I guess this goes back to June. I really should keep up better…

Publication: Resource Links

Publication Date: 06/01/2007

Author: Little, Lesley

Good, even great at times, generally useful!

This is John Burns’ first YA novel. He is off to a good start. And is spite of a couple of instances where Burns himself seems almost consumed by his narrative, he gives an excellent portrayal of adolescence, grief, and–particularly–street life through the eyes of those caught up in it and who feel they have nowhere to go.

The novel’s main character Peter is a typical almost-fifteen year-old whose world is thrown into chaos when his lawyer father dies suddenly. Added to Peter’s overwhelming grief is the shocking discovery that he is adopted, and neither of his adoptive parents has bothered to tell him. It is all too much. Armed with $1000.00 from his father’s estate, Peter hops a bus heading west.

Life for Peter turns rough and the living hard as he finds himself drawn toward and then into a cadre of street kids on the west coast whose leader is the palpably evil Dekman, a young psychopath who keeps his subjects on a short leash. Dekman’s ability to run drugs and the lives of his “tribe” crosses the line when he burns the ramshackle house he has peopled with various street kids. Peter and two others make a run for it.

Throughout the novel, Peter experiences ‘whiteouts’ when under profound duress. He gradually learns to control the whiteouts, and refers to the landscape he creates during these episodes as Runnerland. In his latest unbidden visit to Runnerland (while trying to escape with his two friends) Peter deals with Dekman and all that has been nagging him. The hallucinatory confrontation with Dekman seems to put an end to Runnerland and as Peter and his friends escape to the safety of the friends’ grandparents’ house, where they eventually stay, it looks as if Runnerland has run its course.

Happily, this book does not preach. Peter takes the name Runner for himself in a rather brutal initiation ceremony conducted by Dekman, and in so doing crosses the line, but he also manages to cross back, and credibly so. The author’s discipline in avoiding making too much of the unimportant parts and too little of the big ones is admirable.

Thematic Links: Death of a Parent; Adoption; Street Life; Conduct of Life

COPYRIGHT 2007 Resource Links

The imagination is a wonderful thing, yes, yes. Especially when it makes the jump outside our brains and into the real world.

1. Yesterday, I spent time with a clever (and whiskey-loving) author from Toronto named Stephen Marche. Here’s a review I wrote of his new book, Shining at the Bottom of the Sea. Stephen has created a country (Sanjania) for the book, and along with the country, he’s developed a history, a culture, a people. In fact, he created so much, he’s now conjured a web site, which I recommend.

2. At work today, I was researching this house that a woman is having made out of the parts of a 747 plane. The architect is busy at work helping her realize her dream of using every scrap of that salvaged jet, and includes some (fanciful) ideas, like this meditation pavilion, with cockpit-window skylights.

3. Tonight, we bought a birthday present for a 10-year-old friend of my son’s, who’s having a birthday tomorrow. It’s (don’t tell him yet, it’s a surprise) a starter kit D&D game. Ah, D&D. Now there was fantasy made real. There, too, went many, many hours from my life, circa Grade 8. Whoosh!

Of course, there’s video.

That’s what I am.

Not that there aren’t important crises to face, wrongs to right, et cetera, but let’s just take a moment to discuss my hair, okay? Looking at this photo - me at the Georgia Straight’s Best of Vancouver party last week - I’m second-guessing this whole grow-it-out idea. First it was laziness, then it was “Be a rock star”, now I’m not so sure.

I’m thinking about signing up for Haircuts for Children when it comes to Vancouver in November. If you don’t know it, I’m snipping the bumf after the photo:

Haircuts by Children is a whimsical performance that playfully engages with the enfranchisement of children, trust in the younger generation, and the thrills and chills of vanity. 10-year-olds will be offering the public free haircuts at local salons.

Haircuts by Children invites the consideration of children as creative and competent individuals whose aesthetic choices can be trusted. The idea that kids should be allowed to cut our hair evokes the same leap of faith, courage and understanding required to grant children deeper citizenship rights. For many it is actually less terrifying to contemplate allowing kids to vote!

In the future, every child will be given a pair of scissors and invited to shape our destinies. In the future, every child will be granted full citizenship rights; encouraged to vote, run for office and drive streetcars. In the future, children will teach and adults will learn; a playground will be built on every battlefield; and candy will be free. In the future, children will be powerful creatures able to cross the street without looking both ways, and hold their breath underwater forever and ever and ever.

So, while Haircuts by Children is a performance for kids, it’s actually for the benefit of who they will become; for the adults who have to deal with the consequences of eighteen years of political disenfranchisement. Haircuts by Children: a performance about the future. 

What do you think? Should I do it?  

So I have a review due for the Globe tomorrow - and I haven’t finished the book.

I have a review due for the Straight tomorrow - and I haven’t finished the book.

I have another review due for the Straight tomorrow - and I’m blogging.

And all I really want to do is make an ice cream sundae with these great little organic peanuts we have and watch s01e12 “Clash of the Tritons” of Veronica Mars, which is so, so fine.

So fine.

Sigh.

Back to work…

Feeling pretty freaked that school starts up again tomorrow. Where did the summer go? I never even got a sunburn. At least I swam in the (frigid) ocean a few times, and picked raspberries, and went for runs. Okay, I had a mini summer.

Feeling stoked about…

Thursday, October 18 - Event

19
	Otherworldly
	John Burns Carrie Mac 10–11:30 AM Waterfront Theatre $12 + $.50 facility surcharge / $6 for student groups
Carrie Mac’s Triskelia is a full fantasy world, neither necessarily in the future nor in the past, where the ruling elite controls the earth’s water. John Burns’s main character escapes to Runnerland, leaving his own troubled life behind.Two authors who have immersed themselves in fantasy discuss the freedoms and constraints it brings. It’s a genre loved by readers who enjoy thinking beyond the borders of reality.
Suitable for grades 8 to 10