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The Runaway
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
Leroy “Doodlebug” Barnstable likes to call himself the quickest draw in the west–with a crayon. It’s 1923 and Doodle is on the run from a couple of abusive cousins. He stumbles into a travelling Chautauqua show where it’s easy to get lost in a crowd–but also easy to lose your heart. This funny and endearing novel by Governor General’s Award-winning novelist Glen Huser will make an absorbing read for young teens, boys and girls alike.
Available from: Tradewind Books
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Grace Lake
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
A book of remarkable sensitivity…The central figure, John Hislop, is an aging music teacher who returns to summer camp as a counselor. There he reflects on a past of suppressed desire, barely acknowledged homosexuality, and guilt. He focuses on a handful of important times and people in his life, only slowly beginning to come to terms with their meaning and importance for him. Huser does an excellent job with the tricky business of managing Hislop’s present life, the jumbled fragments of his past, and troubled dreams that mix up parts of both. This is how stream of consciousness should be – but seldom is – managed.
…Huser is also a splendid prose stylist. He pays attention, as few writers do, to the rhythms of his words. I’m afraid if I call the book poetic, I’ll put off some of the potential readers. What I mean is this: Huser has an ear for the real rhythms of speech, and for the natural, but different, rhythms of written prose. Moreover, the density of the imagery, the repetition (of image and event and character) and relative brevity (compared to the depth and breadth of content) all suggest a long poem as much as a novel.
~ Gary Draper, Books in Canada
Available from: Amazon Books
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Touch of the Clown
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
Fascinating, thought-provoking, are just two of the words that pass through your mind as you read this wonderful novel. A 14-year-old girl and her younger sister are truly touched by an angel when the littlest one, Livvy, runs out into the street and is hit by a man on a bicycle…The girls’ relationship with Cosmo, although totally unexpected and unconventional, is the single most important event in their young lives. We eventually realize that Cosmo has been living with AIDS for many years, but he can still form new attachments and play a near-saviour role in the lives of these young girls…Not only does Barbara discover talents and strengths she didn’t know she had, but for the short time Cosmo is well enough, she has someone to turn to when her alcoholic father turns violent.
~ Karen Shewbridge, The Telegraph
Available from: House of Anansi Press
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Stitches
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
This text underneath the book: Here is a classic scapegoats-vs.-bullies school story with some low-key but unusual distinctions. The setting is rural Alberta, and the good kids are Chantelle, who has a limp and a scarred face, and Travis, a boy completely unselfconscious about his love for puppets and sewing…Chantelle and Travis joined forces back in the fifth grade, when she rescued him from boys who called him “girlie”; junior high brings new challenges as the teasing gets uglier and, eventually, violent. But while this gathering darkness provides the book with tension and a conscience, the real story is the friendship between the two outsiders and their marshaling of forces within themselves, each other, and their families to keep going…Two nice teachers are on call as well, to provide hope and meaningful work to the friends, but their ability to help is realistically limited. In the end, Travis is on his own, but it doesn’t seem like such a bad place to be.
~ R. S., Horn Book (starred review)
Available from: House of Anansi Press
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Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
Glen Huser fashions a telling friendship between two misfits – a young girl who moves from foster home to foster home and an old woman struggling to maintain her independence despite her grasping nephew. Neither Tamara nor Jean fit neatly into the systems that hold them, nor, at first, do they seem likely allies. But when Jean, almost 90 years old, realizes that 15-year-old Tamara (who is desperate to get to Vancouver for a modeling course) is her best chance for a trip to Seattle to see Wagner’s entire Ring cycle performed, anand alliance forms…The novel alternates between Tamara’s voice and Jean’s – both are strongly evoked and engaging. One can’t help loving Jean’s toughness and her wit; Tamara’s intelligence is at once naïve and penetrating. Their perspectives on the characters around them – nursing-home workers, family members, school officials, hoteliers – are pointedly perceptive and, not surprisingly, reveal their own humanity. Their opinions about each other, and their own cultural touchstones, are quite wonderful…
~ Marnie Parsons, Quill & Quire
Available from: House of Anansi Press
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Jeremy’s Christmas Wish
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
Jeremy hurried into a sweater and grabbed his jacket and a toque and some mitts from his closet. Outside, it was cold and crisp and clear, a windless Christmas Eve. The man led him through the garden to the hedge at the far end. Just behind it was his sleigh with its patient team snorting puffs of steamy breath through their nostrils, eyeing him with curious gentle eyes. Spying their master, they tipped their great antlers almost as if they were saluting him
“Where are you taking me?” Jeremy shouted against the rush of air once they were aloft, but his voice came out small and piping.
Jeremy is the richest kid in the country but even with all his toys and games, he’s so bored even the prospect of Christmas coming doesn’t excite him. He writes a letter to Santa which has some unexpected results. A mysterious bearded stranger arrives and takes him on a journey where he makes new friends and learns a lesson about love and friendship that changes his attitude forever.)
