The Song of the Quarkbeast (2011), by Jasper Fforde

The Song of the Quarkbeast is the welcome sequel to the Ffordian adventure that is The Last Dragonslayer, so I was very excited to be leant it by a friend… but somewhat disappointed in the outcome. While it does contain the requisite Ffordisms to be bone-ticklingly humorous, it was just a bit too “more-of-the-same” to engage me fully. The plot is sound, but the editing is lacking. Twice at least, explanations and sentences from earlier in the book are repeated in a way that seems unintentional and thus flawed (15, 45; 51, 215)… I don’t know that this is the fault of the author: after all, he must have revised the text a numerous times. Seriously, though (she said, putting on her editor’s hat), this is why authors need good editors: it is the editor’s job to make sure that technical errors, transcription errors, logical errors, and just mere unintended silliness, does not make it into the final print.

Editing and other annoying minutæ aside, The Song of the Quarkbeast has some truly magical moments.  The plot is sufficiently convoluted to support Fforde’s inane sense of humour; the characters are quirky but delightful—well, except for people like the All Powerful Blix, protagonist Jennifer Strange’s arch-nemesis (all good heroes need an arch-nemesis: just ask Perry the Platypus…) and recently appointed Court Mystician. The impetus of the fundamental conflict is the attempt by the despotic ruler to control magic and magicians, which—as Jennifer states, “are best independent … they should serve no one in particular, and be beholden to no—”… but she is cut off by the King (114). The crisis our heroes at KAZAM Inc. find themselves in is ultimately averted by a dividing Quarkbeast and a powerful spell known as the Transient Moose. How fitting, for these are two of the most loveable characters Fforde has created.  Overall, it is only my editorial OCD that impinges upon great enjoyment of Fforde’s recent foray into literature for a younger crowd; even as an adult, I eagerly await book three in the Last Dragonslayer series.

Watched (2011), by Cindy Hogan

Another free YA book seemingly worth reading… but ultimately, unfortunately, somewhat disappointing. While part of a series (again: why do authors keep doing this?), it has a cohesive plot that ends when the book ends. So far so good. And it is not yet another teen-with-paranormal-abilities-saves-herself-and-the-world-while-falling-in-love-with-demon novel. Another point in its favour. So what is it about?

Fundamentally, naïve, bullied, insecure Christy earns a scholarship to a political educational field-trip to Washington, where she hopes she will be able to reinvent herself in a more powerful, attractive form. This she manages to do, but only with the help of the more socially and sartorially astute Marybeth. The transformation is sufficiently successful to garner Christy the amorous attention of two (2!) of the boys in her particular cohort. This subplot ultimately becomes almost annoying, as does the repeated references to Christy’s insecurities.

The more interesting—and more central—plot involves Christy and her friends witnessing the execution of the attaché of a State Senator. They manage to notify the FBI, who become involved in both protecting the students and attempting to apprehend the culprits. That the perpetrators of the murder are Middle Eastern terrorists feeds too strongly off of and into American post-9/11 fears, but the crime is fortunately not highlighted as a cultural conflict. The story is an effective balance of teenagers trying to have a good time in their nation’s capitol and young adults in a frightening and indeed life-threatening situation.

After a climactic scene with the FBI, a safe house, and a number of gunshots, Christy’s life returns almost to normal: she has chosen one of the two boys (the more compassionate, honorable Rick over the more intriguing but dangerous Alex), and she flies home to Montana… This would be a fitting ending, with a  small nudge toward a knowledge of Christy and Rick’s future. I really wanted to read the sequel, actually, as the first presented closure yet left the possibilities for future narratives of interest.

I therefore went out and found Protected (2012), and began to read. Then I stopped. Within the first chapter, the rich and overly self-confident Alex relocates himself to Christy’s school, and she is thrown back into the teen angst of being attracted to two boys. But she had made her (wise) decision! The last thing I wanted to read was more of the insecurities and trauma associated with Christy’s immaturity in lieu of a focus on the political intrigue that underlies the first novel in the series. Still, Watched stands alone as an interesting YA novel, in a “TV-drama” sort of way, not requiring a sequel at all…

What Happened to Ivy (2012), by Kathy Stinson

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 18.2.

