Aboriginal Awareness Education Week. To celebrate, we've chosen a couple of fiction works written by Canadian aboriginal authors. The variety here is astounding.
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Keeper ‘n Me by Richard Wagamese

This is the story of Garnet Raven who was taken from his home on an Ojibway Indian reserve and placed in a series of foster homes at the age of thirteen. He finally escapes at the first opportunity only to find himself adrift on the streets of the big city.

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Three-Day Road by Joseph Boyden

The story of two young Cree snipers in the killing fields of Ypres and the Somme in WWI. Vivid war scenes. One of Mr. Yaz’s personal favourites!

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Sketco, the Raven by Robert Ayre

Considered a classic these are the tales of Sketco the Raven—the cunning trickster delivers to the world the moon, the Sun and the stars, gives man fire, helps create the tides and much more.

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Ravensong by Lee Miracle

Set along the Pacific Northwest Coast of the early 1950s, this story unfolds in an urban native community overrun by a flu epidemic. Stacey, seventeen, balances her family's traditional ways against white society's intrusive new values, and knows that her future lies in both. With its terrific humour, this is a drama that turns out to be damning, inspirational, and prophetic.
 
 
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Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
From the man who brought the ‘Uglies’ series. In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker powers who are attempting to take over the world using mechanical machinery armed with ammunition and guns, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn, who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically engineered beasts. Aboard their monstrous airship Leviathan, Alex and Deryn experience a fantastic round-the world adventure.
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Death in the Air by Shane Peacock

Young Sherlock Homes witnesses the fall and death of a trapeze artist--something is afoot—and foul play is suspected. What the young detective doesn't know is that his discovery will set him on a trail leading to a gang of notorious and ruthless criminals.  This is the latest in the Boy Sherlock Holmes Series.
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Juggling Fire by Joanne Bell

Sixteen-year old Rachel embarks on a solo quest to find her father, who disappeared years ago in the Yukon wilderness. As the days pass and her quest leads her deeper into the wilderness, she must confront danger and ensure loneliness and despair before she can unearth the truth about her father.
 
 
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The Middle of Everywhere by Monique Polak

Fifteen year old Noah Thorpe is spending the school term in George River in Quebec Far North. The Inuit kids call him a Qallunaaq—the Inuktitut word for a non-Inuit person and someone ignorant of the customs of the North. Noah thinks that they have strange ways of looking at the world plus they eat raw meat and blubber and there isn’t even a doctor let alone a McDonalds in town.
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Greener Grass by Caroline Pignat

This book was a finalist for the 2009 Governor General’s award, the highest award for recognition in literature in Canada. It’s Ireland 1847 and right in the middle of the great famine. Landlords raise rents and tumble cottages leaving thousands homeless and overcome with hunger and disease. Kit’s family is slated for eviction. She will do anything she can to help. But how far will she go? Stealing? Murder?
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Wave by Eric Walters

The riveting sage of a brother and sister caught in the centre of the 2004 tsunami catastrophe. Told in alternating voices of Sam and Beth this is an unforgettable account of a terrifying and dramatic true event.
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What is Stephen Harper Reading by Yann Martel

Every two weeks since April 2007, Yann Martel (author of The Life of Pi) has mailed Prime Minister Stephen Harper a book along with a letter encouraging the politician to take time to the time to read life-shaping literary works. This book includes his letters to the PM. His list includes many of the books that most of us have read: The Metamorphosis, A Clockwork Orange, To Kill a Mockingbird Le Petit Prince, and Animal Farm.
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Bow Grip by Ivan Coyote

Those that heard Ivan speak are aware that this is her first novel. Joey is a good-hearted mechanic from small-town Alberta whose wife recently left him for another woman. When a stranger named James approaches his shop and agrees to purchase a beat-up blue Volvo in exchange for a beautiful, hand-crafted cello, Joey see it as an opportunity to finally make some overdue changes in his life.

Me, Myself & Ike by K.L. Denman

An eye-awaking story about a teenager coming to grips with his mental illness. Kit Latimer used to be happy. He had a beautiful girlfriend, a few close friends, and a solid family life. Now his only friend is the enigmatic and possibly deranged Ike, who convinces Kit to undertake a secret and very dangerous mission. Increasingly alienated, paranoid, and confused, Kit stands to lose everything—including his life—if Ike has his way.

Seaweed in the Soup by Stanley Evans

The fifth mystery in the popular series, Seaweed in the Soup, combines hard-boiled mystery narrative with the mythology of the Coast Salish people of the west coast. Victoria is known as the garden city, but when a gardener is found dead and a policeman’s wife is killed things begin to smell not so fragrant. Police detective Silas Seaweed begins to suspect that these murders are related to the recent wave of gang-related crime that is sweeping British Columbia. His quest to find the killers leads him from the loud and steamy nightclubs of Victoria to the remote and quiet islands of Desolation Sound.

Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors by Charis Cotter

We all have a story to tell! But these six authors including Phillip Pullman, E.B. White, and C.S Lewis were extraordinary children who transformed their early struggles into spellbinding bedtime reading that have become staples in the literary. Check out their stories!
 
