Awake and Dreaming (1996), by Kit Pearson

Theodora is the daughter of a single mother who is barely managing to keep herself—never mind her child—in food and clothing.  Theo dreams of having a real family, of not being a pariah at each of the subsequent schools she is sent to as her mother moves from place to place, bad job to bad job, all within Vancouver.  On the ferry to Victoria, when Theo’s mother is taking her to her Aunt’s home—giving Theo away so she can be with her new boyfriend—Theo falls into a dream of being with a family: but the dream is real.  She begins to fade in her new life, though, and awakes, still on the ferry.  Arriving in Victoria at her aunt’s, she finds that the life she knew, the family she was part of, do exist, but are not as ideal as in her waking dream. It is not until she meets the ghost of the author in whose house the family lives that she begins to understand what had happened to her.  Her new knowledge gives her the strength to stop only dreaming, and to work to make her own, real-life situation more endurable.

Despite others’ glowing reviews of this text, and an almost universal lauding of Pearson’s plot and technique, Awake and Dreaming is not—in my opinion—one of Pearson’s best. It does, however, present a unique premise and interesting relationship between the text and the real world.

Parallel Visions (2012), by Cheryl Rainfield

Parallel Visions was available for only 99¢ on a website for ebooks, which seems rather odd, as many cheap or free ebooks are, to be candid, complete trash. I found Cheryl Rainfield’s Hunted to be a gripping story of trial and compassion, so I was interested in what I might find from a cheap ebook by the same author. While Parallel Visions is shorter, at 96 pages, it is equally imbued with a sense of the power of human connection, of how love and compassion ground us within our realities, no matter how alternative those realities may seem.

In Parallel Visions, the protagonist, Kate, is asthmatic; not only that, but every time she has an asthma attack, she sees visions. These visions sometimes reveal the past, sometimes the present, and sometimes the future. It is the future visions that disturb Kate most, because whenever she tries to prevent injury to someone else, she is scoffed at, disbelieved, or worse, ultimately blamed when the horrible predictions in her vision comes true. Kate hates being “the sick kid” at school, and pushes herself harder than she should. When she is helped in an attack by the boy she likes from afar—Gil—she has a vision of both her sister and his: both in future trouble, both safe at the moment. Unlike others, Gil believes her. Together, Gil and Kate work to save their sisters, and in so doing build a relationship founded on trust (with, of course, the requisite amount of teenage romance). Kate ultimately brings on an asthma attack to learn more about what will happen to their sisters, and readers are asked to consider the cost of helping others: at what point is it more important to look after yourself? Is it worth risking your own life, knowingly, to save another’s? While Kate ultimately answers this question unequivocally, the narrative leaves room for consideration by the reader. Kate’s relationship with her family, and with Gil and his, teach her the value of her own life as part of an organic whole that is not only family, but community, and the greater world.

Winter Shadows (2010), by Margaret Buffie

A perfect book to read right now, when shadows are lengthening so early in the day: the air is crisp, our hands thawed by warm breath that hangs in a cloud before dissipating. These days, I can easily imagine Beatrice, “huddled under a pile of buffalo robes” (1) as we first meet her. I have never lived in the prairies, being from the mountains of BC, but Buffie’s descriptions are so vivid that I can see Beatrice’s world, and Cassandra’s more modern version, and feel the difference between the two eras they lived in. I am not by nature adept at creating images from descriptive texts; I generally get a strong feeling for characters in books, but have a problem visualizing their settings. I recognize this as a failing in my role as reader, and am thus overjoyed when an author’s descriptions are effective enough for me to really see the world she creates.