What Happened to Ivy

In 2000, Terry Trueman published Stuck in Neutral, written from the perspective of a teenaged boy suffering from cerebral palsy so badly that he cannot communicate at all. The novel is brilliant, causing the reader to really think about what it must be like, to be an intelligence locked in a body with no controllable outward responses. In the final scene, Shawn is about to enter a fit, unsure of whether or not his father is—at that very moment—intending to “put him out of his misery.” Kathy Stinson’s What Happened to Ivy tells a similar story, from a different perspective, and is, I think, more successful for that. While Stuck in Neutral shows the internal perspective of the cerebral palsy sufferer, What Happened to Ivy tells the equally troubling tale of Ivy’s brother, David, and the father who might or might not have been instrumental in his daughter’s death.
David both loves and resents Ivy. He feels that his parents focus entirely on her, ignoring the things in his life that matter, the things most teenaged boys can share with their parents and siblings. David, like his parents, is little more than a caregiver for the severely disabled Ivy; nonetheless, the three of them love her dearly, and work unceasingly to ensure her comfort and safety. Holidaying at their cabin, while David is walking with his new girlfriend and their mother is napping, Ivy has a seizure in the water and drowns. David is understandably traumatized by the combination of guilt and relief he feels, and this is what gives the novel its power. Reading David’s story, I felt so strongly that he really needed to talk to someone his own age, who would listen and understand and give sage advice; then it occurred to me that very few people his age would have any sage advice to give: his situation was relatively unique, although survivor’s guilt itself is not. That is a role that Stinson’s book can perform admirably. There are very few books out there that can be successfully bibliotherapeutic in the strictest sense of the term, but this I think is one. David struggles both with his own guilt and with his resentment of his father, who admits in his distress that he let Ivy go as she struggled in the water during her fit. David himself points out the philosophical difference between killing and letting die, but that is not enough to heal his own wounds. In the end, as in Stuck in Neutral, we are left not knowing what the criminal and social ramifications of the situation Stinson constructs will be, but we are given ample evidence of the possibilities. We also know the direction that David’s thoughts have taken, and we see him move towards self-healing, the final step in the bibliotherapeutic process. We watch as his family’s tenuous balance and security is wrenched apart, and we watch as his mother and father and girlfriend, Hannah, help him to slowly weave together his own revised pattern for his life. When he admits the most profound source of his own guilt to Hannah, she thoughtfully remarks, “You’re human, David” (139). Simple, honest, and non-judgmental, her comment solidifies the healing process David has begun. In the penultimate scene, David is finally able to extend that healing to his suffering father. While the practicalities are not resolved, David’s own inner turmoil has been calmed, his emotional energy directed away from his own grieving towards that of his parents. He has grown into an emotional maturity that we know will help him to survive whatever happens next.

Truths I Learned from Sam (2013), by Kristin Butcher

Having really enjoyed Kristin Butchers Return to Bone Tree Hill (2009), I was excited to receive Truths I Learned from Sam to review. It was with a bit of trepidation that I began, though, having read the back cover, which informed me that “[i]n a story story about relationships [good] and about how bad things happen to good people [a bit disconcerting], Dani discovers that sometimes the only villain is life itself [ouch].” I wasn’t sure I was ready for another emotional rollercoaster of YA angst. I need not have been worried: my concerns were misplaced, where my excited expectations certainly were not.

Butcher’s depiction of life in rural BC shows a remarkable acumen, if not lived experience. Webb’s River is like so many small interior towns—Spuzzum, Malakwa, Yank, Moyer: little on the road but a gas station, but teaming with life in the woods and hills around them.  Dani learns to ride; she learns to drive an old standard transmission clunker. We can smell the sage in the air she breathes, feel the dust in our throats at the rodeo.

The foundation of Butcher’s novel, though, is her adeptness at character construction and development. Dani is a typical teen in a not-so-typical situation. Her mother is getting married. Again. For the fifth time, actually. We shouldn’t like her mother, and we can understand why Dani might have problems with the relationship. Throughout the novel, though, Dani’s mother shows her love for Dani—however self-centred she may be in some ways—and Dani relies on her mother’s affection and support, which she receives—albeit over her cell phone. Theirs is a sometimes-awkward understanding, but they do understand and love one another. So when Dani’s mother and her new husband go off on a honeymoon to Europe, and Dani is sent off to the Cariboo to her mother’s brother—the “black sheep” of the family whom Dani had never heard of—Dani is more worried about her six weeks in a strange place than she is upset by her mother’s seeming desertion.

