SaskBooks Reviews

Women Who Dig: Farming, Feminism, and the Fight to Feed the Worldby Trina MoylesPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Kris Brandhagen$34.95 ISBN 9780889775275 Trina Moyles traveled for three years to eight countries to conduct research for her book Women Who Dig: Farming, Feminism, and the Fight to Feed the World, upon learning that her great grandmother farmed singlehandedly in Saskatchewan while her husband and sons fought in WWI. Moyles thought that the stories of other female farmers might also be hidden, and felt passionate about bringing them to light. Moyles limited her research to specific areas and conditions, such as the Maya-Mam in the Comitancillo province in Guatemala, whose farms are threatened by the presence of a Canadian gold mine, and undocumented Mexican women in Sonoma County California who pick grapes all night long, facing possibilities of abuse, violence, rape, illness and injury. A goat farmer in Salt Spring Island BC uses loopholes to provide raw milk to her community; a woman in Peace County Alberta has started a community supported farm, where members pay for the product in advance; and an Edmonton urban farmer plants on vacant lots in exchange for produce. Farmers in the Rio San Juan…

10 Essential Rules for Successful Grant Writing: Get the Money Your Non-Profit Organization Needs by Robert Friedrich Published by Last Mountain Publishers Review by Kris Brandhagen $29.00 ISBN 9780995962606 Written by Robert Friedrich, who has over thirty combined years of experience in the field, as a program manager, officer and funding agent, 10 Essential Rules for Successful Grant Writing: Get the Money Your Non-Profit Organization Needs is a nonfiction guide book for grant proposal writers. Right from the beginning, Friedrich includes apt questions to get the reader started on their own application. He uses clear, straightforward language and real world examples to get his points across. The key points are clearly identified in bold type, fleshed out by examples, making it easy for the reader to use this book as a step by step guide right from the brainstorming stage. Friedrich explains each rule in a short chapter, ending with an exercise. He also includes many quotations from the point of view of the funding organization; although these are unattributed, they are still extremely useful. The structure of most of the chapters include simple diagrams, charts, lists, and callouts that highlight key points, increasing readability. There is a concise guide…

Angels and Avalon by Catherine Milos Review by Kris Brandhagen $17.99 ISBN 9780994762900 In the novel Angels and Avalon, Catherine Milos uses vivid language to deliver a story that seems to have been written with a feminine reader in mind. The main character is introduced as a young princess with magical qualities who has been imprisoned her whole life, but has somehow managed to escape. The storyline is structured in short chapters that jump between different perspectives. For instance, chapter two is centered around The Goddess. Despite the fact that she is forbidden to create without the other gods, she creates a land called Avalon, which she conceals. To complete the land, Goddess transports the princess to live there, and names her Adamina. Milos draws upon paganism, monotheistic religions, and mythology, with Avalon representing a sort of garden of Eden, a new and fertile world. Adamina becomes the first priestess of The Goddess, and quickly learns to hunt and gather, grow a garden, shear sheep, and weave. With a goddess to guide Adamina, an owl to advocate for her, and an angel to provide food, clothing, shelter, and an undying fire, the story is a little too perfect. When Adamina…

Holy War: Cowboys, Indians, and 9/11s by Mark Cronlund Anderson Published by University of Regina Press Review by Kris Brandhagen $27.95 ISBN 9780889774148 In his academic book, Holy War: Cowboys, Indians, and 9/11s, Mark Cronlund Anderson states that “the 9/11 event and the response to it, collectively the ‘9/11 story,’ are as old as the nation that was born fighting Native Americans.” He is uniquely positioned to take on this bold claim because of the vast extent of research used to back up his claims, and because he is an insider/outsider, being American born, but living in Canada. He asserts that “the media’s 9/11 story also derives from a deep mythical precedent: America’s frontier narrative. Its creation story. It serves up a contemporary retelling of America’s creation myth and serves the invaluable and necessary function of ritual symbolic rebirth.” It follows that school textbooks, the press, and popular culture have solidified the myth by repetition since the frontier wars. Anderson writes, “Americans have claimed divine succor and sanction for 400 years. Accordingly, the nation assumes the right to strike at its enemies with extreme force because the right of self-defense is embraced as timeless and universal.” He further states that…

The Decolonizing Poetics of Indigenous Literatures by Mareike Neuhaus Published by University of Regina Press Review by Kris Brandhagen $29.95 ISBN 9780889773905 The highly readable academic text The Decolonizing Poetics of Indigenous Literatures by Mareike Neuhaus is meant as a “handbook or manual designed to teach holophrastic reading so that readers may apply this method in their own approaches to Indigenous writing.” Neuhaus thinks of Indigenous poetics “primarily as a way of making sense of Indigenous expressions, as a set of tools that readers may use when they read Indigenous texts.” According to Neuhaus, “Indigenous storytellers working in their ancestral languages may express and event and its participants using a single word.” This is called a holophrase. “Holophrastic reading, on the other hand, is concerned with reading for holophrastic influences in English-language texts by Indigenous storytellers and writers.” Her aim is to guide readers in understanding how “Indigenous literatures grow out of different realities than do Anglo-American literatures.” Oftentimes Indigenous authors record stories with their community as their intended audience, as such, their adherence to standard English is not always the intention. In terms of structure, this book is very well laid out, and surprisingly transparent in its uses. The…

