The Wolsenburg Clock by Jay Ruzesky Published by Thistledown Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $18.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-62-1 BC poet-turned-novelist Jay Ruzesky’s The Wolsenburg Clock is an admirable book, and I recommend you take time to read it. It’s often riotous. It’s impeccably researched. And its passionate characters offer minute-by-minute fun. Best of all, it made me recall the singular experience of being swept up in a good, old-fashioned fable. Yes, the years wound back as I read this book, and I felt a child’s delight again. The story unspools at a civilized pace, in a way reminiscent of novels of an earlier era. This is most fitting, as the novel traces the conception, building, and rebuilding of an astronomical clock through the Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Modern periods of history, and it delivers us into the hearts and minds of the brilliant engineers who understood and added to the clock’s magic. Think carved stone; copper; dials; statues; a model of the universe; crowing cocks; blossoming flowers; and automatons so realistic and advanced, they play musical instruments, walk tightropes, and “juggle whining kittens.” In the prologue we meet an academic on sabbatical in the small Austrian city of Wolsenburg. The…

Danger in Dead Man’s Mine by Dave Glaze Published by Coteau Books for Kids Reviewed by Shanna Mann $8.95 ISBN1-978-1-55050-416-3 Danger in Dead Man’s Mine is a great book, especially for reluctant readers. The Mackenzie Davis Files (this book is third in the series) is set in 1912 on the prairies. The author does a terrific job of settling the reader into the era without being too obtrusive. It’s possible that the younger reader will not even notice the quaint details, like the fact that dishes are washed in a basin, not a sink, using soap flakes, not detergent, and the dirty water is carefully toted outside to water the vegetables. Mackenzie travels with his mother and sister to Lethbridge, so that his mother can take care of his pregnant aunt. Since his uncle is sick, his aunt is bedridden, and his mother has her hands full with the household, Mackenzie and his cousins are at loose ends. Unlike a lot of books, the author doesn’t make the mistake of allowing his protagonist to make extravagant changes and experience sweeping success. Instead, he shows the boys hunts gophers for a few pennies (there is a bounty on the tails) or…

White Light Primitive by Andrew Stubbs Published by Hagios Press Review by Andréa Ledding $17.95 ISBN 978-0-9783440-8-5 Breathtaking and profound, White Light Primitive is the first poetry collection of Regina writer and University of Regina English professor Andrew Stubbs, and reads like a collection from a seasoned and well established poet in his prime. Stubbs fills the beautifully written pages with wisdom, diversity, and detail. An author of three other books, a teacher of composition and rhetoric, and a student of Eli Mandel, Stubbs demonstrates his belief in Mandel’s claim that “memory is sacred” throughout the collection. A brief but moving essay opens the book, explaining the inspiration of the first section, “War” – poetry inspired by a shoebox of photographs from his father’s experiences during World War II. In exploring and speculating upon his father’s generational memories – which included the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp – Stubbs carefully crafts language to hand over to the reader delicately rendered snapshots of life based largely around war, memory, and loss. “As I went through my father’s pictures I learned a lesson. You can look straight at a thing and not see it, despite the cool, apparently natural co-operation of…

His Sweet Favour by Diane Tucker Published by Thistledown Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $16.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-64-5 In my experience, it’s rare to discover a young adult novel in which the characters are allowed to think, act, and speak without censure. Even though the fictional characters may be on the cusp of adulthood, the powers that be (editors, publishers, reviewers) sometimes argue that said teens lack credibility if their words and deeds are “too mature.” As both a writer and a mother (who has seen her offspring through their teens) I absolutely disagree—in fact, in literature I feel there’s often too much pandering toward the youth-as-innocents argument—and thus it was refreshing to meet the intelligent, articulate, and not-so-innocent crew in Burnaby, BC writer Diane Tucker’s first novel, His Sweet Favour. Tucker, who has also published two poetry collections, delivers an atmospheric story about loyalty, love, and loss. It’s gritty, it’s imaginative (ie: there is an element of telepathy between characters), and it speaks to the kaleidoscoping emotions that people of any age experience in times of great transition, while asking the intriguing question: Can things be too good? The story revolves around Favour and her four closest friends, all…