 
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Watcher by Valerie Sherrard

Sixteen-year old Porter Delancy has his future figured out, but his nice, neat plans are shaken when a man he believes may be the father who abandoned him and his twelve-year old sister earlier suddenly appears in his Toronto neighbourhood. He really wants nothing to do with the deadbeat dad, but his curiosity causes Porter to re-examine the past.
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Pop by Gordon Korman

New York Times bestselling author is back with a story about Marcus a football player who moves to a new town in the dead of summer and doesn’t know a soul. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with former ‘King of Pop’, NFL linebacker Charlie Popovich. But that’s not all. There is a secret about Charlie that his family is desperate to hide!

 
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Ragged Company by Richard Wagamese

A group of chronically homeless people—the ragged company—take refuge from an approaching Arctic snowstorm in an old movie theatre. Together they form an unlikely bond made even stronger by the discovery of a lost winning lottery ticket with a $13.5 million jackpot. But none of the ragged company can claim their winnings for lack of a fixed address; unless they can enlist the help of Granite, a jaded and lonely journalist who has given up writing.

 
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Only in the Movies by William Bell

The author of Stones, the Blue Helmet, and Forbidden City, William Bell, offers up the story of Jake, who, since happening upon a film crew shooting a battle scene in the park near his home, has wanted to become a screenwriter and make movies. Jake enrols in the New York School of the Arts where he meets a group of unpredictable characters. With hilarious scenes and Shakespearean plot twists this is a terrific read.
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Simon Says Gold by Simon Whitfield with Cleve Dheensaw

From the moment Simon Whitfield burst onto the world stage at the Sydney 2000 Summer Games as triathlon’s first Olympic champion it has been a whirlwind life. This book documents Whitfield’s personal journey to Olympic glory as he recounts that day in Sydney, but also of the anguish of failing to repeat as Olympic champion in Athens in 2004, and his dramatic comeback at the Beijing 2008 Games with a silver medal. An inspiring read!
 
 
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

It takes a graveyard to raise a child. Nobody Owens lives in a graveyard and is raised by ghosts and ghouls that inhabit the place. He is known as Bod by his friends. But, living in a graveyard isn’t all fun and games, and if Bod tries to leave he runs the risk of being killed by Jack—the same man that murdered his family. Gaiman has won dozens of awards for his fantastic fantasy fiction.


What is the What by Dave Eggers

This is the novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who along with thousands of other children—the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally resettles in the US he finds a like of promise but also a myriad of new challenges. An absolutely astonishing story!
 
 
Reclusive author J.D. Salinger passed away last week at the age of 91. His 1945 classic ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ follows Holden Caufield as he struggles with the pains of adolescence. This THE most read book in the LVR library.

I Will Not Write an Uncensored, Unauthorized History of the Simpsons: by John Ortved

Here is it. Before King of the Hill, before Family Guy there was The  Simpsons. Ortved's books includes the history of the longest running show in television history--it wasn't even suppose to be a show. Interviews with cast members and writers including Conan O'Brien are peppered throughout the book. A must read for fans of The Simpsons, television, and all things sacred in popular culture today!

Madness Betrayal and the Lash: The epic voyage of Captain George Vancouver by Stephen Bown

Five years at sea, across 65 000 miles of ocean—equivalent of twice around the world, visiting every continent and mapping tens of thousands of miles of coastline it was the longest voyage in the history of humankind. Yet Vancouver died in disgrace, shunned, and in debt. For history buffs only!

Whitewater Cooks at Home by Shelley Adams

Yes, we finally have a copy of our own. Like the first one this is on its way to being a national bestseller.

What It Is by Lynda Barry

How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? For decades, these types of questions have permeated the pages of Lynda Barry's compositions, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps on moving. What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or remember. Each page is a full-colour collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process, but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: "The ordinary is extraordinary".
 
 
The Road by Cormac McCarthy Author of No Country for Old Men and All the Pretty Horses, has written perhaps his finest book; one that takes place in a post apocalyptic America, where everything is burned and nothing moves. The sky is dark. Ash still fills the skies and it is cold enough to crack stones. A father and son walk alone—their destination is the coast—although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them. They have nothing except a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes on their backs, a cart of scavenged food, and each other.

Off the Chain by Ross Rebagliati

One of the original BC-born shredders, and winner of the first Olympic gold medal for snowboarding in Nagano, Japan in 1998, the Whistler native brings you the history of snowboarding from the Snurfer to Jake Burton and Tom Sims showcasing their homemade boards at Mt. Baker, to backcountry bowls to big air, to the first half-pipe at the X Games over 12 years ago, to yes his ‘situation’ at the ’98 Games where he was temporarily stripped of his medal.

All Families are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland

Canadian visual artist, author, and somewhat of an icon, Coupland’s 2001 novel is about the Drummond family reunion in Florida, perhaps the most disastrous in the history of fiction; adultery, hostage-taking, bankruptcy, addiction, AIDS, black market baby negotiations—all written with Coupland’s wit and insight.

Vegan A Go-Go by Sarah Kramer

Veganite and Victoria-based tattoo artist, Sarah Kramer, has been called the ‘world’s coolest vegan’ and has authored three vegan cookbooks. Her latest is a survival/travel manual for vegans on the road with over 30 quick and easier recipes (many require no baking)—it’s pocket-size; loaded with terrific photos and Kramer’s humourous musings.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

So, what do you get when you take a literary classic and rewrite it as a horror novel? You get this blood-dripping, brain-eating, heartbreaking, sword-fighting, corpse rotting, romancing masterpiece. I mean it is a universal truth that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains…
 
First Post! 03/01/2010
 
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