None of the Above: Nonreligious Identity in the US and Canadaby Joel Thiessen and Sarah Wilkins-LaflammePublished by University of Regina PressReview by Toby A. Welch$34.95 ISBN 9780889777460 Once a decade a book comes along that you didn’t realize that you needed to read. This is that book! None of the Above is about “religious nones” – people who claim that they do not belong to any religion. This is the fastest growing religious tradition in Canada and the US. Statistically speaking, religious nones tend to be younger than their religious counterparts and more males than females make up the group. Religious nones also tend to be born in Canada versus foreign born.  This book is meaty, not something you take to the cottage for some light reading. It covers both Canada and the US in its quest to comprehend religious identity. It is rarely a single trigger that leads to someone becoming a religious none. Even things like political positioning and charitable practices play a role in religious views.  An interesting detail came up in this book. While religious nones don’t belong to an organized religion, a fair number of them believe in spirituality. Only 13% of religious nones in…

Raising Grandkidsby Gary GarrisonPublished by University of Regina PressReviewed by Madonna Hamel $19.95 ISBN 9780889775541 Last week buying groceries, I asked the cashier how her day was going. “Well, I’ve got to rush back to be with the little ones, my son’s back in rehab and my daughter, who knows where she is.” I told her she sounded like one of the superhero grandparents in book I’m reading called Raising Grandkids. “I had no idea how many of you there were!” “Yes, there seems to be more of us. We are picking up after a lost generation”. Gary Garrison, author of Raising Grandkids, is part of a cultural phenomenon new to most North Americans– grandparents raising babies, toddlers and teenagers. He is raising a grand-daughter when one normally retires or enters a retirement home. Not the natural course of events. But the number of young people who “can’t or won’t raise their own children due to addiction, poverty, poor health” and even death is rising and more and more grandparents are stepping in to raise traumatized grandchildren with problems of their own, including fetal infant alcohol syndrome. Garrison takes us through the tangled web of bureaucracy that several grandparents, who…