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My Wounded Island
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
My Wounded Island by Jacques Pasquet is a beautiful book. The artwork is breathtaking. The main character fears the sea. She and her family are forced to move to the center of the island because of the rising sea level. Things are changing and it is scary. The artwork really helps you understand the emotion of the story. It might take awhile for the kids to understand the beast is global warming, but it has a great message about why it's a problem, even though there's no real conversation about how to solve the global warming problem.

The book is a story of Imarvaluk, a young girl who lives on a tiny island near the Arctic Circle. She is part of a strong community that continues to live the way their ancestors had. Still, things are changing. The weather is impacting their small island, shrinking the pack ice and flooding the island. Scientists try to help by studying the impact and new barriers are put up, but there is no stopping the monster of climate change as it ravages the Arctic. The little girl imagines it as a huge sea monster, coming to gobble them up. For now, their homes are being moved to the center of the island but eventually, they will have to decide if they will leave and lose their community.

I recommend this book for bigger kids who are interested in environmental issues. 

I received this book from Orca Book Publishers via NetGalley.
  
A Woman Made of Snow
A Woman Made of Snow
Elisabeth Gifford | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
A Woman Made Of Snow is a book steeped in the history of the Gillan family, which automatically ticks a lot of boxes for me. This is a dual timeline story: Scotland in 1949, and the Arctic at some time in the mid 1800s.

Caro and Alasdair marry after the War and move back to his family home - Kelly Castle in Scotland. Caro has high hopes of continuing to work in a university, but motherhood puts pay to that, and instead decides to look into the Gillan family genealogy, and specifically the mysterious disappearance of Alasdair’s great grandmother. When Caro finds the remains of a diary, there are some startling findings.

We flash back and forth between 1949 and the 1800s, where the information missing from the diary is more clearly explained. When a body is unearthed after flooding, this poses more questions about he person’s identity. Is this the missing relative?

I absolutely loved this. The descriptions of the sea, the Arctic tundra and the Inuit who lived there, fascinated me. Less pleasant were the attitudes of the British towards other cultures, but this was interesting, all the same. The changing roles of women was portrayed well. Whilst not the same as our lives today, Caro’s life in the 1940’s/ 50’s was markedly better than that of the women in the 1800s.

This was such an enjoyable read - highly recommended.
Thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this wonderful book.
  
    Z

    Zebra

    Robert Garnham

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    Book

    These are suburban poems describing places we go to all the time. But they creep beneath the surface...