Buffie’s setting carries her carefully designed plot along with it; her ability to intertwine her modern realist stories with the paranormal connections that are the vehicle for growth and learning does not seem to wane. As in her other stories, in Winter Shadows emotional support comes to Cassandra through discovering the truth of Beatrice’s life. Cass is facing the first Christmas with a new step-mother and annoying younger step-sister; she feels betrayed by her father, abandoned by her dead mother, righteous in her anger, and justified in her acting out. While we do not necessarily agree with her—from an adult perspective—we can see why she feels and does what she does… Teen readers would undoubtedly not only sympathize, but empathize with her position, her attitude, and her behaviour. Buffie contrasts Cass’s modern familial problems with those of a young Métis girl, Beatrice, in 1856. Beatrice has returned from school in the East to St. Cuthbert’s, Manitoba, to live with her father and his new wife, Ivy. Ivy, like Cass’s new stepmother, Jean, does not share a culture with her new husband. Beatrice calls her “puritanical” (20), and certainly she has no love of—let alone respect for—Native cultures, including Métis. Beatrice’s story is presented as a combination of conflicts: she suffers both as a daughter with a new step-mother, and as a Métis who loves her grandmother and her culture, yet sees it denigrated by many in her community, including her step-mother. Cass, living in her ancestral home that was also Beatrice’s, begins to see visions of Beatrice’s life, as Beatrice does of Cass. The connection between the two young women causes both of them to doubt not only their sanity, at some level, but also their instinctive emotional responses to their world. Learning of the cultural and social prejudices with which Beatrice suffers helps Cass to put her own problems into perspective; seeing visions of the comparatively strong and emancipated Cass helps Beatrice to stand strong in the choices she has to make.

Layered beneath her plot, Buffie has created a narrative of mid-nineteenth-century Métis culture that is part of a resurgence of and thus growing interest in the Métis historical narrative. Another admirable author in this vein is Jacqueline Guest, whose Belle of Batoche (2004) and Outcasts of River Falls (2012) are more straight-forward historical narratives of Canadian Métis life. I’m not sure if there are others, but these three novels speak strongly to the need for the Métis narrative to be told, to be reconstructed in a way that provides ready access for modern young readers. Winter Shadows, with its combination of carefully researched history and language, and Buffie’s as-always insightful interpretation of modern youth and the issues they face, is for me the perfect combination of reality and metaphor, modernity and paranormal history. While I do not love (understand? identify with? appreciate?) Cass as much as I do Frances Rain, I believe Cass speaks as strongly to young girls today as Frances Rain did almost 25 years ago.

Hunted (2012), by Cheryl Rainfield

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 17.5.

Hunted

While I was reading Cheryl Rainfield’s Hunted, I attended a lecture by Karen Armstrong, founder of the Charter for Compassion.  Listening to Armstrong, lines and scenes from Hunted repeatedly rose up in my mind, and I thought: this is more than a dystopic novel about oppression and intolerance (which it is); it is a powerful narrative example of the strength it takes, within an oppressive culture, to maintain one’s sense of humanity.

In Hunted, Caitlyn and her mother are continually running, changing names, schools, lives… because Caitlyn is a “Paranormal,” a telepathic who can read others’ thoughts and emotions: a power that frightens those without it. In Caitlyn’s world, Paranormals of all kinds must be registered, and once registered, are removed from society and tortured, sometimes forced to hunt other “Paras.” During the uprising that led to this abusive system, Caitlyn’s father was murdered and her brother Daniel taken away; she and her mother fled. After years of running, Caitlyn finally needs to stop, to rest, to blend in. Rejoining society—as much as she is able—is difficult, dangerous, and yet rewarding. Her two new “Normal” friends are similarly, if not equally outcast: Rachel is lesbian and Alex is black. While Rachel’s lesbianism is highlighted as a consideration in her relationship with Caitlyn, Alex’s race is not sufficiently apparent to the reader. When we meet him, we are told that “his skin contrasts with his crisp white shirt” (30), but that could make him Mediterranean, or even just well-tanned. Once, later, Caitlyn mentions his “springy black curls” (148), but no other mention is made until almost he end of the book, when the term “black” is finally used. In our white-washed world, a few more hints would be welcome.

The political aspects of the plot—too complicated to delineate but solidly structured and effective—lead to a crisis for which Caitlyn’s online avatar, Teen-Para, has been made the scapegoat. In the end, sacrifices are made by individuals on both sides, and readers are left with a strong message regarding blanket assumptions about good and evil. Caitlyn’s faith in the goodness, the inherent humanity, of “Normals” is justified, as is her wariness of belief in anyone merely because they are paranormal. There are hints here of Katniss’s response to the politics of Panem in the end of the Hunger Games trilogy: a group being oppressed and thus rebellious does not necessarily equate with that group being right or justified.  What Caitlyn and the reader have reinforced is a message of tolerance of difference, and a wariness of all individuals who seek power at the expense of others.

