Reviews

Every day kids head off to school for to learn valuable lessons – both academic and social. In a perfect world, a child’s biggest worry should be the homework they forgot to do, or the gym shorts they left at home. But the reality is that these days, children have a lot more to deal with, and this sometimes includes extreme violence in schools. 19 Minutes broaches the subject of what happens when a child is pushed beyond their limit, and embarks on a shooting spree at school. A mere 19 minutes is all it takes for Peter Houghton’s life – and the lives of his victims – to change forever.

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If you’ve ever sat around a dining table, completely absorbed by multiple streams of conversation, sipping strong coffee or tea, and found yourself desperate for what my grandmother called “a little something,” you are the kind of person who would appreciate Crane Hill Cookies: petite biscotti in a variety of interesting flavors, and the perfect balance of crunch and

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Zerkala (aka: Mirror) is an autobiography by Andrei Tarkovsky (directed and co-written) from 1975. A beautiful and extremely personal biography with powerful, and sometimes surreal imagery, the story interweaves dream sequences, past memories, original poetry (from Tarkovsky’s father) and historical footage. Almost every frame could be a photo. This is a story of memories, life, death, regrets, love, guilt and forgiveness.

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Ticket to Ride by Dennis Potter is the kind of book you probably need to re-read to fully appreciate, and I definitely plan on rereading this. Potter’s writing is seductively lyrical. I found myself re-reading sentences and paragraphs just so I could savour the imagery or mood he created. I’m usually a fairly quick reader, but I found myself purposefully taking my time with this book.

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It’s always refreshing to come across a YA novel where the protagonist is not a blue-eyed blonde from suburbia. In Mitali Perkins’ novel Secret Keeper not only is the lead character, Asha, not blonde, but she lives in Delhi (and later Calcutta).

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In Saundra Mitchell’s spooky, sultry YA novel Shadowed Summer we are following protagonist Iris around a post-Katrina Ondine, Louisiana, as she and her friends play at being psychic mediums, collect “spells” in spiral notebooks, and play with Ouija Boards in graveyards, even managing to raise a real ghost, but as entertaining as the supernatural element in this story is, it’s the natural parts that are more compelling.

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Parker Prescott, lead character in Bethany Griffin’s YA novel Handcuffs, is the middle child in her alliteratively named family, and is also the quiet, bookish, geeky one. So aloof and quiet is she, in fact, that her sister and classmates have nicknamed her The Ice Princess.

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Although it does contain several recipes, The Flavor Bible, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, is not a cookbook. It isn’t really a bible either, for that matter. If I had to classify this book it would be half dictionary, half encyclopedia, and all wonderful.

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It may seem a bit late to review an album that is ostensibly Christmas music, but the latest offering from Yo-Yo Ma (& Friends) transcends the season.

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