Available from: the author (antonglen@shaw.ca)
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Time for Flowers Time for Snow: A Retelling of the Legend of Demeter and Persephone
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
Combining striking illustrations, a dramatic story based on ancient myth, song lyrics, and a companion CD featuring a children’s operetta, Time for Flowers, Time for Snow is a fabulous multi-sensory thrill to be enjoyed by parents and kids alike… Huser wrote the song lyrics, and while they may be challenging for younger readers, their pathos, spirited defiance, and humour are readily appreciated when paired with the music, which is appealingly varied in mood and rhythm… Time for Flowers, Time for Snow is an ambitious project that brings together a group of talented collaborators with splendid results. This is not just a book, it’s a whole arts experience with many facets – literary, artistic, musical – to explore. (Gwyneth Evans, Quill & Quire)
Available from: Tradewind Books
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The Snuggly
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
Todd discovers that the new item to help keep his baby sister safe is also an ideal place to keep his beloved teddy bear. On the way to school, Todd and his friends collect more items to keep safe, things such as a paper tube that would make a great rocket, a book, snacks, a coffee mug, a jar of pollywogs and a stray kitten. In an effort to avoid an impending explosion, Todd’s teacher, Mrs. Bale, suggested he be first to “show and tell” that morning, but it was far too late, and everything flew all over the classroom! An upset Todd was comforted by Mrs. Bale who helped fix up the damaged snuggly and reminded him that it is only good for “just one thing. A baby or a teddy bear.”
Glen Huser’s writing is accompanied by Milan Pavlovic’s delightful watercolour illustrations. These images capture Todd’s morning in a fanciful way and complement well the funny and touching moments in this ideal story for a new brother or sister. A cute book, The Snuggly is a great gift idea or as an addition to a primary-level library. (Amy E. Dickerson)
Available from: House of Anansi Press
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The Golden Touch
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
Combining beautiful art, a wry retelling of a classic tale, playful and informative song lyrics, and an accompanying CD of music performed in part by 200 Quebec schoolchildren, The Golden Touch is the newest release from the team behind the fabulous Time for Flowers, Time for Snow. While that earlier effort retold the story of Persephone, this time King Midas gets his turn. The book and music can be enjoyed separately, but the combination of the two elements is an immersive experience that will captivate many an otherwise fidgety kid. (Quill& Quire)
Available from: Tradewind Books
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Firebird
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
In his young adult novel Firebird, Glen Huser, a Governor General’s Award-winning novelist for young teens, sets his heroic saga against the backdrop of one of Canada’s most shameful historical events. Alex, a 13-year-old immigrant orphan from Galicia (in today’s Ukraine but then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), is left homeless and alone in Vermilion after a fire kills his uncle. It’s 1915 and war has just pitted Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allies. Thousands of farmers, miners and farmhands, including Alex’s older sibling Marco, are imprisoned as enemy aliens in Alberta. Brutal conditions in the Castle Mountain internment camp near Banff leave Marco emaciated and close to death. Alex, penniless and still new to Canada, decides to make his way from the homestead in central Alberta to search for his brother… Despite the horror, the arc of the story is uplifting. Perseverance and the kindness of strangers allow Alex to reunite with his brother and help nurse Marco in his final days… Ultimately this is a true heroic odyssey…Alex can’t overcome death but can learn to accept it, deepening his courage and character on the path to that epiphany. (Agnieszka Matejko, Alberta Views)
Available from: Ronsdale Press
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The Elevator Ghost
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
The Blatchford Arms is a quirky little place, an old apartment complex that’s filled with eccentric families and rumoured to be haunted. It’s therefore fitting that it’s on Halloween night that Carolina Giddle, “experienced babysitter, mah-jong instructor, and vegetarian caterer” and excellent storyteller of ghostly tales, moves into Apartment 713…The short chapters, each with a self-contained scare, and the mix of humor and gentle spookiness make this a perfect classroom readaloud, and tellers might even be inspired by Carolina to set the mood with lighting, snacks, and a pet tarantula (or not)…Have this on hand for Halloween week or whenever kids want a fun but not too frightening tall tale. (Kate Quealy-Gainer, Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, John Hopkins University Press)
Available from: House of Anansi Press
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Burning the Night
About the Book | Synopsis | Questions & Activities
The beauty and honesty of Glen Huser’s book Burning the Night have filled my head since reading it over the summer. It’s an amazing love story interwoven with the tale of a man finding himself. While the book is my favourite of the last year, it was also awarded the 2022 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize. It’s a great literary work, a period piece that gives us a glimpse of the city’s history and so much more. (Justin Bell, Edmonton Journal’s “Best of 2022”)
A new Glen Huser book is always welcome, whatever its subject. Huser is one of the steady, quiet lights of Alberta’s writing world—an excellent author who is often underappreciated, which I hope changes with this novel… Probably no one but Huser could, or would think to, combine the Group of Seven, the Halifax explosion, classical music and small-town Alberta to create a symphony of the whole. That he does so in this readable, kind, loving novel is proof of his mastery. (Candas Jane Dorsey, Alberta Views)
Available from: NeWest Press
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