Just finished, ‘Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott & Her Father,” by John Matteson. At first I was suspicious. The book is footnoted and I suspected it of academia (oh cursed word) but it turned out to be simply scholarly, objective and a great quoter of their work by someone with a close [...]

Despite one book being unfortunately PINK, Purves lets you into how women feel in mid-family raising. In these novels you’ll get it too. (Free Woman, Casting Off). She shows you how a family operates, what can tear it down, build it up. A modern Dickens but not as long-winded, Purves KNOWS who these women are. [...]

You know I’m a retired bookseller, sometime prison librarian, writer and general raver when I find a writer that does it? I’m fussy and discriminating, not into the F– word being thrown around as an excuse for abandoning excellent writing. I’VE GOT STANDARDS! Which is where A. Lee Martinez comes in. Whatta dream! He’s holding [...]

Curly-haired artist, Chris Dawber, has finally gone public with a series of twelve paintings that echo him all over. From his Bear & Jackal Studio outside Kingston, Ontario, Canada, they are compelling themes from his dreams. A list of the paintings: Sandcranes, Southwest, Sris-Crow, Algonquin Shore, Artic Spring, Fossils, Grandfathers, Gull, Interpretations, Trickster & The [...]

Inspired by Erin Hunter  On the first day of cat-mus my mate gave to me A kit mother sitting in her cave…  12 leader s dying 11 deputies hunting 10 medicine cats healing 9 warriors wounded 8 apprentices eating 7 queens-a-nursing 6 kits-a-feeding 5 elders 4 stone-tellers 3 prey-hunters 2 cave-guards And a kit-mother sitting [...]

Nowhere is it more true that a book can be like ‘a vacation in the pocket,’ than with PLEASANTLY DEAD by Judith Alguire. (Signature Editions, Doug Whiteway Ed., 185 pp. 2009).  ‘The Pleasant’ is the name of an Inn in Ontario Cottage Country, the sort of place that would be packed to the rafters, if [...]

 Off Our Rockers and Into Trouble: The Raging Grannies  by Alison Acker Edition: Paperback Price: CDN$ 19.95   Availability: In Stock   22 used & new from CDN$ 0.01       ‘Off’ Moved, Entertained & Enlightened Me!, Aug 7 2004 Off Our Rockers is the best kind of personal non-fiction. In many ways it qualifies [...]

After The Six O’Clock News, Kemeny Babineau Book Thug Publications Toronto, Ontario 2009 It bears re-reading, this book of poems by Kemeny Babineau’s, ‘After The Six O’clock.’  Some bits just have a sense of rightness to them, that, ‘Of COURSE!’ feeling, like ‘ I care us ich,’  It’s been a long time since I felt [...]

Review of Looking for Snow Fleas and Other Mysteries, (Complete with activities for finding and exploring them) by Diane Dawber, Borealis Press, Oct, 08, $12.95 For a child, a good book is when a lot of things come together; text, pictures, something challenging but fun to puzzle out and a way to take it with [...]

Mother Time, Joanne Arnott’s sixth book, is as strong on the time as it is on the mothering. (Ronsdale Press, 2007, 139pp, ISBN 978-155380-046-0). ‘Enchantment & Freedom,’ for example: ‘When did the chant begin? How many generations or thousands of years, shaken in the womb to the same damn rhythm…” Measuring, (“today I have been [...]