The Knowledge Seeker: Embracing Indigenous Spirituality by Blair Stonechild Published by University of Regina Press Review by Kris Brandhagen $32.95 ISBN 9780889774179 Blair Stonechild’s background, experience, the extent of his research, and the careful attention with which he presents the ideas make his latest book, The Knowledge Seeker: Embracing Indigenous Spirituality, an important contribution to knowledge. He has been highly involved in talking with elders to compile their oral knowledge; Stonechild summarizes the ideas of the elders, then comments on the ideas presented using his own spare conversational tone. While I am not from an Indigenous culture, community, or spirituality, reading this book allowed me a greater understanding of life, its stages, and its challenges. On an intellectual level, this is the most believable book about spirituality that I have ever read. This is an academic book, not a spiritual text in itself, but it does outline some very basic concepts that I find highly believable, and simple enough to inform understanding and even day to day living. It is not my place to summarize the ideas contained in this book, but I can present some of the basic concepts that I find particularly stimulating: that each person is a…

Burning in this Midnight Dream by Louise Bernice Halfe Published by Coteau Books Review by Kris Brandhagen $16.95 9781550506655 Burning in this Midnight Dream by Louise Bernice Halfe is a book of poetry contrasted by photographs, centered around the Truth and Reconciliation process. In her preamble, Halfe states that the book is intended to “share more of that truth. Think of all the children, and weep. Children fed to pedophile priests and nuns. Children whipped and starved. Families and communities destroyed […] courtesy of the Canadian government. Courtesy of the Canadian public.” Halfe bravely records her memories, of being at residential school, the effect it had on herself and others, and how those experiences have stained life afterward. She struggles between reluctance and desire to share her knowledge. In the acknowledgements, she writes, “I would not have written this story if it wasn’t for the interest of my children […] and my need to describe a history that remains present.” The poems recoil through time and space, comprising a glimpse as opposed to a complete narrative. “I know this landslide / is hard to bear. I’ve pulled the stink weeds for you / to ingest.” Halfe includes her own trepidations,…

Small Displays of Chaos by Breanna Fischer Published by Coteau Books Review by Kris Brandhagen $12.95 9781550506617 Breanna Fischer’s book Small Displays of Chaos is about a girl from Saskatoon SK who develops an eating disorder during her last two years of high school. The main character, Rayanne Timko, assigns herself a fitness goal as part of a grade ten gym class project. She likes this because tracking calories appeals to her. In the beginning, her goal is “eat healthier, exercise more.” She earns the highest score for the assignment, but when it is over, she doesn’t want to stop. Fischer really gets inside the head of her character, juxtaposing action with stark, confessional journal entries. “Today I will count. Today I will starve. I will turn into myself like an imploding star. Just like yesterday.” As her obsession turns into addiction, she becomes her eating disorder. Without it, she doesn’t know who she is. The main focus of the book is what happens in Rayanne’s mind as she starves herself, developing visual, auditory, and tactile hallucinations of Edie (this could be a pun on ED, or eating disorder), taunting, pushing, and demanding that she lose more weight. When her…

Rogues and Rebels: Unforgettable Characters from Canada’s West by Brian Brennan Published by University of Regina Press Review by Kris Brandhagen $24.95 9780889773981 Rogues and Rebels: Unforgettable Characters from Canada’s West by Brian Brennan provides a survey of some famous, notorious, and little known people who contributed to Canadian history. In Brennan’s profile of Margaret “Ma” Murray (1888-1982), the reader can tell that he is pleased with his subject. As a young lady, Margaret did the books for a saddle company in Kansas City, where she “amused herself by including personal notes with the saddles being shipped to Alberta.” When “some of the cowboys replied and sent photographs of themselves,” she moved to Canada “in hopes of meeting and marrying a handsome cowboy of mythic proportions.” She took a bookkeeping job with a Vancouver newspaper where she met her future husband, the owner of the newspaper. Together they started the Bridge River-Lillooet News, where she “churned out the provocative opinion columns that would become her trademark. Written in what she liked to call ‘flapdoodle vernacular,’ they were sprinkled with such salty expressions as ‘damfool critters’ and ‘that’s fer damshur.’” Brennan’s biography of Ma Murray is insightful and witty, reflecting her…

Fists Upon a Star: A Memoir of Love, Theatre, and Escape from McCarthyism by Florence Bean James with Jean Freeman Published by University of Regina Press Review by Kris Brandhagen $27.95 9780889774070 Fists Upon a Star is the memoir of a determined theatre director, Florence Bean James. It also chronicles the history of her theatre, the Seattle Repertory Playhouse. The book begins with the opening of the Playhouse, establishing a frank and journalistic voice. James establishes a sense of foreboding through the use of elegant foreshadowing right from the beginning. The reader already knows from the cover of the book that the Great Depression and McCarthyism would enter into the narrative at some point. She increases the suspense by backtracking to her upbringing and education. James decides to follow her teacher’s footsteps and pursue a post secondary education in Boston–quite a thing for a woman born in 1892 in Pocatello, Idaho. It was at Emerson College where she met her husband Burton James. Since they became such a dynamic duo, always working together, it is also difficult to separate her husband from her memoir, for the most part it is a memoir of them and their work. Surprisingly, the James’…