The Charter for Compassion expounds that “compassion is not an option; it is the key to our survival” (Alastair Smith, Greater Vancouver Compassion Network); faithful to this humanist tenet, Caitlyn strives to create the compassionate world her father envisioned: “Dad dreamed of a world where we could live freely—but he also taught me that all life is precious, Normal or Paranormal, and that we’re all in this together” (294). The power of Hunted is that by the end of the novel, the reader is sure that she is right.

Julie (1985), by Cora Taylor

Cora Taylor’s first novel is an engaging look at the life of a young girl with paranormal abilities. The story is told mostly in flashback, the ten-year-old Julie’s memories of how she had learned to hide her gift, her visions of the past and future.  Through the course of the story, Julie learns what the wise woman of the village, Granny Goderich, tells her she will: “there comes a time when we have to act […] You have to decide, and that’s when the gift can be terrible. Wonderful and terrible.  […] You have to learn when … you have to be strong” (52).  Julie learns her own strength, and moves forward into her future (we are left to surmise) full of the power of her gift and the knowledge of how to use it.

Who Is Frances Rain? (1987), by Margaret Buffie

What is it about Lizzie? Why, out of all of the marvellous protagonists that YA literature contains, does Lizzie captivate me? Every time I read Who is Frances Rain?—and this is the fourth time—I want to know more of Lizzie’s story: I want to see how her final years of highschool progress; I want to know (despite statistics regarding the permanency of highschool romances) more about her relationship with Alex; I want to follow her on the rocky road that the next few years will be. For, once again, Margaret Buffie has created a novel in which there are no solid answers in the end, only hope and promise. Her characters are so real, in both their flaws and their strengths that we implicitly trust in the truth of the narrative, and I at least want to travel with the characters for quite a while longer.

The plot of the novel is fairly simple. Lizzie’s dad has left them, which is difficult for the whole family, but especially for her annoying older brother, Evan. Her mother has recently remarried, and Lizzie and Evan both actively reject Tim, the new husband, and his legitimate attempts to both fit in to and help the family. Here, Buffie’s ability at characterization shines, for Lizzie, Evan, and Tim are all presented in honest human terms: no sugar coating to Evan’s rudeness or Lizzie’s self-centred attempts to sabotage Tim’s positive contributions. Eventually, not surprisingly, Tim can take no more and leaves. This is not a spoiler; it is the guaranteed outcome of the narrative situation Buffie constructs so deftly. But while it is the basic premise of the plot, it is also not the central point. Lizzie’s relationships with Tim—and Evan, and her mother—are a vehicle for the novel’s message that family—and indeed community—does not function unless there is communication, understanding, and forgiveness amongst its members. This is a lesson that Lizzie must learn, and she does so not only through her experiences—both contemporary and paranormal—but also through the pointed jibes of those around her who have had quite enough of her selfishness. At one point, Alex, who has been her brother’s summer friend since childhood, tells her: “You’re running a close neck-and-neck race with Evan for pill of the year, I don’t know why I bother with you” (114). Sometimes we need to hear comments like this; they pull us out of our more self-indulgent emotional moments.

While all of the clues to help her develop a more balance perspective on her family and her own role within it are present in her contemporary world, what really feeds Lizzie’s budding empathy is her experience on Rain Island, where she meets the ghost of Frances Rain. Who is Frances Rain? is more than just an interesting approach to the time-slip novel; Lizzie’s experience of the past crosses the borders of believability in a way that most time-slip novels remain pure fantasy. What she learns through helping Frances Rain’s ghost teaches Lizzie a lot about personal strength and responsibility; by helping Frances Rain find peace, she helps herself understand the difference in degree between her own troubles and those of the adults around her.

