The Agency: A Spy in the House by YS Lee
Summary: After her father is lost at sea and her mother dies, Mary Lang is left to fend for herself in 1850s London, England. Arrested and sentenced to hang, Mary is rescued by Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls and educated to be a lady. But the Academy is also the home of the Agency, a spy collective made up of well educated women and young ladies. When Mary is given the opportunity to be a part of the Agency, she takes it and quickly finds herself working as a companion to Angelica, a young woman from a rich family whose father may be involved in clandestine business affairs. Charged with finding out the truth about Mr. Thorold, Mary’s first assignment is filled with many surprises, including a love interest and information about her own secret past.
Number of Pages: 335
Age Range: 13-15
Review: A Spy in the House by YS Lee is a captivating start to The Agency series. Mary is fiercely independent and is able to recognise potential in others. She’s not just a member of the Agency by the end of the book, she’s also a recruiter with Cass. I wonder if the future books might feature them working together.
Lee presents her with a unique idea: a female-based spy agency operating in the mid 1800s, providing a place of belonging for girls and women who don’t fit into the socially acceptable norms of the time. Instead, Lee’s book is filled with strong female characters, and even if they aren’t always likeable they’re not afraid to be who they are and do what they want.
Combining a well-paced, dramatic mystery and a mild romance, female readers will be engaged in Mary’s story. I was intrigued by her mixed race heritage and how she fears others will dismiss her if they ever find out about it. Even though she is a multi-talented young woman she still has doubts about her abilities and has to grow into the role of being a spy despite several acts that display her bravery and single-minded determination to do her job. Mary’s a wonderful role model, and I look forward to seeing how she develops throughout the series.
Memorable Quotes:
“Again, Anne appeared unsurprised by the question, the rudeness. ‘As I explained before, our aim is to offer girls an independent life. Too many women feel forced to marry; even more lack that choice and resort to prostitution, or worse, in order to survive. We believe that a sound education will assist our graduates to support themselves.’ She paused. ‘Not all our pupils succeed. Some girls prefer the idea of marriage hard work, not realizing that marriage to a brute or a drunkard is more difficult than any profession. But they choose their paths. We cannot force our ideas upon our pupils.'” – Anne Treleaven from The Agency: A Spy in the House by YS Lee, pages 7-8
“Mary drew a deep breath and focused on Angelica’s situation. ‘I think,’ she said carefully, ‘that there are some women for whom marriage and children are the most important objects in life. But I think there are others who long for more. Your unhappiness reminds me of that sort of need.'” – Mary talking to Angelica about marriage from The Agency: A Spy in the House by YS Lee, page 251
The Agency: A Spy in the House by YS Lee is published by Candlewick Press, (2009).
Half World by Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
Summary: A long ago prophecy of a child being born in the Half World to heal the rift between the three realms seems to be coming true when a pregnant woman is banished for fourteen years. Melanie, the unborn child from the incident, is born in the real world and lives fourteen years with a mother who seems to be fading away. Knowing nothing about her parents’ past and with just one picture of her absent father, Melanie is caught off guard when she receives a note from crows to go home only to go there and find her mother missing. Directed by a mysterious phone call to make her way to the Half World, Melanie finds herself on mission to rescue her mother that will test her mettle and challenge her to face fears she never knew existed.
Number of Pages: 233
Age Range: 16-18
Review: When the Realm of the Flesh, the Realm of Spirit and the Half World are divided, a prophecy emerges stating the only way for the realms to be reconnected is if a child is born in the Half World.
The Half World is supposed to be the bridge between the Realm of the Flesh and the Realm of Spirit. In an ideal system, when one passes from the Realm of the Flesh they enter the Half World to work out the most traumatic part of their life before ascending to the Realm of the Spirit and then being born again back into the Realm of the Flesh. Severed connections between the realms means those in the Half World are stuck in their own personal nightmares with no hope of ascension. Some become monsters as a result, and the monster that rules them all is Mr. Glueskin.
Probably the only one who is happy with the way things are, Mr. Glueskin has a vested interest in not allowing the realms to reunite. He banishes Melanie’s mother when she’s still pregnant, instructing her to come back with the child after fourteen years. Trying to protect her daughter, Melanie’s mother tries to return without her, but Mr. Glueskin makes it clear to Melanie this is not acceptable.
I love Half World by Hiromi Goto for several reasons. Main character Melanie is an unlikely hero. Overweight and bullied at school, she has low expectations of herself, but when her mother disappears Melanie doesn’t hesitate to go after her. Melanie meets each challenge on her quest with resolve, even though she is convinced she has no idea how to get her mother back and Half World is bone-chilling place full of suffering. She is aided by a wonderful neighbour named Ms. Wei, a jade rat and a variety of other characters who sense her willingness to face whatever she needs to while trying to rescue her mother.
Goto’s writing is polished and striking, and I couldn’t stop tagging memorable quotes because of her vivid way of describing characters and settings. Though Half World is a story that blurs the lines between horror, fantasy and adventure and maintained a level of creepiness I usually can’t stomach, I couldn’t put it down. What drew me in was Goto’s exploration of the roles of the various realms, her insightful look at the psychological effects of relieving the worst moment of your life over and over again and the power of choice to change things. Underneath everything is a pervasive respect for life, no matter what it brings.
