#IMWAYR March 21, 2022

Welcome readers! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next. 

Happy Spring everyone!

I'm going to be out of town next weekend so I thought this Monday, I better post what I've been reading. We will be in Vancouver, BC, where I will be delivering this quilt to my youngest granddaughter. I hope she enjoys it as much as her six month older cousin enjoys hers. 

Friday was International Quilt Day. The forecast was for rain, so I only hung a few wall hangings in my front window. I posted a collection of some of the quilts I have made over the years on Facebook. 

Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.

Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book.

PICTURE BOOKS

4 stars

I Am Golden by Eva Chen, Sophie Diao (Illustrator) February 1, 2022

Sophie Diao's illustrations are absolutely stunning! I love how inspirational and affirming Eva Chen's text is. This is one of those books that can be a mirror, a window, and a way to make connections between our own stories and history, and those of others. 
Unfortunately, my ebook was wonky and chunks of text were either missing or out of alignment. 

MG NON FICTION

4 stars

Powwow, A Celebration Through Song and Dance by  Karen Pheasant-Neganigwane April 21, 2020 🍁

This book should be in every community and school library in North America. While the author focuses on Canadian First Nation Powwows, her scope extends into Native American Powwow culture and dances. The beautiful captioned photographs make the book worth picking up, even without the extremely informative text.
The back matter includes a glossary, an index, a resources section, and a note from the author.

NOVELS 

5 stars

City Spies by James Ponti &  Lisa Flanagan (Narrator) March 10, 2020

We meet twelve year old Sara Martinez, a brilliant hacker, while she is talking with her legal aid lawyer. Sara hacked into the system to get information to show her foster parents up as the criminals they are. Instead, Sara is facing time in juvenile detention and no computer access for at least two years. 

A classily dressed man enters to replace her legal aid lawyer and before she can fully take stock of what is happening, Sara has been recruited as a spy and is on her way to Scotland. Within a couple of weeks she has to be ready to go on her first mission. 

The rest of the crew, also recruited by Mother, (Sara's saviour,) are a diverse group of teens and preteens from around the world. 

I needed this book. It has just the right amount of fun, excitement, intrigue and escapism. I've already put a reserve on the next one in the series. 

Thanks to the many #IMWAYR posters who have written about James Ponti. I have finally joined the fan club.  

5 stars

The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour by Dawn Dumont January 1, 2021 🍁

John, a 30ish year old Cree man, lives a relatively reclusive life on his ranch in Saskatchewan. Not far from him is Nadine who carries a torch for John. Nadine teaches traditional dance and has organized a tour of Europe with her troupe. When food poisoning brings Nadine and her dancers low, John's brother, the chief, manipulates him into taking her place along with Edna, an older woman, and her niece, Desiree. Neither of them are dancers so he's going to have to teach them. At the airport they meet up with the last member of their troupe, Lucas Pretend Eagle, a young, slightly manic Native American. It starts off inauspiciously with their plane being hijacked. Meanwhile, Nadine has recovered from her food poisoning, connects up to someone else who claims to be Lucas Pretend Eagle and the two of them set off to meet up with the dancers in Germany. It continues on with one debacle after the next. 

At the same time as this book is full of humour, it's loaded with heart-aching sweetness. 

The story is told through the perspectives of John, Edna and Nadine. By the time they return home, we have learned a lot of their backstories and they have all learned more about themselves. Some of them might even have found love. 

I didn't know til I read the blurb on Goodreads after finishing the book, that this is very loosely based on the true story of a group of Indigenous dancers who left Saskatchewan and toured through Europe in the 1970s.

ADULT NON FICTION

4 stars

The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery (Author and Narrator) May 12, 2015

Understanding how other people experience the world is it's own kind of challenge. Connecting to how Octopus experience it requires a whole other level of comprehension. Just what is consciousness anyway?

Sy Montgomery takes us with her as she learns about, and bonds with, these remarkable animals. This book is full of humour, awe, and heartache. 

Some of the animals Montgomery connected with spent their entire life in captivity. I wish she had more fully addressed the incongruity of keeping such brilliant, beautiful creatures in what to them, are small cages. Some aquariums, like the Vancouver Aquarium near me, justify having them on display by only keeping each one for a limited amount of time before returning them to the wild. When I asked one of the staff there why they keep them in such small spaces, he told me it was because if they were bigger, the animals could get enough speed and force behind them to break the glass. 

If I hadn't already stopped eating octopus after watching My Octopus Teacher, I certainly would now. 

CURRENTLY

Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez 🍁

    This is a reread from me and I am having a hard time with it. I now know the ending for some of these characters and Hernandez' writing is so good, that I am emotionally invested in them and dread revisiting what happens. 

Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of Katherine Johnson by Katherine Johnson

Bewilderment  by Richard Powers

UP NEXT 

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson

READING GOALS

#MustReadFiction 6/24 

#MustReadNonFiction 3/18 - 1 in progress

Canadian Authors 17/100

Canada Reads shortlist 5/5 rereading one

Indigenous Authors 7/25 

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 70/250

Forever Friendship by Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. It will be released August 31, 2021 by First Second Books.

Forever Friendship is a continuation of the Real Friends series. Hale's earlier memoirs, with brilliant artwork by LeUyen Pham, captured the social dynamics of girl friendship and bullying in elementary school. This one addresses Shannon's internal turmoil in middle school. Like the first two, it ends up being a template for how to survive and thrive through a tumultuous time in your life. Older girls and women might learn a thing or two from it. 

It highlights the numerous ways girls get socialized into the 'beauty myth.' It explores the roles of magazines, television, movies, church, religion and schooling. It's full of the complex ways we hurt one another. 

Starting grade eight Shannon feels pretty good about her friends. Despite this she still worries and is plagued with feelings of not being good enough. She has numerous goals for this new year. 

She begins grade eight thinking that fulfillment is based on beauty, success, and fame. Add being a good person and being liked by boys into the mix. It's kind of like a recipe for disaster. 

Following the introduction, six chapters focus on an area connected to this. Most end with an important message to young girls. 

Beautiful 

As if it's not enough that Shannon has to deal with her body changing, she attempts to mold herself into society's model of what beauty is. She wears contact lens, gets braces, and perms her hair. Before others can make fun of her, she makes fun of herself. Any critique by others emphasizes that she's not good enough. 

In the end she halfheartedly decides she doesn't care if she isn't beautiful and will instead, pursue her other dreams.

Fame 

Shannon thinks that fame will cover her in emotional armor. She wants to feel special, yet at the same time thinks that if only she can learn to play the correct part - to become the right kind of person, fame is possible. 

Unfortunately, doing this involves burying her own dreams. This leads to all kinds of complicated feelings. She appreciates her friends' successes and at the same time, is jealous of them. She's terrified that if she makes any mistakes she will lose all her friends forever. Thankfully she decides to dig up her dreams again and follow them. She doesn't get a part in the school drama production. Instead she becomes student director. Ultimately she learns that being a part of something is enough. Being famous isn't necessary. 

Boys

This chapter addresses emerging sexuality and negotiating through the messiness of it. 

One of Shannon's best friends is Andrei. They are not romantically involved. Yet everyone expects them to be. Because of this, she assumes that there is something wrong with her. I loved the complexity in Shannon's relationship with Jane. They are on the cusp of becoming young women, but they are also still kids. Jane is shown exploring her sexuality with different boys, and getting slut shamed for it. There are creepy older men to deal with. 

Shannon starts to think, "You're not allowed to feel sad. If you feel sad you're wrong." In the end though, she learns that it's enough for a boy just to think you are cool. 

Success

"No matter how hard I worked, it never felt like enough"

Shannon comes to see her value is in how others perceive her. She wonders if her parents only love her because of her grades. She decides to run for class president and loses. The role of fathers in how girls see themselves is articulated clearly in this section. In spite of his comments about the role of women, Shannon dreams of having both a family and a satisfying career.  She learns that she wants to 'be successful - but in the ways that make me feel good - not in the ways everyone expected."

Perfect

This section highlights the role of religion and church. To be perfect is to be good enough, to be kind enough. Her attempts to follow through end up in mishap after mishap. Rather than bringing comfort, church ends up exaggerating her so called flaws and exacerbating her feelings of being a bad person. Everything falls apart for her after an altercation with her friends. 

Nothing

Shannon ends up deep in depression. If she is loved based on her accomplishments, what happens when she fails? She gives up on her friends, school, and violin. Eventually her parents send her to see a psychiatrist. He's a dud. 

Enough

Shannon becomes her own therapist and begins to love herself. 

"It felt like an act of rebellion. To choose to love myself even if I wasn't sure anybody else did. Even if I wasn't sure I was worthy enough. Even if I wasn't sure that I actually did. To try to love myself. That felt like a lot."  

It makes all the difference. Grade eight turns out to be a pretty good year. 

I wish this book, and the others in the series had been around when I was in my preteen and teen years. I'm sure glad they are here today to help young girls navigate the potential minefield of adolescence. As it is, they have helped me resolve issues connected to those times in my life. I'm sure that women of all ages will be able to connect to Shannon's experiences. 

I recommend you purchase numerous copies of this for your school libraries. Encourage boys, parents, and teachers in your school to read it too.