Who is Frances Rain? has been challenged and banned a number of times, for its inclusion of both the paranormal and an unwed mother. The illegitimate child in Buffie’s book is born in the early years of the twentieth century, but more than suggesting that such happenings belong in the past and our society has improved since then (a trope that was common in the first six decades of the twentieth century), Buffie is providing a continuity between women of the past and young women such as Lizzie, who are learning to make their own way in our modern world. The physical and emotional fortitude Frances Rain presents is a strength that both Lizzie and the reader can draw on in their own lives: Frances Rain is a part of Lizzie’s past, and shows Lizzie a way to move forward into her future. Perhaps that is why I want Lizzie’s story to go on: I want to be part of her continuing to grow into the strong, self-sufficient woman who was Frances Rain

Angels Turn Their Backs (1998), by Margaret Buffie

The opening of Angels Turn Their Backs is starkly, effectively realist. Addy’s anxiety, her fears, her phobia, are portrayed with a raw emotion that suggests personal experience, or at least a strong familiarity and empathy with the subject. Reading the first two chapters, I thought to myself: where is Margaret Buffie’s signature recourse to the paranormal? How on earth is she going to integrate the paranormal into this powerfully realist exploration of anxiety? I should not have worried (been so anxious…).

Addy suffers from agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces, of leaving the security of one’s home/house/enclosed space to enter into the wide world. She moves to Winnipeg with her mother, who is running from a messy separation, and finds herself in a run-down boarding house, with a “storage” room that makes strange sounds. The strange sounds turn out to be the natural, if exotic, sounds of a African Gray parrot, left by the previous owner of the house. The previous owner, however, provides the paranormal aspect I was waiting for. Lotta Engel had in her old age suffered from agoraphobia, but her tragic story had deeper roots, roots that did not let her soul rest after death. Through the heightened emotional attunement that her condition creates, Addy taps into Lotta’s soul’s distress, and by helping Lotta find peace, Addy ultimately helps herself.

This might seem a simplistic relation of cause and effect, but Buffie has once again created an intricate mosaic of personalities, souls, emotional planes for her characters to embody or inhabit. The ghostly Lotta begs Addy to finish her life’s-work; Page, another border, is caught in an abusive relationship; Harmon, the seemingly lower-class land-lord, is attracted to Addy’s mother, who returns his respect and affection; Harmon’s son Sean is attracted to Addy; Addy is wary of everyone except Page, trusting her intimate acquaintances as little as she trusts the outside world. This complex web of relationships plays out against the internal monologue that is Addy’s mental and emotional state as she struggles with her own affliction and the reality of a world that expects teenagers to attend school, go shopping for their mothers, and generally maintain a social presence in the world. The narrative effect is brilliant, and the reader comes away from the story with a fundamental understanding of how it must feel to suffer from the anxiety that agoraphobia creates, and how hard it is for the world to understand an anxiety that is primarily internal, an anxiety of inaction. Through her undeniable affection for both Page and her mother—and her involvement in Lotta’s history—Addy manages to find the strength to begin to overcome her fears. At the end of the novel, though, her healing has only begun. Buffie is honest in asserting that emotional traumas are not overcome through one monumental incident, but take years of hard work on the part of the sufferer. Through her involvement in the lives of those around her, Addy has taken the first steps on that road; as readers, we trust that the people she loves will support her as she moves towards a fuller healing. Would that all sufferers of agoraphobia and other anxieties had as strong a support system for their journeys.

The Reckoning: The Darkest Powers #3 (2010), by Kelly Armstrong

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 16.1.

