Rink Burgers by Todd Devonshire Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Keith Foster $19.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-74-3 Stompin’ Tom Connors sang about “The Good Old Hockey Game.” Todd Devonshire, in his Rink Burgers memoir, elaborates on what made the good old hockey game so darn good. When his mother calls to say the family home has been sold, Todd realizes he must rescue his childhood possessions before they are gone forever. He and his wife Dawn sort through boxes of memorabilia and souvenirs as Todd reminisces about his glory days as both a player and fan. The memoir is set in the 1980s in Big River, SK., a community where “news travelled like cops going for donuts.” Todd’s memoir is replete with humour, and his robust imagination realistically recreates the antics of his childhood. His exaggerations are so typical of a youngster. He recalls when, as a six-year-old, he scored his first goal and lost his first tooth on the same day. This coincidence could mean only one thing – he was now a real hockey player! Todd describes his coming of age and explores his relationship with his father, from whom he developed his love of hockey. A…

It Takes 2 to Tango, Maybe 3: A Serendipitous Discovery in the Treatment of VLT Gambling Addiction by Clyde Manswell, M.D., Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Catherine Fuchs $14.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-83-5 Dr. Manswell’s book It Takes 2 to Tango, Maybe 3 reveals the complexity of treating gambling addicts. This is the true story of two women who are close friends and gambling buddies. Over time, both women come to be patients of Dr. Manswell’s. This book documents their lives and their struggles with the addiction of gambling. Those who do not suffer from this affliction will be surprised by the creative ways gamblers readjust their lives to accommodate their gambling habit. Gambling addicts will work overtime, cut out regular vacations, and eat jelly sandwiches just so they can finance their trips to the casino. What is even more interesting is that the gamblers themselves are unaware and even surprised when their adaptive behavior is first pointed out to them. The book is not only inspirational it is a page-turner. You will want to know, what is the “ultimate discovery” that these two gambling friends ultimately find that helps them to finally beat their gambling addiction. With Dr….

To Everything a Season by Helen Mourre Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Alison Slowski $16.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-89-7 Helen Mourre’s short story collection, To Everything a Season, is her latest work, after the books Landlocked and What’s Come Over Her from Thistledown Press. Throughout her short stories about parents, about children, about young unmarried men and women, Mourre displays a strong understanding of the bonds that hold community and family together. She captures the reader’s attention by painting a portrait of the hardships families endure while experiencing the loss of a parent, the loss of a spouse, or even the loss of a cherished family home in exchange for a new one. The theme of loss carries through the entire book, paralleled and mitigated by the spark of hope. Though the characters have experienced some dark times, there is always the hope that things will improve. Mourre’s writing is candid and honest, and each swell of each story told, while it may be tragic, is also filled with hope.  Her words are penned with obvious love for the Saskatchewan prairies, a small-town community, and the ties between that community and friends and family. THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT…

Baba’s Babushka: A Magical Ukrainian Easter by Marion Mutala Illustrated by Wendy Siemens Review by Michelle Shaw $ 14.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-70-5 Baba’s Babushka: A Magical Ukrainian Easter, the enchanting sequel to the award-winning Baba’s Babushka: A Magical Ukrainian Christmas is sure to delight Marian Mutala’s many fans. This time it’s spring, and we join Natalia as she is once again swept magically away to a far off land for another uniquely Ukrainian adventure. Natalia is sent outside while the paska, the Easter bread her mother is baking, rises. She’s meant to be collecting the eggs but instead finds herself reflecting on her beloved Baba, her grandmother, who has recently died. Suddenly she feels raindrops brush her cheeks. The raindrops turn into a babushka that covers her hair and then she’s off… “up and away, high in the sky… racing through time and space”. Natalia finds herself in a crowd of people in the early morning in front of a village church. It’s Easter and Natalia is caught up in the celebrations as she joins the procession of people carrying candles, as they follow the priest through the darkness singing Khrystos voskres! (Christ is risen!)” . This time when she catches…

Thin Pink Lines: My Life as a Nurse & Beyond by Muriel A. Jarvis and Mary E. Vandergoot Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Keith Foster $19.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-73-6 Patience pays big dividends, perhaps not all at once, but slowly over time. Muriel Jarvis relates how her patience and persistence paid off in her book, Thin Pink Lines: My Life as a Nurse & Beyond. Nominated for a 2013 Saskatchewan Book Award for non-fiction, the book is written by Mary Vandergoot, based on interviews and conversations with Muriel. Vandergoot writes in the first person, as though Muriel herself is telling the story of her life and accomplishments. Growing up in Kenaston, SK was a quick and brutal learning experience for Muriel, but she applied those life lessons throughout her career as a nurse. Her father died when she was only six and a half, and she had to help her mother, who was then only 26, raise her four younger siblings. A turning point in Muriel’s young life was when she assisted her mother in the birth of a child. She decided then that she wanted to become a nurse. The thin pink lines refer to the long…

