Susan Yates
Special to the Sounder
I will begin with 3 books for adults and end with 3 for children, with a link to 2 essays in between. The essays are written by Katie Buckley, a brilliant young author who was a small child in the Gabriola library when I met her 20 years ago.
First, coast to coast lauded journalist Theresa O’Leary’s Race to the Cape, launched (so appropriate, when you see those frightening Atlantic waves and endangered ships on the cover) at the Gabriola Library on October 25, with a packed audience. Anyone who cares about independent, truthful, timely journalism will love this book. It’s a rollicking maritime and cosmopolitan adventure story too, focussing on newsman Daniel Craig’s heroic attempts to get the news from Europe to eager readers in the big cities, from Montreal to Philadelphia. The formation in 1846 of the (New York) Associated Press all depended on Craig’s visionary zeal to pursue the news at all costs – including the harrowing first attempts to construct telegraph lines connecting eastern cities and across the Atlantic ocean.
I always thought the story of European news delivered by steamships and retrieved in metal cylinders by Newfoundland fishermen was a maritime fable – not so! I was delighted to read the author’s family ‘legend’ of her Aunt Kitty reading Morse code, and her father adding to the exciting story: “They had a news boat at Cape Race, and threw barrels overboard..fishermen from the cove picked up the email and delivered it to the telegraph station next to the lighthouse”. These were the family stories that compelled Theresa O’Leary to do the research that led to this oh-so-Canadian book. It’s in the bookstore at Page’s Marina – the perfect place for a maritime story written by someone who now lives on Gabriola (when she returns from her cross-country book tour!)
Next, visionary and multi-award winning author Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. My copy is a perfect chapbook rendition published by cosmogenesis, with a wise introduction by Donna Haraway. I managed to extract this thought-provoking little treasure from a stuffed bookshelf at home, for the Refugia event in November, only because I had left it sticking out just a bit from its shelf-mates. Why? Because those 35 or so few pages can alter one’s entire perspective on human civilization. Ms. Le Guin based her Theory of Fiction on Elizabeth Fisher’s Carrier Bag Theory of human evolution, during the time in recent history when brave, expansive, and speculative fiction with a feminist vision challenged the history we all learned.
Maybe it wasn’t just about weapons and physical strength and boastful tales of warring victory; perhaps a more enduring invention was the container: a basket for harvesting, a net made of hair or seaweed, a baby carrier, an earthen bowl, a woven bag.
In Le Guin’s realm – a story, a holder of words, perhaps a bag of stars?
And here is an astonishing new book from Joy Williams: Concerning the Future of Souls, 99 Stories of Azrael, a follow-up to 99 Stories of God, described as a ‘treasure trove of bafflements and tiny masterpieces’ by the NY Times Book Review.
Likewise with ‘Souls’, which offers bizarre, beatific, and heart-piercing commentary from Azrael, the most troubled and thoughtful of angels. Joy Williams has been described as a ‘feral philosopher’; I think of her as a master of clarity and mystery, so compelling that I read this entire book in one night.
I requested it from our library after reading a review that piqued my interest, and when I saw the cover, I had to find out – is that white rhino an earthly creature or is that a soul-being from another realm?
Two provocative and brilliant essays I read this past year are by Katie Buckley, who was born in England but raised for a few years in Ladysmith and Duncan, and was a frequent visitor to Gabriola where her mother worked at the library.
Katie was a London Library Emerging Writer, 2021-22, and her first novel, Hero,was published in 2025. Both essays are trenchant and timely; one is about A.I., and the other is about ‘tradwives’ a frightening throwback to the darkest kind of patriarchy.The second essay touches also on Ursula Le Guin’s writing.
Links to these essays:
And now the children’s books, which will be enticing for adults too. First, see above re ‘a baby carrier’ and then look for beloved Canadian author Thomas King’s The Green Baby Swing in our library, published last year (Tundra Books). Green Baby Swing is the story of little Xavier, who explores the attic with his mother and little cat Comet, after his Nana passes away. Comet scampers about mischievously, as Xavier becomes more engrossed in family history. When he and his mama find the green baby swing, poignant memories pour forth for his mama, and Xavier can’t believe that she was once a baby in that carrier, just as he was. Comet is cradled in the swing for a bit (with a kitty-cat look of forbearance) and then the soft material lulls all three of them to sleep (maybe not the cat).
For non-fiction readers, I found an engrossing book while visiting the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at UBC earlier this year, with my then 3 year old grandson, who marvels at the blue whale skeleton over-arching the length of the building, and the myriad of displays that range from fossils to perfectly preserved mammals.
I say ‘engrossing’ because Life After Whale – the amazing ecosystem of a whale fall – is a superbly written and illustrated book about what happens when a blue whale’s 90 year life comes to an end. Lynn Brunelle is the author and Caldecott medalist Jason Chin is the illustrator, and no details are spared when the whale expires (naturally, thank goodness) and ignites a cascade of new life. So many things to learn about a creature of this size making its way to the bottom of the sea – it takes a month for the whale’s body to slide to the inky blackness a mile from the surface of the ocean and land in the marine snow (microscopic bits of dead plants and animals) on the ocean floor. During this time, a plethora of scavengers eat pieces of the whale as it drifts downward. After it lands, it takes years for other scavengers to devour the carcass down to a skeleton. And it doesn’t end there – even after 150 years have passed, the whale’s skeleton becomes one of the biggest ecosystems on the ocean floor. Life After Whale will enthral any young (or old, like me) reader with its grace and detail. I was left with a sense of awe and compassion after reading this beautiful book.
And finally, The Raft, exquisitely written and illustrated by Jim La Marche, whose other picture books I have in my own collection. This one is the best, however. The premise of this story is found in other picture books by Canadian authors: Thor, by Bill Valgardson, and Jessie’s Island, by Sheryl McFarlane, two great Canadian authors who relate the familiar tale of a child leaving the familiar routine of city life to visit a grandparent in the boonies (or on an island). This one is American – young Nicky isn’t happy about spending the summer with his Grandma in the Wisconsin woods, until a raft appears. Everything changes – Nicky’s observations of the pond, the woods, and wildlife, and his gradual discovery of his grandmother’s surprising past. Most beautifully, Nicky discovers his own talent as an artist, and an inner strength of mind and body that enables him to rescue a fawn in trouble. The raft, meanwhile, reveals its own secrets that will instil Nicky with lasting love and respect for his grandma
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