Longhorns & Outlaws

“Longhorns & Outlaws”
by Linda Aksomitis
Published by Coteau Books for Kids
Review by Sandy Bonny
$ 8.95 ISBN 978-1-55050-378-4

After losing his Dutch immigrant parents and sister to the Galveston TX Hurricane of 1900, twelve-year-old Lucas finds solace in his friends, his school work, and his favourite books – Wild West detective stories where ‘Pinkerton Agents’ track and capture outlaws. Then Lucas’s sixteen-year-old brother Gil shows up fresh off a cattle drive and Lucas is suddenly thrust into learning the ins and outs of being a cowboy.

Having heard of an uncle living in Canada, Gil signs the boys on with the J Bar J Ranch, a cattle outfit driving two thousand ‘beeves’ north through Montana to Saskatchewan along the Lewis and Clark trail. Greenhorn Lucas and his reluctant Nez Perce roan, Ebenezer, have a lot to teach each other, and their mishaps ‘riding drag’ behind the cattle are good entertainment. Watching the cowboys work and listening to their stories about the geography and history of the West, Lucas, who had never ‘thought about learning any other way than from books and in a schoolroom,’ comes to a grudging realization that Gil, who can’t read or write, has still ‘learned plenty.’

It takes longer for Gil to see Lucas as more than a boy, half-grown ‘between hay and grass.’ Gil tells Lucas to quit dreaming about being a Pinkerton Agent when he sees him examining outlaws on wanted posters. It looks like Gil may be right when, distracted by imaginary outlaws, Lucas becomes responsible for the death of a calf. But when Lucas stumbles across a real outlaw camp and overhears plans for a train robbery, Gil still won’t listen, even though Lucas is pretty sure that one of the outlaws was the Sundance Kid, and another the notorious Dutch Henry.

Once they cross the Canadian border, outlaws break into the J Bar J camp and steal Ebenezer along with the other horses. Lucas rallies his courage to rescue the his horse and save the J Bar J outfit, but in doing so he uncovers a secret that jeopardizes his dreams for a quiet schoolboy life with his uncle. Lucas faces a difficult decision at the end of the book, which sets family loyalties against the line of the law, and it is this decision that finally earns Lucas his brother’s respect.

Lucas’s adventure is set among real historical places and events in the Canada-US Wild West and is infused with details about Dutch, French, and Michif culture. Cowboy lingo, as well as Dutch and French words, are used throughout the book with a glossary explaining their meanings. The story itself is exciting, but these authentic details really carry the reader into 1900’s cowboy culture. Young fans of Western fiction are in for a treat with Aksomitis’s Longhorns and Outlaws.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR VISIT WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Published in:  on 26 August 2009 at 11:28 am Leave a Comment
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Love and Laughter: A Healing Journey

“Love and Laughter: A Healing Journey”
by Catherine Ripplinger Fenwick
Printed by St. Peter’s Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$21.95 ISBN 1-896971-34-2

The last time I was in McNally Robinson in Saskatoon, I happened past the self-help section and was amazed at its size. I was thinking about this as I read “Crises are part of the human condition …” in the introduction to Catherine Ripplinger Fenwick’s “Love and Laughter: A Healing Journey”. The book, an expansion on her popular 2004 title, “Healing With Humour,” is in part “a psychological and spiritual first aid kit.” Inside it the Regina author, therapist, and educator offers anecdotes, quotations, poetry, prayers, jokes, affirmations, activities, cartoons, strategies, and information on making humour and hope part of daily life, which results in a healthier and more joyful existence. It is both a “work-book and a play-book,” and for those who need a lift, it could be just what the doctor ordered.

After a breast cancer diagnosis in 1990, Ripplinger Fenwick set out on her lifelong goal to write a book, recognizing the importance “healthy humour and hope” would play in her healing journey. She maintains that laughter is important because it “enriches all aspects of life,” and because it reduces stress, it also encourages numerous physical benefits, including the production of “endorphins and disease fighting immune cells.”

The book is bursting with fun and interesting suggestions for examining and improving one’s emotional life. It begins with a quiz which tests one’s “L.Q.” (“Laughter Quotient”), suggests readers keep a “thanksgiving journal,” and create a “Healing Activities Chart.” The writer recommends making a “Love and Laughter First Aid Kit.” Hers consists of books, photo albums, games, toys, wigs, and “dress-up” costumes. I wonder what mine would include?

I appreciated her ideas for a walking meditation (thinking positive thoughts like “My mind is sharp and clear. My soul is at peace” while walking); for hosting a “Tell only funny stories” party; and for writing a “laughter contract with yourself,” but especially interesting for me was the harkening back to innocent childhood joy.

Ripplinger Fenwick acknowledges the role our own childhoods make to our happiness as adults, but she makes the critical point that “We are never too old to have a happy childhood.” That’s beautiful. She suggests reading uplifting children’s stories, like “The Velveteen Rabbit,” and includes a “Visualizing Your Inner Childlike Self” exercise. There’s a priceless anecdote about a Special Olympics race during which the young participants all stopped when one runner fell shortly after the start signal. One child “kissed [the crying boy] on the cheek and said, ‘This will make it better.’ A few minutes later the ‘competitors’ linked arms and walked across the finishing line together. They were all winners.”