Sam, Dani’s uncle, turns out to be one of the salt-of-the-earth individuals without whom the world (and YA fiction) could not survive. Sam’s obvious pride in Dani, his affection, and his hand’s-off parenting attitude help her to grow in a number of ways important to a teenaged girl. He treats her like a young adult, not a young girl, and she responds with the respect and maturity he takes for granted; it is obvious that he has never had a teenager before. When he finds Dani and her new boyfriend Micah kissing, for example, he merely asks “You kids having a good time?” (92): slightly protectively, but certainly not facetiously. Although he watches over her, he knows Dani is in a safe place, in safe hands, and he leaves her free to enjoy her youth.

We watch Dani grow into her place in this new community without the sense of dread that the back cover suggests… almost. There are just enough subtle clues for the reader to anticipate the emotional crisis that comes near the end—which I will not spoil the story by revealing. I knew what was coming, and was saddened by the inevitability. What I did not expect was the heart-wrenching yet beautiful twist Butcher throws in, causing tears of both joy and sorrow. Through the sadness, Dani is left in a calm and accepting emotional space, considering her future with hope and anticipation. While Truths I Learned from Sam provides a strong and satisfying sense of closure, I really want to know what happens in Dani and Micah’s future…

Hockey Girl (2012), by Nathalie Hyde

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 18.3.

Hockey Girl

Unnaturally for a Canadian, perhaps, I don’t like hockey. I did, however, really like Nathalie Hyde’s Hockey Girl. While it does focus on the sport sufficiently to engage die-hard fans, underneath the excitement of the sport, this novel is more about equity, integrity, and solidarity in all aspects of life.
The story opens with our protagonist, Tara, in the middle of a play: her determination borders on aggression, and her sense of fair play is offended by both the other team’s behaviour and the referee’s bad call. As she sits in the penalty box unjustly, we are introduced to her team’s real antagonists: members of the boys’ hockey league who had goaded the girls into a bet, that whoever comes out higher in their own standings at the end of the season has to play cheerleader to the other team the entire next season. Both the boys and the girls picture the result—the skimpy, over-sexualized outfits—should the girls lose. This is a challenge worth winning, certainly.
The real drama of the story lies, however, in the girls’ fight to keep their team together in a highly patriarchal, hockey-mad town. The boys get all the ice time, and their coach only stays around until the scouts come… then he moves on to coach a more prestigious (male) team. The girls ultimately find the help they need from unsuspected sources, including in Tara’s case from Kit, one of the boys’ team’s best players. The story thus contains an amount of romance appropriate to junior high readers, and the way that Kit and Tara relate to one another is both honest and heartwarming. Both young adults have to contend with unfairness, from both their community and their hockey-obsessed fathers, and Tara learns that not only girls suffer from the worship of machismo endemic in the males of her society. The lessons she learns have an obvious extrapolation to issues in the world at large, and Hyde creates an effective parallel in how portions of the community rally to the girls’ side when their ice-time is taken. While the battle is simplified, the issues are not: Hockey Girl scores a goal for women’s rights specifically and for an increased sense of justice and solidarity in general.

The Riddle of Stars, a trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip

It is best to review these three titles as a trilogy á la Lord of the Rings, rather than three separate novels. Series fiction has become so popular in the children’s and young adult literary world that we have forgotten the joy of a good trilogy, which combines the longevity of narrative that series fiction attempts to supply with a story that is well structured and coherent: with a beginning, a middle (climax, change of scene, rising action, another climax, another change of scene and rising action), and an end (a final climax, dénouement, and ultimately great satisfaction for the reader). Series fiction, on the other hand, often lacks the solid structure that leads to reader satisfaction: because it is written without a solid plan in the initial stages, it seldom forms as cohesive and satisfying a narrative. Don’t remind me that Dickens (among others) wrote his novels piecemeal this way, weekly, changing his plot to satisfy his readers’ opinions as he went along… I firmly believe he would have been even greater had he not suffered under such constraints!

To continue. I have not read The Riddle of Stars trilogy since I was a teen, but I cannot think why not: it was one of my absolute favourites, second perhaps only to Lord of the Rings. When I picked it up again last week, I remembered why I loved it so much. Even though I remember the essential plot, I can no longer remember the details, and the story and the world McKillip has created pulled me deep within: I ran with the vesta; I became a tree; I wept with Raederle… No trilogy or series since this—except perhaps K.V. Johansen’s Warlocks of Talverdin—has constructed for me such a complete, satisfying world, mythology, and backstory to the current narrative.

