Refugee. It’s a word that should evoke compassion, that should make us open our hearts and our borders to people fleeing war. To families, desperate for a safe place to call home. To children who have seen and suffered terrible things. Instead, it’s a word that is used to spread fear and even hate.
Continue reading “11 books about refugee children that will break your heart”
It’s been six years since terrible stories of the abuse of young boys in state care in Australia during the ’50s and ’60s officially came to light. Stories of boys as young as six being raped by the men meant to supervise them. Of boys being locked in cages, being beaten with straps until they bled. Boys punched, having bones broken and arms wrenched from their sockets, being forced to eat their own vomit. Truly horrific stuff.
Those terrible scenes were played out in boys’ homes in other countries too, including the United States. Here, there was often a sinister racial undertone to the abuse, with boys copping the most vile treatment from the men in charge simply because of the colour of their skin. And that’s the story author Colson Whitehead tells in his new novel, The Nickel Boys.
Continue reading “Review: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead”
If you’re not in a book club, are you even reading right? The 2019 answer to that question is a definite no. It seems everyone you talk to is either in a book club … or talking about starting one.
But while some book clubs are just an excuse to drink wine, other book clubs are very serious about what they read. Here are 9 great books to guarantee intelligent book club conversation, no matter what type of book club you have.
Continue reading “9 of the best book club reads you’ll actually finish”
I accidentally read a Wakefield novel last week. At a school library placement, I grabbed a book from the shelf for company during my lunch break. It was Ballad for a Mad Girl. And I was hooked from the start. The buzz is that Wakefield’s latest book, This is How We Change the Ending, is even better.
Continue reading “New YA novel: This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield”
I Think the Cover Was Red ... 