I’ve put the age range at 16-18 because Goto’s vibrant descriptions are disturbing at times, and the book has its’ violent moments. It won’t be an enjoyable read for everyone. That said, one of the best parts of Goto’s story is there’s a sequel, a book about Gee’s life called Darkest Light.
Memorable Quotes:
“A pale suit, outdated and too small, did little to hide an untucked, dirty T-shirt. The man’s beer belly flopped over the cinching of his belt and his fly was down at half-mast. Flecks of old vomit had dried on the wide lapels of his suit where a crumpled tissue had been crammed into a buttonhole like a used carnation. Clinging to his arm was a beautiful woman with long black hair, wearing a floor-length black gown. Here eyes were completely rolled back in her head. Only the whites showed, gleaming, like peeled hard-boiled eggs.” – from Half World by Hiromi Goto, page 93
“‘Words are Spirit also, and when they are written down there is a power.'” – Gao Zhen Xi from Half World by Hiromi Goto, page 105
“Gao Zhen Xi’s eyes flew open. They glinted, momentarily, with a jade green fire. ‘It is not a matter or knowing the solution to righting all the wrongs. That is an impossible task. Even for one such as you.’ She smiled fiercely, and Melanie wondered at the respect in the old woman’s voice. Respect, for her!
Despite the brief fire in her friend’s eyes, Gao Zhen Xi’s voice began to grow faint. ‘It is only choice. In the end. When the moment comes. And it is a terrible thing. How will you choose…?'” – Advice from Gao Zhen Xi to Melanie from Half World by Hiromi Goto, page 143
“He released her so suddenly that she fell backward. The ceiling was so high above her, for a moment it swirled like a whirlpool. Melanie could hear the sound of champagne being poured into tall glasses, the individual bubbles popping, distinct, like microscopic musical notes. Mr. Glueskin’s guests murmured, the bone people clattering like strands of wooden beads.” – from Half World by Hiromi Goto, pages 152-153
“To have lost all that she had known and loved so dearly. . . . Was there life, still, after that?
A tiny flame flickered inside her.
Yes, it said. Yes.” – from Half World by Hiromi Goto, page 302
“‘There are never guarantees in Life,’ Gao Zhen Xi’s Spirit said sternly. Her ‘voice’ softened. ‘But for those who strive, who dream and believe, live with an open heart, and dare to love, it is almost certain that joy will come to you.'” – Gao Zhen Xi’s Spirit from Half World by Hiromi Goto, page 305
“‘It is for you to choose what you will do with your Life. Rest, if you are weary. Hide, when it is prudent to do so. But try to live it fully. Live as you are meant to live!’ Her mother’s Spirit was jubilant. ‘Darling girl! What you have done! Know that the actions of one girl can change everything!'” – Melanie’s mother giving her advice from Half World by Hiromi Goto, page 206
“The nuances of moss, rich and lush upon the trunks of trees that lined the block. The coarse umbers of barks, glowing with grey-blue lichen. Invisible birds twittered in a mess of blackberry brambles in an empty lot across the street. In front of the co-op apartment building a few doors down, a camellia was blooming its deep pink flowers, their yellow centres a miracle of brightness. She stared, mesmerized, at the cars that whizzed past, their tires splashing through small puddles of water. The vehicles seemed remarkable marvellous in ridiculously bright shades of red, yellow and teal green, cobalt blue. The colours zinged into her brain as if they were sound, and the symphony was simply glorious.
Melanie took a deep breath.
It was so good to be still.
How beautiful, life. . . .” – from Half World by Hiromi Goto, page 216
Half World by Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki is published by Puffin Canada, (2009).
Homo by Michael Harris
Summary: When someone overhears Will come out to his best friend Julie at a summer party, the announcement makes its way onto Facebook and Will is forced to start grade twelve outed. Despite the bullying another gay student named Daniel receives at Spencer High on a constant basis, Will finds on the surface his coming out doesn’t make much of difference. Looking closer reveals people are okay with his sexuality as long as he is not like Daniel. Struggling to find a committed, romantic relationship, Will turns to the internet and meets Riley, a slightly older man with a secret who provides Will with an escape from the closeted town his lives in. But when the secret is revealed and the lives of his friends start to fall apart, Will figures out what he is really looking for in a relationship and who is important to him.
Number of Pages: 142
Age Range: 16-18
Review: Will is an astute observer learning to embrace who he is during a turbulent time in his life. Outed at school but not bullied, Will reads between the lines to realise as long as he doesn’t ‘act gay,’ his fellow students will pretty much leave him alone.
But there are two problems that accompany this knowledge. Will knows the only way he can be free to be himself is to leave town and escape to university in Vancouver. But his friend Daniel who is more flamboyantly out is doomed to remain the target of the high school’s bullies because he refuses to be forced back in the closet.