   In The Riddlemaster of Hed (1976), we meet Morgan, Prince of Hed. Morgan’s title means that he is bound irrevocably and immutably by a deep magic to his land. Not until his death—and then equally irrevocably—does his rule pass to his land-heir. But Morgan is also a Riddle Master, sent away from his agrarian homeland to study in the city of Caithnard with students from all the lands in the realm. He is torn between his identity as ruler of Hed—a land and culture that he truly understands and loves—and the three stars on his forehead that appear to mark him as something other than a ruler of cattle, pigs, and their keepers. Ultimately, he has to choose whether to pursue or abandon the riddle that is his identity. In McKillip’s world, philosophy, history, and belief are both bound and explained by the riddles the learnèd ask of each other, and their answers. Morgan has been trained in this world as much as his princedom, but there are riddles that even he cannot answer. He journeys north to Erlenstar Mountain, to seek the High One of the Realm, the only one who can answer the Riddle of his Stars, and his identity. En route he meets and befriends a number of rulers of other kingdoms; these friendships  will serve him well in his future struggles. But when he reaches the apparent end of his quest, the final words we are given are “Oh, no!” There his tale—at least in this volume—ends.

In Heir of Sea and Fire (1977), we return south to Raederle, Morgan’s intended, and the political struggles in which the world is embroiled now that the Prince of Hed has disappeared. While Raederle’s father seeks Morgan in his own way, Raederle and the two other women who love Morgan—the warrior Lyra and Morgan’s sister Tristan—abandon the pattern of their lives to seek him, and the answers to the fate that awaits their world. Parallelling Morgan’s search for identity, Raederle seeks to understand her own heritage, to learn why her wise and loving father made an oath to marry her to the man who could win a contest of Riddles with the shade of Aum of Peven, a great King and Riddle Master. She begins to comprehend her true nature, and to fear it, as much as—or more than—she fears losing Morgan.

In Harpist in the Wind (1979), while Raederle has learned her true name and nature, Morgan still struggles to determine who he is, and why the harpist Deth, whom he loved, had betrayed him so cruelly. The shape changers who pursue him to the corners of the realm, the evil Riddle Master who seeks to destroy him, even his own nature seems to battle against the peace he seeks for himself and his world. Slowly he integrates his abilities with self-knowledge, battling against self-doubt, until in the final moment—almost too late—he learns his true name, and his real place in the natural order of his world.

The Discovery of Socket Greeny (2010), by Tony Bertauski

Lately I’ve been downloading a large number of free ebooks from BookBub, or Kobo, or anywhere I can: my book budget has been exhausted. I have discovered, though not surprisingly, that my quality of reading has thus dropped significantly, and a large proportion of the free books I delete after reading the first couple of pages. Every once in a while, thankfully, one like Tony Bertauski’s The Discovery of Socket Greeny comes along to rejuvenate my joy of reading on the Kobo. The book was first released in 2010, so it was not a “straight-to-almost-free” book like so many, but at first my response was “What on earth are they doing offering this for free?” followed by “I wonder how much the sequels are going to cost me?” For there are always sequels in children’s and YA fiction these days, it seems: but I have lamented this situation before.  There are, in fact, sequels to The Discovery of Socket Greeny, although all three books were released in 2010: The Discovery of Socket Greeny in July, The Training of Socket Greeny in September, and The Legend of Socket Greeny in December. Despite the sequels, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the first book was, in fact, sufficiently self-contained to satisfy my narrative needs completely. There were directions that Bertauski could take his story, more that could be told, but it is not necessary to read more to find closure.

The conception and plot of Socket Greeny are original and engaging. Picture a YA version of Neuromancer with shades of Little Brother, Ender’s Game, and Feed. How could I not read on? Perhaps, too, I liked the immediate immersion into the virtual world of MMOGs (massively multi-player online games).  The story opens with three teens hooked into virtualmode to study, but instead hacking into someone else’s virtual world to battle. Bertauski’s description of the transitional process is both a little familiar (see Neuromancer) and yet unique.

The banter between Socket, Streeter, and Socket’s girlfriend, Chute, about the wisdom of their enterprise reveals the closeness that exists in this triad of friends:

“What are we doing here?” I asked
“We’re going to get our kill on.”
“I just got pardoned for fighting. We get caught, just stamp my suspension.” …
I looked at Chute. “Did you know we were doing this?”
“He didn’t tell me. If you were in class on time, he wouldn’t have told you, either.” …

I have listened to the teens upstairs: Bertauski’s characters are real.

