Tell It To The Trees

Tell It To The Trees by Anita Rau Badami

Tell it to the Trees opens with the death of Anu, a single woman who rents the “back house” of the Dharma family. It is the middle of winter in northern British Columbia and Anu is found frozen in the snow outside. The Dharma children watch the police investigate the scene from inside their warm kitchen.
Anu had come from Vancouver to spend time away from it all and  to write. She found the tranquility of the interior energizing. She tries to strike up a friendship with Suman Dharma, the second wife of the patriarch in the family. Suman brings Anu a delicious lunch every day, and both women look forward to the visit that breaks up the day. But Anu suspects things are not altogether happy inside the family home. When she questions Anu about it, a strain is put on the thin friendship.

Using shifting narrators, Badami shows the story of this troubled family. Varsha, who lost her mother at a young age, clings to Suman, terrified that she will lose her step-mother as well. Varsha, is a frightened but scary control freak and goes so far as to hide Suman’s passport, knowing that she cannot leave without it.

Hemant, the little brother,  listens to everything Varsha, his older half-sister, says and is controlled by her. Her thoughts about what is going on around her push the plot of the story. When bad things happen the children have been told to tell it to the trees. The story is heartbreaking and the isolation of an small town winter landscape mirrors the isolation some immigrant women face with no recourse to change it. The story is subtle but the book once begun is hard to put down.

Three Thieves – Book Two The Sign of the Black Rock

The *second book in the Three Thieves series The Sign of the Black Rock continues the adventure as our three heros widen their search for Greyfalcon and hopefully, Dessa’s brother.
Dessa, Topper and Fisk spend the night taking shelter in a village inn to escape a terrible storm only to come uncomfortably close to Captain Drake their pursuer. The smarmy innkeeper Mortimer Grig, captures the trio, and plots to get as much reward money for them as he can before the Queen’s Dragons, lead by Captain Drake, can uncover his wine smuggling operation. The ill-treated wife of Grig, Eudora, discovers she and Dessa have an unusual connection and lends a hand in their escape.

Scott Chantler’s drawings and colouring in the story are vivid and playful.

“I’m more content with the second book than the first,” Chantler said on his website. I am too. I agree this story is complete in itself yet keeps you interested enough to see where the friends end up next. It’s so well done you will be drawn in by the first page and won’t stir until you reach the last.

Three Thieves Book Two The Sign of the Black Rock. Scott Chantler. Kids Can Press. Toronto ISBN978-1-55453-416-6

*Three Thieves Book One Tower of Treasure reviewed Oct. 27, 2011.

Two Generals

Tags

canadian, remembrance day, scott chantler, two generals

The army issued bicycles - Two Generals p. 46

Keep Calm and Carry On. Words to live by then and now. It was a popular mantra during WWll and could be found on postcards and bulletins all over Britain. The Two Generals begins with that mantra. The book is based on the true story of Law Chantler of Newmarket, Ont. and his buddy Jack Chrysler of Galt, Ont. who both enlisted in the Canadian army in the Second World War. Written and drawn by Scott Chantler, this graphic novel is a labour of love, Law was Chantler’s grandfather. The title comes from a note jotted on the back of a photograph of the two men, Law sent to his wife: “Just an informal shot of the two generals.”

Chantler and Chrysler would find themselves on the shores of Normandy in one of the most important battles of the war. From Law soaking in a metal washtub with nothing but his helmet on, to the bull-handled one geared bicycles issued to the men as official equipment Chantler’s beautifully drawn pages bring the army, training and the battles to life. The panels are coloured in an olive green with splashes of red where appropriate. I won’t spoil it for you, read it yourself.

They were good men Law and Jack, naive as all the men were. How were they to know the grimness of a war. They joined because it was the right thing to do. One comes home and one does not. Everyone should read this graphic novel, especially with Remembrance Day on the horizon. Simple men did great things, they should not be forgotten.

Two Generals. Scott Chantler. McClelland & Stewart, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7710-1958-6

Three Thieves – Book One Tower of Treasure

You may know Scott Chantler through his graphic novel Two Generals which was nominated for a 2011 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award. Chantler is the author of the graphic novel series Three Thieves Book One in the series is Tower of Treasure. It won the Joe Shuster Award, 2011 for the Best Comics for Kids category.Tower of Treasure features acrobat 14-year-old Dessa, Topper, a juggler and strongman Fisk, performers with a traveling circus. When the group arrives in Kingsbridge, Topper sees an opportunity to solidify his reputation as the greatest thief in the land by cooking up a plan to rob the Queen. All the land’s gold is stored in the highest tower and rumour has it that it is protected by a dragon.

