I am a Canadian author/editor who both fears and loves being a stranger in a strange land. I fear the challenges, the feelings of dislocation and vulnerability. But I love the connections, the overcoming of the strangeness and the ultimate feeling of kinship. As a mom, I travelled with my kids to far away places, favouring adventure tours and staying well away from high priced hotels that separate tourists from locals. My novel, The World on Either Side, was inspired by a trek I took with my then fourteen-year-old daughter in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Years ago, I was browsing in my local bookstore when I picked up The Book Thief. I read the first page and was so captivated by the voice, I forced two total strangers book-browsing nearby to read it, too.
Death, who is “haunted by humans,” narrates the story of Liesel Memimger, a young German girl displaced by World War II, and forced to live with strangers in a city she doesn’t know. Liesel’s strange new world gets even stranger when she discovers the Jewish fist-fighter her foster parents are hiding in the basement. I found this haunting novel hard to read but impossible not to.
'Life affirming, triumphant and tragic . . . masterfully told. . . but also a wonderful page-turner' Guardian 'Brilliant and hugely ambitious' New York Times 'Extraordinary' Telegraph ___
HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE
1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
The stranger in a strange land theme is unveiled slowly in The Darkhouse. The story follows Gemma, a teen abandoned by a “crazy” mother. She lives on an island and her only friends are either old or imaginary. Her very protective father is dutiful, though consumed with rodent experiments in his shed out back. Yes. It is creepy! Also poignant: both a goosebumpy thriller and and a heart-breaking coming of age story. And I must mention the lyrical writing, like this line: “The ache of wanting what I can’t have throbs like blood.”
Disclosure: I read this in manuscript form at The Rights Factory, a literary agency where I work. I devoured it in one sitting in a Toronto café, after which I had to go outside to ugly-cry.
Fifteen-year-old Gemma’s life on a small New Brunswick island with her father, Jonah, is not an exciting one. Her mother ran off when she was an infant, and Jonah, an amateur scientist, spends most of his time conducting experiments he thinks will one day bring him fame. But when a woman arrives on the island, Gemma tries to play matchmaker – only to discover Jonah’s secret journals, which hold terrifying secrets about both their lives.
Mystery, science, and dreams of a better life collide in this page-turning young adult novel from Barbara Radecki.
I bought this book for the title, and happily there are Madonnas galore in this story, including in the apartment of “two motherless dudes,” dying teen Jessie T. Serrano and his dad. This quest novel—before he dies, Jessie sets up a mysterious trip to Europe for his three cousins, best friend and girlfriend—follows five grieving young adults on a doomed pilgrimage in a strange continent. If you have ever been a teen (as I assume you have) you will connect with the six (!!) point of view characters, each flawed but achingly human. "Not all stories are about love," says one of them, but this story most definitely is.
Five teens backpack through Europe to fulfill the mysterious dying wish of their friend in this heartwarming novel from the author of The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy.
Jesse lives with his history professor dad in a house covered with postcards of images of the Madonna from all over the world. They’re gotten used to this life: two motherless dudes living among thousands of Madonnas. But Jesse has a heart condition that will ultimately cut his life tragically short. Before he dies, he arranges a mysterious trip to Europe for his three cousins, his best friend, and his girlfriend to…
Molope’s twitter profile features my favourite Toni Morrison quotation (one I want used in my obit, when the day comes), so I had to buy this novel.
Its core is about doing, or not doing, the right thing. I loved the writing, the moral complexity and the exploration of strangeness from the point of view of Naledi, a young teen, living in post-apartheid South Africa. She has moved from the bottom, a place of outhouses and rocks, to the top, a place of fountains and statues, and then discovers her brother is also a stranger. But then she warns us early that the township Marapong is a place you arrive at after "experiencing that unnerving feeling of being lost in a strange country with a strange language.”
What does a teenage girl do when she sees her beloved older brother commit a horrific crime? Should she report to her parents, or should she keep quiet? Should she confront him? All her life, Naledi has been in awe of Basi, her charming and outgoing older brother. They've shared their childhood, with its jokes and secrets, the alliances and stories about the community. Having reached thirteen, she is preparing to go to the school dance. Then she sees Basi commit an act that violates everything she believes about him. How will she live her life now?
Daisy, whose life “so far has been plain” leaves New York to visit relatives in London. After she arrives, war breaks out and Daisy’s ordinary world becomes extraordinary. Like the British children’s novels I used to gorge on (a long time ago!) all the grownups are gone, paving the way for a taboo relationship. I was surprised at how easily Rosoff convinced me that England was at war. But mostly I was captivated by the writing. Meg Rosoff writes this novel in the kind of run-on sentences I hate unless Salmon Rushdie is writing them, except…they work. Beautifully. I can’t show you one; it would exceed my word limit for the blurb, so you’ll have to trust me.
How I Live Now is an original and poignant book by Meg Rosoff
How I Live Now is the powerful and engaging story of Daisy, the precocious New Yorker and her English cousin Edmond, torn apart as war breaks out in London, from the multi award-winning Meg Rosoff. How I Live Now has been adapted for the big screen by Kevin Macdonald, starring Saoirse Ronan as Daisy and releases in 2013.
Fifteen-year-old Daisy thinks she knows all about love. Her mother died giving birth to her, and now her dad has sent her away for the summer, to live in…
Sixteen-year-old Valentine Joy cannot recover from the sudden death of her boyfriend. After an ‘accidental’ overdose, her desperate mother takes her to Thailand to trek in the mountains and force her back into the world. Once there, Valentine encounters a world she didn’t know existed, where elephants still roam wild and houses are on stilts. Where displaced refugees populate mountain villages.
Then she meets Lin—a mysterious young elephant keeper tormented by his secret past—and Mohawk—an orphaned elephant calf, pursued by violent poachers. Together, the three flee into the jungle, looking for refuge and redemption.
My favorite fantasy novels tend to be rather complex. Winding plotlines, mysteriously interconnected characters, whimsical settings, and intricate, thoughtful worldbuilding combine to create immersive stories that stick in the mind like overworn folklore. Time travel or interworld travel lend additional layers of intrigue and mystery, forcing the inescapable contemplation of a more thrilling, alternate reality. And if it’s all packaged in artful, breathtaking prose that breeds full-color images, audible noises, indelible flavors, nose-crumpling odors, and tangible textures, I will happily lose myself in the pages, truly forgetting about the strictures of everyday life… at least until I get hungry and remember I need to consume more than books to survive.
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to Ride, but her destiny will pit her against her uncle and king, who have scorned her since before her birth.
In the Exchange, the waystation between realms, Emmelyn fights the G’Ambit, a gambling ring with members more intent on lining their pockets than protecting the realms—or their own lives.
Realm-devouring parasites threaten all existence. The Exchange is desperate to destroy them. But could their radical plans endanger the realms, too?
Soul-sucking parasites are overwhelming the realms.
Rhoswen of Stanburh is of age to train as a Realm Rider—a defender of the realms. Riders and their dragons work together to burn away infiltrating Narxon as they swarm in through tears in a realm’s fabric. But it’s not an easy battle: the mere touch of the smoky, dragon-like adversaries can reduce the lively winged beasts—and their Riders—to ash.
Becoming a Realm Rider is Rhoswen’s dream, but she carries far more responsibility…