Hacked into the Rime world, something goes terribly, unexpectedly wrong. Their sims are almost destroyed: a shadow forms that only Socker can see (“You’re brain damaged. Shadow sims can’t stabilize in this environment”); he begins to feel his sim; and time stands still. Cut to the three of them in detention for misuse of virtualmode time, when Socker is pulled away by his mother for a “family emergency.” His friends don’t see him again for 8 months.

The discovery of Socker Greeny—who and what Socker is—underlies the remainder of the novel. But it is not the mystery that grabs the reader so much as our affection for the character: his combination of youthful bravado and insecurity, his compassion, his need for love, his anger, and even his outright fear. His internal monologue sits comfortably beside his descriptions of all that he sees and experiences in the new reality he finds himself in.

Ultimately Socker does discover who he is, essentially, as well as learning the truth about his broken family, and his mother’s disinterest and even coldness towards him. Starved of affection for so long, it is no wonder that he clings to his friends just that little bit, emotionally. His need is mirrored in his unswerving commitment to the friendship, though, and in the end it is the combination of their talents that helps them to fight for their lives almost successfully… Not that everyone dies, of course, but it honestly is not obvious that they will all survive. Bertauski does give us the satisfactory happy ending (of course, we knew that Socket lives on, or there wouldn’t be sequels), but the danger feels real, and the escape from it uncontrived, if expectedly fortuitous. The world has changed irrevocably for Socker and his friends: they will never again be the team that they have always been, but they—and we—are okay with that.

Cape Town (2012), by Brenda Hammond

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 18.1

Cape Town

The mother of my best friend growing up was a ballet dancer in South Africa before immigrating to Canada. The stories she told came back to life as I read Brenda Hammond’s Cape Town, so similar are the feelings the protagonist Renee has towards her art. But while dancing is Renee’s raison d’être, it is not the central theme of the novel, which spans the year between February 1989 and February 1990: a time when all nations’ eyes were on South African politics and the issue of apartheid. In September 1989, F.W. de Klerk was voted into power; on 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela was finally released from 27 years in prison; on 8 June 1990, the state of emergency was lifted; between 1990 and 1993, de Klerk’s government systematically ended over 40 years of legislated apartheid. The hope that Renee and her boyfriend Andrew feel in the new Prime Minister’s commitment “to creating a new South African free of oppression and discrimination” (323) resonates strongly at the conclusion of their story. We have lived through the struggle, seen through Renee’s naïve Afrikaans eyes. So carefully depicted is the balance between political struggle and Renee’s own internal struggles that even readers who did not live through that historical moment will understand both the horrors and the hope that surged through South Africa in the early 1990s.
Renee Pretorius is the ideal character to explore the issue of apartheid from a psychologically safe perspective, rendering the horrors of apartheid moderately accessible to a young adult audience. Renee is a young Afrikaans girl, from a traditional rural family, recently arrived in Cape Town to begin her studies at the School of Dance at the University of Cape Town. Her conservative religious and social attitudes sit uncomfortably with her innate humanism, and she soon finds herself not only communicating with, but befriending a Coloured student as well as falling in love with a young political activist of British descent. Renee and Andrew’s relationship is adeptly handled: their conflicts are based on a real social chasm, and the reader is never quite sure whether their feelings for one another will be enough to overcome the vast differences in their cultural backgrounds. Underlying all of her experiences and expressions of discomfort, though, are Renee’s strong feelings of social justice and philia, most powerfully expressed in her unquestioning love of her family’s Black servant, Kokodais.
While the dilemma Hammond creates for her characters is alleviated in the final pages, the providential political moment comes after Renee has made her decision regarding her path in life. We are thus left with both a happy ending and a firm belief that Renee has developed a strong social and political consciousness: she knows who she is, and who she wants to become.

The Sower of Tales (2001), by Rachna Gilmore

I have recently given a guest lecture on Children’s Literature of the South Asian diaspora, and I closed with a discussion of Rachna Gilmore’s The Sower of Tales. The class I spoke to was about to begin an investigation of Salmon Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990), focusing on its metafictive elements, and Sower of Tales seemed to me to be a perfect text to launch them into the more complex metaphors that Rushdie employs.

The Sower of Tales presents a similar concept—the need for stories in our lives, the death of the imagination equated with the death of happiness—but to a younger, less intellectually mature readership. By this I do not intend to denigrate Sower of Tales; there is absolutely a place for both expressions of this theme within the corpus.

