All posts by Karen

About Karen

Karen (she/hers) is a Culinary Literacies Specialist at the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre library. When not in the kitchen, she can be found knitting, reading, and repeating.  |  Meet the team

Allan Stratton at VPL!

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Allan StrattonVaughan Public Libraries is thrilled to host award-winning author Allan Stratton for an author visit October 14th at 3:00pm! In fact, we’re even more thrilled than just thrilled, because we’re going to be having Stratton visit us for two events!

  1. Author Visit at Woodbridge Library (for which information you’ll find above); and
  2. Unleash Your Story at Pierre Berton Resource Library, which is a teen event that happens the same October 14, in the evening hours from 7:00 – 11:30pm. Remember to pre-register! (You can find some more info on the Teen Vortex for this event also.)

Stratton has been nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award under the Young People’s Literature – Text category for his new novel The Way Back Home, a teen-adult crossover title, of which he will be doing a fifteen-minute reading. Here is what the novel is about, as taken from Stratton’s site:

Zoe Bird is angry and lonely, bullied by her cousin and disbelieved by her parents. Her only true friend is her granny, whose Alzheimer’s is worsening. When her parents decide to put Granny in a home, Zoe hits the road with Granny to find her long-lost uncle. But there are hard home truths along the way.

Stratton also talks about why he wrote the book on his own site, so you can take a look at that and think about what you would like to talk to Stratton about or ask him in the Q&A session after the reading.

For more of Stratton’s works, take a look through our catalogue.

Vaughan Public Libraries appreciates the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for this reading series.

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place

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Maryrose WoodI don’t think I’ve ever consumed an entire series as quickly as I did this one: The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place. (The Chronicles of Narnia are a very close second, because I inhaled those as well, though in light of a recent rereading, I would have to put the Incorrigibles at the top.*) To be perfectly honest, I only learned of it and picked it up because they’re illustrated by none other than Jon Klassen, but I’m so glad I did!

The series is a delightfully written mystery that will keep you making connections between all the little details Wood drops left and right at every turn, whether it be the mysterious howling on Ashton grounds or the oddly coincidental wolf theme popping up at the bequest of a certain…. A.? Wood keeps you guessing with every book at how things are connected: was it really just a chance ad in the papers that got Penelope Lumley working for the Ashtons? Were the Incorrigibles actually raised by wolves? And what’s with Old Timothy? Just whence does Penelope Lumley’s seemingly infinite pluck come?

I won’t go too much into detail because I don’t want to spoil it for you, but Wood definitely keeps you on your toes and grabbing for the next installment. I personally quite enjoyed the asides, along with the fast pace and wit, but where I think Wood really excels is where this series has something to appeal to a variety of age groups. (The last book in the series, The Long-Lost Home, is set for release next June, and we’ve placed it on order, so beat the lines and put yourself on the waiting list now!)

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I (Don’t) Like Snakes!

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Nicola Davies Do you like snakes? Have you met The Dude (resident snake at Civic Centre Resource Library)? He’s adorable and is sure to change your mind about snakes, if your answer to the first question was “no”! If you’re not quite up to using exposure to get you over your fear of snakes, then maybe this book will do the trick: I (Don’t) Like Snakes by Nicola Davies (who is also the author of Poop, Tiny Creatures, Extreme Animals, and Just Ducks!, to name a few), illustrated by Luciano Lozano.

This is kind of an odd book, in that I’m not sure whether it’s supposed to fall within the picture book market or the junior non-fiction one, because while there’s a story to it and it’s definitely a book filled with illustrations, Davies also includes lots of information about snakes, from the way they move around to how they molt their skin. One thing’s for sure though: the illustrations are adorable. And! The moral of the story, I think, is not only that snakes are awesome, though they are (maybe in both the colloquial and traditional sense of the word, at that), but that sometimes, hatred stems from ignorance, and that’s a takeaway message filled with hope and a healthy dose of optimism, because that’s something we can take into our own hands – all the more so at the library!

I’m going to move onto a number of books about snakes so that once I (Don’t) Like Snakes starts up your curiosity for all things anguine, you’ll be able to whet your appetite with some of the following.

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