For this year’s “I Read Canadian” Day (that’s today), I decided to list books by Canadian authors I’ve read in the past year. And — to adopt a phrase used by the cheesiest of stories online — you won’t believe what I discovered! More than half of the 100 books I read were Canadian! Here are some favourites: Canadian Fiction Butter…

This International Women’s Day post picks up from last month’s post left off, and offers my reaction to a few books by women—fiction and non-fiction—that I’ve rated highly on goodreads so far this year. Pluck: A Memoir of a Newfoundland Childhood and the Raucous, Amazing Journey to Becoming a Novelist  by Donna Morrissey As a longtime…

When I delivered the 33rd Helen Stubbs Memorial Lecture in the fall of 2021, one of my themes was women. I started it with a reading from Saturday Walk, a book I’d read as a child, back in the 1950s. It’s about a young boy walking with his dad observing all the men at work…

My local librarian recently urged a new book upon me: It Began With a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way, written by Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Julie Morestad. Gyo’s name rang a bell. I couldn’t think why. Soon I recognized her as the creator of books my children and I enjoyed together, forty-some…

Of this year’s 35 nominations for Governor General’s Literary Awards, I have so far read three — all of them, coincidentally, connected to my work at CNIB. Late Breaking by K.D. Miller – Fiction  K.D. Miller was on staff in the CNIB Recording Studio during most of my almost sixteen years there. Alex Colville paintings served…

I love to read aloud. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been a volunteer at the CNIB for 15 years now. I’ve recently completed narrating my 50th book there (Beholden by Lesley Crewe). It’s called narrating because it’s not always a matter of simply reading the words on the page, clearly and accurately with no extraneous…

Neil Gaiman says, “Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you’d most like not to lose.” I agree. I can’t even decide on my favourite five from the books I’ve read just this year. I can pick one favourite non-fiction book, in part because I read less non-fiction than fiction, and…

Writing for more hours of my days at Fool’s Paradise than I imagined possible left little time for reading and for those intense four weeks I had little interest in any fiction beyond my own. I did, however read three books: Doris McCarthy: Ninety Years Wise by Doris McCarthy Celebrating Life: The Art of Doris…

Wiggling slowly back into a regular work routine, as temperatures fall (especially over the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival weekend!) and as leaves begin showing their fall colours in my part of the country, I’m pausing here to recommend two very different books I gave 5-star reviews to this summer. A way of trying to hold…

The last Monday of the month for some years now I’ve been meeting with a group of women to discuss books. My idea for this post was to write about this group, as we’re soon to take a break and embark on the season of summer reading, perhaps mention a book or two we’ve read…

Poetry is not a big part of my reading life, but that’s not to say it hasn’t been important – as evidenced in “An Intimate Examination of Sock Fluff”, a keynote I delivered at a conference a few years ago. In 2015 Brick Books celebrates 40 years of publishing poetry in Canada with what promises…

One of things I like about December is perusing various lists of the “best books of the year” to see how many I’ve read and which ones I’d like to read. Here are my “best books” of the year. Unlike most lists, these are books I read this year, not necessarily published this year. (And…

Whether you’re a new Mac user or have just upgraded from an earlier Mac operating system, you’re sure to find lots of useful tips in this guide to using Mountain Lion. But don’t be fooled. This “pocket guide” weighs in at a hefty 266 pages. Most of the new features of Mountain Lion make it…

Stories about families, about real people, or at least people that felt real to me reading about them. I loved: the books about Beezus and Henry and Ramona by Beverly Cleary (those that had been written when I was young. I caught up with more Ramona books when my kids were young) the Little House…

I’m doing as much editing as writing these days. One of the projects I’ve been working on as editor is a picture book collaboration between two newcomers to the world of children’s books, Diana Kolpak and Kathleen Finlay. Pretty satisfying to see a starred review (from galleys) for Starfall in the September issue of Q&Q!…

Patsy Aldana has been appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, recognizing “her contributions to children’s publishing in Canada and around the world.” Perhaps best known as publisher of Groundwood Books (which she founded in 1978), Patsy Aldana has also served as president of IBBY International, played leadership roles in publishing associations and school library coalitions,…

Books often pass through the hands of many readers. This year I read Push by Sapphire. I enjoyed it (in the way one can enjoy a terribly sad story), but not enough to keep it. I gave it to my sister. When she was finished with it, she left it on the “Give & Take” bookshelf…

Posted here with the poet’s permission: An Ancient Child The doctor’s waiting room, the quiet flip of  magazine pages. My daughter’s right lung still crackling, and I wish for recovery and punctual doctors. Looking at the floral patterns of china I’ll never buy, when suddenly my daughter laughs, holds up for me to see spread…

The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy by Jill MacLean A great companion book to The Nine Lives of Travis Keating. And I hear there’s to be a third book about this community of kids living in a Newfoundland outport. Can’t wait. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley I don’t read…

I don’t think anyone needs convincing that learning to read is a necessary life skill. Reading aloud to kids is a crucial part of motivating them to want to learn to read. It’s probably also the easiest and most fun way to motivate them. For many people happy memories of being read to as a…

The Teen Advisory Group at the Guelph Public Library launched a campaign recently to encourage residents to discover new books and authors, to use their library more often, and to become more active in their community. They asked all kinds of people to submit a response to their campaign. Here’s what I sent: I still…

I have just finished reading The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara with Susan McClelland. It’s Mariatu’s story of how her life in Sierra Leone was changed when the rebel army attacked her village and cut off her hands. The back cover says it’s a story of “immense courage, resilience, and hope.” Reading of…