Wagons East by Victoria Taylor Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Keith Foster $14.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-88-0 Have you ever felt like taking off – to nowhere in particular? That’s what Victoria Taylor and her partner Carl did, virtually on the spur of the moment. It was this spontaneity that led to the great adventure she relates in Wagons East. Following their dream, the couple set out from British Columbia on a cross-country tour, roughing it as they made their way east. They only got as far as Saskatchewan, but they took the scenic route. They travelled by covered wagon, accompanied by their team of horses, Hoss and Tracker, whom Victoria refers to as “the boys.” Plodding along on a wagon seat at three-and-a-half miles an hour provided a different sensation than driving in a car. Victoria uses a chatty, conversational writing style with a wry sense of humour, saying that indoor plumbing consisted of a cold water tank with a tap. She describes crossing a logging bridge with “no side rails and a million miles to the river bottom.” Despite this and other harrowing experiences, she displays an optimistic buoyancy throughout. The couple stopped at farms and ranches…

Glacial Erratics by Peter Sarsfield and Kim Mann Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Sandy Bonny $ 19.95 ISBN 378-1-894431-72-9 A current of migration compels this partnership of poems and pictures from writer Peter Sarsfield and photographer Kim Mann — the book captures animals in movement, seasons in change, and landscapes etched by shadows that, with the lift of a page, allude to lengthening and contraction. Between photographs, poetic offerings travel between the Canadian North and southern prairies, tracing avenues of time and maturity, circling anchor-stones of hope and regret. The collection’s title, ‘Glacial Erratics’, refers to boulders deposited by the ice sheets that once covered our prairie landscape. These provide evidence of our geographical heritage, offering themselves as touchstones to a history of dramatic change. And yet they are accidental legacies, monuments borne of glacial fatigue, of failure and release. These poems echo their title. Read separately, it would be difficult to thread them to a theme. But linked and grounded by Mann’s photographs, they plot a journey. A raft of incidents, a life’s hopes and lessons. There is a risk in this trust of fate to organize the poems, which Sarsfield alludes to in ‘message found’:…

Terror on Turtle Creek by Jean Freeman illustrated by RoseMarie Condon Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Keith Foster $14.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-77-4 As a longtime admirer of Jean Freeman’s work, I knew I was in for a good read when I saw she was the author of Terror on Turtle Creek. The story follows the exploits of Barry Richards, a youngster prone to anger and negative thoughts, who works hard to avoid work. He volunteers to help fill sandbags when Turtle Creek floods over, but slinks away to relax in an unmoored boat. When it slips into the raging river and starts to sink, Barry struggles to steer himself to a flooded house. There he meets the stranded occupants, Sara McKeever and her three younger siblings, ranging in age from eight to three – Sam, Josh, and Emily—and Emily’s doll, Angelina Poot. Each chapter title is actually a time stamp that allows the reader to follow the story in real time. Teeming with challenges, each chapter ends in suspense. Just as the children are coping with one crisis, another comes crashing down on them. I immediately felt compelled to read the next chapter to see how, or if,…

A Fraidy Pants Lair By The Turk & Toph Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Reviewed by Jessica Eissfeldt Price $24.95 ISBN: 978-1-894431-47-7 Colorful illustrations help underscore the rambunctious monsters that populate the page in this lively and vivid children’s book about the monstrous consequences of lying. The main character, Freddie, fears her older brother will kill her when she breaks a string on his shiny new guitar. She lies about it to her mother. And that’s when the monsters start appearing. The more lies she tells, the more monsters appear. Cleverly weaving together an entertaining tale with multiple, vivid drawings on each page, A Fraidy Pants Liar serves as a great, yet gentle, guide to help youngsters realize “it’s important to be honest with ourselves to create a world where love is power,” as the reader’s note states. With this ingenious twist on a morality tale, the authors The Turk and Toph use ugly, persistent monsters to illustrate the point that lying is not the path to follow. Being afraid of the consequences of lying is far scarier than being able to speak up and tell the truth. Children will love the cartoon-filled book – the illustrations seem to jump…

Cyclone! The Regina Tornado of 1912 by Warren James and Carly Reimer Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Michelle Shaw $14.95 ISBN 9 781894 431712 One hundred years after the legendary tornado of 1912 left the city of Regina devastated, tornadoes are once again touching down in Saskatchewan. So it’s not surprising that I was a little reluctant to pick up Regina author Warren James’s latest book! Warren James is a storyteller with a passion for history and folklore. Cyclone! The Regina Tornado of 1912 is a carefully researched picture book with an old silent movie feel. It’s simply written and filled with vivid details which give a sense of the magnitude and devastation of the tornado. Children will especially appreciate the numerous detailed images which his words conjure up, such as the fact that the switchboard at the Telephone Exchange literally fell into the basement with the operators still in their chairs. He also relates how the tornado sucked up tons of water, a canoe and two boys from Wascana Lake. Although the book is obviously aimed at young children, its appeal is far broader. At the back of the book are four pages of detailed notes…