The sub-plot of the story is Dessa’s search for her missing twin brother who was kidnapped by a mysterious man when they were just small children. She thinks she may have recognized Maarten Greyfalcon, one of the Queen’s men, as the man who snatched her brother. The thieves break in to the tower, are caught, put in prison, and manage to escape but not before Dessa searches Greyfalcon’s rooms looking for information about her brother. It was a very busy night. The Queen’s Captain is sent out after the escapees and told not to come back unless it’s with their heads.

Great story. It has castles, a travelling circus, gold, dragons and a strong female lead. Awesome. Chantler, who lives in nearby Kitchener, Ont., wrote and illustrated this book and there are at least two more on the way. Pick it up for yourself or give it to your favourite kid under 14 years of age. I’m looking forward to keeping up with the adventure in Book Two The Sign of the Black Rock, which just came out in September, 2011.

Three Thieves Book One Tower of Treasure, Kids Can Press, Toronto ISBN 978-1-55453-415-9 (pbk.)

Cities of Refuge

A complicated story about a woman who is violently assaulted and how that impacts her life and the lives of those closest to her. Michael Helm, writer and instructor at York University in Toronto, weaves an intense story that focuses on the relationship between Kim and her father Harold, who abandoned the family when she was a child. Both are tormented by the attack yet in extremely different ways.

Harold is convinced that Kim’s work with refugees who have been denied the right to stay in Canada on compassionate or humanitarian grounds is entwined with the assault. He investigates his hunches to the chagrin of those around him and it brings him head to head with some whose faith based belief is to provide refuge to all regardless of their sins. Kim tries to make sense out of what has happened to her by writing down the story over and over again.

Perhaps the story is not so much complicated as the writing is poetic and often leaves images hanging between the pages that interferes with the flow of the narrative. However, this is part of what makes the prose so interesting and compels the reader to stay up late at night reading it.

From the book jacket…”Cities of Refuge is a novel of profound moral tension and luminous prose. It weaves a web of incrimination and inquiry, where mysteries live within mysteries, and stories within stories, …” Indeed.

Cities of Refuge. McClelland and Stewart Ltd. Hardcover ISBN – 13:978-0-7710-4039-9.

microserfs

Douglas Coupland’s homage to the exploding world of technology. I started this book in 1995 and couldn’t get into it. It was much better this time ’round. I actually found the book “quaint”. Imagine that email has just come into vogue and there is no such thing as Google. How did we ever survive?

The characters in the book are struggling with whether or not they have a life or if chasing $$ in the emerging tech field is their life. Reading this book will give you a good primer on how technological change began to pick up speed in the early nineties and helped pave the way for the mind blowing changes to communication we take for granted today.

Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score

 
Toronto writer and graphic artist, Darwyn Cooke, delivers the best portrayal of Selina Kyle a.k.a. Catwoman ever.  Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score brings Catwoman back from the “dead”, broke and in need of some cash, she’s looking for a gig. Swifty, friend and owner of Swifty’s Pawn Shop makes an introduction and Selina finds herself involved in something bigger than a jewel thief may be able to handle.

With the help of tough guy and thief Stark, Cooke’s nod to Richard Stark’s Parker character*, the plan begins to come together. Enter Slam Bradley, P.I. hired to find Catwoman, by the mayor who never believed she was dead. Bradley discovered Catwoman’s secret – that she was Selina Kyle and couldn’t bring himself to turn her in. In the end he may be the only friend Selina has.

With references to the Saint Lawrence River, guys named Henri and Jean-Marc, how much more Canada can one expect to find in a DC comic book?

Cooke draws Catwoman in a retro sixties style, cute and buxom but not overly so, unlike so many female images in the comic book world. This is a great read, even for those who don’t consider themselves comic book or graphic novel fans.

*A review of Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of Richard Stark’s, pseudonym of Richard Westlake, The Outfit, to come.

Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score, DC Comics 2002, ISBN Soft Cover: 1-56389-922-1