Child and Underground Soldier.
Here are Bairdmore students catching a few extra pages before heading up to the balcony!
The two young MCs were amazingly calm, cool and professional. I can’t imagine being so poised at their age!
When they announced me as this year’s winner, I got up from the audience and walked onto the stage. Here’s the awesome award:
I also got a cheque! I gave a short talk, reading, and kids asked questions…
… and then I was whisked away to the lobby to sign books. All of my books quickly sold out, and I found out later that one of the MCs did not get a copy because she was at the back of the line-up, so I gave one of the organizers my personal copy of Making Bombs for Hitler, signed to her.
Here are some of the students at the signing table:
On Thursday night, I had pre-signed 350 WWII trilogy bookmark as I had been told that there would be 315 kids in attendance. As it turned out, there were exactly 350 kids there. Eeek! The organizers made sure each student got exactly ONE signed bookmark. I also had some postcards for Dance of the Banished on hand and gave all of those out as well.
After all the buses left, the MYRCA committee treated me to a fabulous lunch at Chez Sophie on the bridge over top the river. Lovely view, great company and fantastic food!
After lunch, another kidcritter, Julie K, picked me up. We had coffee and a chat, and then Julie took me on a quick car tour of the city and dropped me off at the airport.
A whirlwind trip. I’m still on a high! Thank you Thin Air. Thank you, MYRCA!
Thursday in Winnipeg
Two more Thin Air presentations, this time without booming sounds. GREAT kids in the audience once again, with awesome questions.
Once the afternoon session finished up, Dave Jenkinson and his wife Rhea picked me up for a visit over sweets and coffee. Dave is the longtime editor of Canadian Materials Online. I also consider him a mentor. More than a dozen years ago, he convinced me to concentrate on historical novels, rather than the historical/contemporary novels that I had been writing up to that time. I took his advice and the very next book I wrote was Nobody’s Child. That was a huge turning point for me. All of my novels since then have been historical fiction. Thank you, Dave!
While waiting in the hotel lobby for Rhea and Dave to arrive, I watched a puzzling scene unfold. A woman approached a young couple who were relaxing on one of the sofas. She opened a large carryall bag and pulled out a short sundress. “There’s this one,” she said. “And this is for later,” she said, pulling out a second that looked pretty much like the first. Then she pulled out a padded bra, and yet another sundress, all the while chatting away with the couple as if this were the most normal thing to do in a hotel lobby. The female half of the couple seemed disinterested, but the male had comments on all the garments. Finally the female took a sundress and a few minutes later she returned, in the sundress, with a big floppy hat and sunglasses. Hmmm. At first I thought maybe the couple had lost their luggage and a friend was loaning them clothing, but I think these were film people and this was a costume. This suspicion was also borne out by the odd man outside, monopolizing the only the bench. He was smoking a cigarette and checking his email on his phone device — not unusual — but this guy had a mustache that was so perfectly manicured that it looked like it had been plucked or threaded to perfection. Ditto his hair. And he had really dorky sunglasses on (likely super-expensive).
There were also stretch limos pulling in and out of the valet parking area on an ongoing basis. Hmm.
Dave and Rhea confirmed my suspicions. Apparently lots of films are shot in Winnipeg.
That evening I was treated to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory by Karen Boyd and the MYRCA Award committee. It was so very nice to meet these hard-working booklovers in person!!
Thin Air — Wednesday
The above pic is how I spent Wednesday morning. Here’s a write up about it. For this first session, I was given a Madonna-type headset with a microphone bud at my lips. I have no idea why it suddenly began to BOOM partway through the presentation. Quite disconcerting! That kink was smoothed over the rest of the week though, as I was given a lapel mike after that. Great groups of students with FABULOUS questions! Wonderful to interact with so many avid readers.
On Wednesday afternoon, I presented at Acadia School — again — so great to meet many avid readers and excited fans of my WWII trilogy. Teacher-librarian Jo-Anne Gibson emailed me afterwards: “My students are still talking about your presentation. I’ve had a lot of authors at Acadia and few have made such a lasting impact.”
From there I went to Winnipeg’s Children’s Literature Roundtable pizza party and author talk. Again, such a wonderful opportunity to meet many children, parents, educators and librarians who had read and loved Making Bombs for Hitler and other of my books. Truly, this is an author’s dream!
After the pizza party, I was whisked away to Holy Family Nursing Home for a presentation to the Alpha Omega Alumni Association. Interesting to present to students all day and finish with a presentation to adults, and not just any adults, but a group of people who had family connections to my trilogy. Many in the audience had personally lived through the times reflected in my books. Because of this, the questions were very interesting.
A couple of Alpha Omega members kept me company later in the evening as I had a very late dinner back at the hotel — Manitoba smoked goldeye is delish.
Fiction, Non-fiction and Narrative Non-fiction
This post was originally published on Brenda Kearns’ blog here.
Most people will say that fiction is fake and non-fiction is true, but have you ever had a news article written about yourself or a topic you’re very familiar with? Was it 100% accurate? Not likely!
Yet news articles are supposed to be non-fiction. Ditto for textbooks. They’re filled with facts and figures that are based on suppositions of the time but that doesn’t make them true. Continue reading “Fiction, Non-fiction and Narrative Non-fiction”