February 8th, 2016
“Alberta-based Geoffrey Bilson Award-winning author Karen Bass draws on the Cree legend of the Wîhtiko for her latest YA novel, which blends adventure, horror, and some good old-fashioned coming-of-age wisdom. En route to spend the summer with his mining-executive father in Yellowknife, 15-year-old Jared Fredrickson’s private jet crashes in a remote swamp in Northern Alberta. […]
Posted in The Hill
June 29th, 2015
This Canada Day, celebrate your patriotism the literary way. CBC Books has rounded up 100 Young Adult Books That Make You Proud To Be Canadian. How many have you read? Take the quiz on the CBC Books website. Among the chosen 100 are Nix Minus One by Jill MacLean and Graffiti Knight by Karen Bass. […]
Posted in Graffiti Knight, Nix Minus One
April 21st, 2015
“Ali and his fiancée, Zeynep, are Anatolian Alevi Kurds facing the hardships imposed by Turkish revolutionary forces. Ali preemptively immigrates to Kapuskasing, Ontario, but is identified as an enemy alien and imprisoned in an internment camp. Zeynep’s journey to find her future with Ali takes her from 1914 to 1916, from Harput, Anatolia, to Kars, […]
Posted in Dance of the Banished
March 23rd, 2015
How does it feel to be surrounded by people who see you as the enemy? How do you protect yourself when you aren’t sure whom to trust? The protagonists of Uncertain Soldier, Karen Bass’s wonderful new novel for young adults, are grappling with these questions. Erich, a 17-year-old German sailor in Hitler’s navy, finds himself […]
Posted in Uncertain Soldier
February 17th, 2015
Pajama Press is proud to announce that Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis has been selected as one of the titles to be honoured on the Amelia Bloomer Young Adult Fiction list in 2015. Part of the American Library Association Social Responsibilities Round Table’s Feminist Task Force, the Amelia Bloomer Project recommends a list of […]
Posted in Moon at Nine
February 12th, 2015
“It is June 1913, when Ali breaks the news to his fiancée Zeynep that he will be leaving their Anatolian village to go to Canada. Once there, he hopes to finally be able to save enough money to pay for her passage, and to build a new life for them there. But the world is […]
Posted in Dance of the Banished
February 2nd, 2015
Graffiti Knight by Karen Bass has been honoured by the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) as one of six Outstanding International Books for grades 9–12 in 2015. Chosen from among all books published outside of the United States but first distributed within that country in a given year, the Outstanding International […]
Posted in Graffiti Knight
February 1st, 2015
“Gr 8 Up–Skrypuch continues to tell the stories of young refugees—as in The Hunger (2002), Nobody’s Child (2003, both Dundrun), and Daughter of War (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2008)—in her latest historical novel. Set between 1913 and 1917, it features two Alevi Kurd teenagers in Anatolia as World War I breaks out and Turkey begins the […]
Posted in Dance of the Banished
January 12th, 2015
“Canadian author Skrypuch, who has written several other well-received historical novels about World War I and the Armenian Genocide, has created an absorbing glimpse into a dark period in world history and the human consequences of war. Most of the novel is told through letters that Zeynep writes (but does not send) to Ali; as […]
Posted in Dance of the Banished
January 10th, 2015
“World War I separates a betrothed Anatolian couple—leaving one to witness the Armenian genocide and sending the other to a prison camp…in Canada. Cast as letters and journal entries, the double narrative records the experiences of Zeynep, a villager transplanted to the “mighty city of Harput,” and Ali, who is swept up with other supposed […]
Posted in Dance of the Banished