The author quotes Chief Dan George, Mark Twain, Confucius, Deepak Chopra, Thomas Aquinas, and the Buddha, to name a diverse and inspiring few, and she includes a “References and Recommended Reading” list.

Yes, crises are part of the human condition, but as the author writes, “[you can] overcome them as well as anyone.” “Love and Laughter” is her handbook for happiness. It can be yours, too.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Published in:  on 19 August 2009 at 1:28 pm Leave a Comment
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The Serpent’s Veil

“The Serpent’s Veil”
By Maggi Feehan
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Judith Silverthorne
Price $18.95
ISBN 978-1-897235-56-0

Constance Stubbington wakes up in a hospital in London, England in 1899 after being thrown from a horse. The severe implications of her medical condition are withheld from her, as are the whereabouts of her father. In fact, she doesn’t recall much of her life at first, though there seem to be hints that she has spent some of her time in India during the time of colonialism. So begins Maggi Feehan’s intriguing first novel, “The Serpent’s Veil.”

As this tale unfolds, Constance experiences a series of flashbacks and dreams. She sometimes shares these with Ank Maguire, her Irish surgeon’s assistant, whom she comes to trust. They also discover they share a spiritual connection that sometimes gives them positive insights and sometimes seems to cause problems. Constance has especially strong intuitions, which help her unravel ten years of her personal journey as she pieces her life together while still in hospital.

They both have former lives and family traditions that haunt them. As they come to terms with these, they find that entering the world of intuition help transform them. This also brings the pair closer together in an unexpected way.

This novel is a memorable one, which alternates chapters between the two main characters. Their individual stories bring more depth and a multifaceted understanding as to why and how the pair is drawn to one another. The author also weaves the background of each character’s story with historic details that are spellbinding and informative. Personal perceptions captivate the reader as they are led through the impact of the birth and death of family members, and finding their own reasons for living.

“The Serpent’s Veil” explores everyday lives of the characters before and after they meet, and how sharing mystical revelations alters their consciousness and lives forever. Maggi Feehan’s powerful writing provides a satisfying tale.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR VISIT WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Published in:  on 12 August 2009 at 11:53 am Leave a Comment
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Dinosaur Blackout

“Dinosaur Blackout”
by Judith Silverthorne
Published by Coteau Books
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$8.95 ISBN 978-1-55050-375-3

It’s unusual to begin the fourth novel in a series without having read the three previous. Would the book stand on its own, I wondered? Or would it be like arriving late to a party and feeling lost? I needn’t have worried. Judith Silverthorne, the award-winning Regina author of “Dinosaur Blackout,” has created a time-travel adventure for juvenile readers that definitely pulls its own weight.

The rich story concerns young Daniel, who lives on a farm in Saskatchewan’s Frenchman River Valley near Eastend, home of the T.rex Discovery Centre. Daniel’s a budding paleontologist and a great kid. He helps his parents with chores; has forgiven the delinquent and bullying Nelwin brothers; cares for his toddling sister; assists tourists who visit the quarry’s archaeological dig-site and campground; and is a sensitive friend to elderly neighbour\paleontologist Ole Pederson. Daniel enjoys “the best of all worlds … living the rural life and being able to dig for dinosaur bones.”

The boy has learned how to use prehistoric foliage to travel back to the Cretaceous Period, where dinosaurs like the Stygimoloch – a fossil of which was discovered on his family’s land – roar and roam. When the Stygimoloch bones disappear before Pederson and his cohort, Dr. Roost, can “retrieve the entire fossil and verity it,” they and a reluctant Daniel return to the “treacherous world of the dinosaurs” for observation and photos.

Silverthorne invents a credible Cretaceous landscape and creatures by appealing to readers’ senses and by seamlessly weaving facts – ie: “Edmontonosaurus were thought to have had sixty rows of teeth” and were “almost twice the weight of a rhinoceros” – into her story. She also does a superb job of local colour. It’s easy to visualize the buttes and coulees, where “Obvious deer and antelope trails criss-crossed on the hard ground, amid tufts of grass and the occasional clump of black-eyed Susans.” The breeze “rippled foxtails like waves on a gentle sea,” she writes, and “Meadowlarks and red-winged black birds fluted.”

She’s done an exemplary job of establishing the farm scenes, where everyone works together, whether that’s “Loading pitchforks with manure and heaping it onto the stoneboat” or saddling up the trail-ride horses for tourists. Daniel’s family and another operate these ventures “as a way of providing extra income to keep their farms alive.” Pretty realistic.

There’s much spirited dialogue in this easy-to-read novel, and it never rings a false note. The writer’s skills are also apparent in her offering of just enough information about Daniel’s previous trips to prehistoric time to make us feel we’ve been along on all the other journeys.

And speaking of journeys … once back in the past, how will the characters stop T.rex from annihilating them? What might they you use to “knock out a dinosaur,” and how will they apply it?

The greatest tests for a novel series are whether its individual books can stand alone, and whether reading one compels readers to seek the others. “Dinosaur Blackout” passes these tests with (Pterodactylus) flying colours.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Published in:  on 6 August 2009 at 11:16 am Leave a Comment
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