The Reckoning

This book is deceiving.  The cover illustration, the title, and the cover blurb all suggest another lame vampire–werewolf–powerless-female triad, so wrapped up in their teenaged angst and hormones that they leave no room for plot or character development.  Not so.  The Reckoning is the third in a series (I hope a series, not a trilogy, although the jacket descriptions use both terms) that is stay-up-to-all-hours gripping.
My one criticism is that the author does not seem to know how to end a story.  Book One, The Summoning (2008) leaves the protagonists separated, captured by their enemies, with no general plan; Book Two, The Awakening (2009), reunites the protagonists then leaves them preparing to infiltrate their enemies’ secret lab; Book Three, The Reckoning (with which we are most concerned) leaves the protagonists more stable in their relationships with one another, and now—finally—aware of who is really on which side, but nonetheless begs for another sequel: the last lines are “We had a lot of work ahead of us, but a lot of adventures, too.  I was sure of that” (389).  I understand how readers, once they become involved in the characters’ lives, are loath to part from a friend, but I really miss a well-structured novel, one like Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), or Margaret Craven’s I Heard the Owl Call My Name (1967): novels that have something to say, and say it within the confines of a narrative progression that provides closure, leaving the reader satisfied that life goes on, but this story has been told.  This, it seems, is not the way of the future…
Narrative overflow aside, the characters in Armstrong’s novels seem honest and authentic representations of teens with difficulties that they are only beginning to understand.  The level of sexual attraction is minimal—as befits early teenagers—and grows during the course of the narrative.  The lessons they learn, however accentuated by the severity of their situation, can easily be translated into young adults’ lives: be careful who you trust; the most friendly person is not always the most honest; know your strengths and weaknesses; take responsibility for your own actions and decisions; exercise your agency; bystanders can get hurt as well.  These are general lessons about navigating the world, wrapped up in a mystical fantasy set in contemporary USA.  Armstrong writes well, and balances the real with the surreal admirably.  I do hope I am right about that sequel…

Seeing Red (2009), by Anne Louise MacDonald

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 14.4.

Seeing Red

Seeing Red incorporates the paranormal into the everyday lives of the protagonist, Frankie and his “not friend” Maura-Lee.  Frankie considers himself incurably normal, but begins to suspect his dreams predict future events; Maura-Lee is accused of being able to read peoples’ minds… The reader discovers the truth long before Frankie believes it, which might be considered a short-coming in the text were it not for MacDonald’s well-developed characterization of Frankie.  Frankie’s completely comprehensible fourteen-year-old-boy insecurities prevent him from easily believing the truth—about either his paranormal or his normal abilities.  The plot elements reveal Frankie’s admirable characteristics as it moves us through the challenges he overcomes.  He learns to ride horses, despite his horror of them, in order to support his autistic charge, Joey; he struggles—emotionally and logistically—to save a wounded petrel; ultimately he comes to understand the true value of others, as well as himself.  Young readers will be able to see themselves in Frankie, and hopefully learn to value their own inner powers, which so often teens are unable to either perceive or believe.

Fright Flight (2011), by Lisa Ard

Lisa Ard’s Dream Seekers series is great fun for younger readers!  It begins with a fascinating and original premise: Patrick, his siblings, and their mother are “dream seekers,” which means that when they dream at night, they actually experience their dreams, not just in their minds but with their entire begins.  The logistics behind this are not fully explored—at least not in Book One: Fright Flight—but I can imagine a few ways that the experiential side of the dream narratives could be justified.  The set up for the series is promising, and the dynamics in the family sound: the siblings share normal childhood rivalries, the mother is teaching her children how to use their intellectual capabilities to control their dreams, and the father—a scientist—is working at discovering the gene that contributes to the condition.

Fright Flight involves Patrick breaking the family “D.R.E.A.M.” rules for reducing dreaming at night: he goes with his friends to a late movie, and has soda (caffeine and sugar), which over-stimulates his mind. His dream that night is of flying a spaceship on a dangerous mission—but he is only 12!  Fortunately, the controls are (not surprisingly) similar to his video gaming system at home…

The plot, the characters, the premise: all of these suggest a strong, engaging narrative. But there are a couple of weaknesses that prevented me from fully enjoying Fright Flight. The style and structure of the books both suggest a much younger readership—say 6 to 8 years of age—than the protagonist’s age and interests. Patrick is 12, and just beginning to be interested in girls, yet the book is a 52-page chapter book far more suited to younger readers. In addition to this discrepancy, the actual writing is stilted, with far too much delivered in a lecturing voice by the narrator or the characters, rather than being effectively revealed to the reader through action or dialogue. But for the younger set, I think we have here a book—a series—that will be fun and enjoyable.