The metaphor that Sower of Tales presents is that of stories as a gift from the Sower, grown bi-weekly on plants scattered about the land. The Gatherer is responsible for choosing an appropriate “story pod” for the evening Talemeet for his or her village. The ripe pods give off a hum, and a talented Gatherer can tell from the hum what tone of story is therein contained. Our protagonist, Calantha, shows great promise as a Gatherer, but is too young yet to apprentice. Nonetheless, when tragedy strikes and new story pods no longer sprout, Calantha is chosen to make the dangerous journey to seek the Sower of Tales, to help right the imbalance in the world that has caused the blight.

When she reaches her destination, she is harrowed to find that the answers are not readily available. The Sower of Tales is losing her power, and can no longer heal herself: she needs Calantha to make another, more dangerous, journey. Calantha learns that an evil sorcerer has twisted the Essences, knotted the winds so that the new seeds that rise out of opened pods, up to the Sower of Tales, are diverted to the neighbouring kingdom. The significance of this is that in Gilmore’s fantasy world, the stories are power, as much as they are a life-force, and the source of culture and tradition.

The Healer Theora tells Calantha that “the Essence of the story pods is tied to the very fabric of our beings” (136), and the Sower of Tales, telling her how story pods first came into being, tells her:

Tales grow, with a life of their own. Words and ideas are like seeds. … the Essence of the story pods comes from the oldest and most powerful of all Essences—the life-spark, the Essence of creation itself. … And so, over time, the Essence of the tales enmeshed and interwove with all the other Essences linked to that life-spark, strengthening them, too—strengthening unity and love, joy and creativity and hope. (231-33).

The corollary is that without the story pods, the world will be blanketed in despair, like the poisoning of the Rushdie’s Sea of Stories… In the final scenes, in a flash of insight, Calantha understands:

The Plainsfolk must, they must learn to tell the tales. Tales from the story pods, yes, but more—they must also learn to tell their own tales. Mend their own hope, stoke their own strength. Oh, they must learn to tell their own tales to fuel their own joy and delight … And when the story pods returned—if the story pods returned—they must still keep telling their tales. That was how the tales would be saved. It was the only way the tales would be saved. (416)

The Sower of Tales can be seen as representing the birth of an oral tradition: stories are no longer given to the people by magical beings, but now must be created by the people, for the people: humanity in Gilmore’s fantasy world has now taken responsibility for its own happiness or despair, its own future narrative.

Devil’s Pass (2012), by Sigmund Brouwer

This review was first published in Resource Links Magazine, “Canada’s national journal devoted to the review and evaluation of Canadian English and French resources for children and young adults.” It appears in volume 18.1.

Devil’s Pass

In the vein of Monique Polak’s excellent Middle of Everywhere (2009), Sigmund Brouwer’s Devil’s Pass takes a young urban Torontonian on an adventure of a lifetime in Canada’s wild north. Both novels are poignant investigations into how culture shock and isolation can be powerful motivators in identity formation, but where Polak’s protagonist learns a lot about himself and his place in the world, about cultural values and what really matters, there is a sense of security in his life that is noticeably absent from 17-year-old Webb’s experiences in Devil’s Pass.
Webb is a street kid—by choice. He has run away from an abusive step-father and a mother he loves but who remains in ignorance of Webb’s reality, an ignorance Webb painfully perpetuates to protect her from her borderline psychotic husband.  Upon the death of his beloved grandfather, Webb is thrust into an adventure—orchestrated by his grandfather as part of his legacy—that takes him to the Canol Heritage Trail in the Northwest Territories in search of answers to a mystery from his grandfather’s youth. The quest itself is interesting enough to engage the reader immediately and consistently: Brouwer feeds us clues little by little, artfully reeling us in to the tension that Webb feels both within himself and in the world around him. Webb’s street-smarts come into play when he runs foul of a local troublemaker in Norman Wells, where the hiking portion of his quest begins.  The combination of the social problems Webb must deal with (poverty, homelessness, abuse, police harassment), the grief he struggles with at the loss of both his mother and his grandfather, and his need to complete the task his grandfather has set for him, drive Webb forward with a determination that readers will not only admire, but understand. Webb is not a strong, self-assured hero; rather, he is a troubled, angry young man, sometimes scared, and certainly seeking for a home and security in an unfriendly world. In the end, we are not know certain he will manage the road he has chosen, but we applaud the choices that he ultimately makes.
Devil’s Pass is one of seven novels written by seven separate authors, about the seven grandsons of David McLean, each of whom is sent on a quest as part of his inheritance: Webb’s journey will certainly inspire readers to seek out the other novels in the series, in the hope that they are as satisfying in term of both intrigue and emotional veracity.