At his core, Will is a teen with a perhaps idealistic view of love, but also a desire to be in a relationship based on romance and commitment. I wonder how long he would have stayed with Riley if Riley hadn’t told him about being HIV positive, because even without the lying it was clear they had different motivations for being in a relationship.
Not always a likeable character because of his self involved nature, I did like how Will’s growth included him realising that sometimes finding a place to belong isn’t as difficult as it seems. By the end of the book Will had a community with Riley and his friends, but also with Julie and Daniel in the town he thought would never accept him.
Memorable Quotes:
“Julie was talking about her electives, but I was think about all the tiny lives people were about to lock up in those tiny lockers. People, most people, don’t have much to show for their lives, I figure. Most people, if you bust open their locker, will disappoint you with how boring the contents are. Gym clothes. A mouldy sandwich. Maybe, if you’re lucky, a badly written love letter shoved between the pages of homework.” – Will from Homo by Michael Harris, page 13
“Mr. Hix started droning about the grade system. I stared at this poster he’d stuck up on the wall behind his desk. It had a bunch of kids of different races all laughing in a meadow with the word ‘Tolerance!’ blazing over their heads. Freaky. You ‘tolerate’ a teacher’s bad breath. You ‘tolerate’ your mom’s annoying friends. And, on that first day of grade twelve, I got the feeling that a lot of the kids, and even the teachers, were ‘tolerating’ me.” – Will from Homo by Michael Harris, page 15
“Afterward . . . I had thought I would feel so connected. To him. To myself, even. But all I felt was that something had come undone, or something had failed to come together. It was the same feeling I had on the night we did cocaine with his friends. A brief spasm of hope, a pure sensation promising so much, followed by a long quiet stretch of fearful aloneness. I pressed myself tighter to his chest. But he said, ‘Babe, babe, I’m suffocating,’ and rolled away.” – Will from Homo by Michael Harris, page 101
“But I was getting defensive by then, on Riley’s behalf. I decided to try something out. I said, ‘Hold on. Wouldn’t you want somebody to date me if I got some virus? Or would you want me to never have a boyfriend at all?'” – Will talking to his parents from Homo by Michael Harris, page 111
“Once Dad realized what had happened, he came around the kitchen table and crushed into the side of his baggy suit in a lock of a hug. ‘We love you, guy.’ I let him hold on as long as he liked, listing sideways in my chair, wondering why it was only violence and shock that could make him say these things out loud.” – Will from Homo by Michael Harris, page 127-128
Homo by Michael Harris is published by James Lormier & Company Ltd., Publishers, (2012).
The Dirt Eaters by Dennis Foon
Summary: When the community of Longlight is decimated and Roan is the only survivor, he is suddenly plunged into the real world. Unfortunately the real world is a chaotic, violence-ridden society ruled by the one City who uses the people’s uneducated state to take advantage of them. Except Roan is different. Not only has he been taught to read from his life in Longlight’s peaceful society, but he has the ability to cross over into his dreams and venture outside his body. He learns this gift makes him a dirt eater, and uses it to survive his time with the Brothers who want him to become a Brother too. Leaving the Brothers puts him in an awkward position. Though he has figured out from his dreams that his sister survived the destruction of Longlight too, Roan knows little about the complexities of the world around him. His journey of self-discovery leads him to make friends he can trust and take on a new mission of greater importance than seeking revenge.
Number of Pages: 312
Age Range: 13-15
Review: Left alone in a violent world after being raised in a peace-loving community, Roan must sink or swim by forcing himself to adapt to his new life. At first it involves living with the Brothers, a religious sect of sorts that follows the Prophet Saint, but when Roan realises they are trying to goad him into a lust for violence, he rejects what they have offered and takes off on his own.
Piecing together what actually happened to Longlight is difficult. While they preached non-violence, Roan finds himself with a natural talent for combat that in part is because of the dance training he received in Longlight. The dance training seems more like Tai chi though, while implies his parents and community were trying to prepare Roan for the violent world outside their bubble. There is also the lore surrounding Roan’s grandfather to contend with, and the fact that his parents may have known he would be able to travel in his dreams.
Roan is a mentally strong character who is able to see through the illusions of the new world he finds himself in, training in secret and drawing strength from his prophetic dreams. Being able to read puts him in a position of power, but his unique combination of embracing peace while being able to defend himself allows him to find allies. Roaming around the Devastation being summoned by his sister leads him to Lumpy, another outcast who could use a friend. Together they make their way to Oasis, and then to another village to rescue some children caught up in a chaotic, self-serving society.
There’s a lot going on in Foon’s book, and I’m certain today’s reading has only revealed parts of it to me. There were aspects that I loved, such as Lumpy and Lelbit’s relationship, Roan’s inner struggle against the need for revenge, and the children themselves. I have questions about where the story is going, but it is the first book in The Longlight Legacy trilogy and I’m sure all will be revealed in the other novels.
What struck me most is that Roan is a genuine character struggling to come to terms with the end of life as he knew it and the beginning of trying to make his way under rules he doesn’t understand with a power he also doesn’t quite understand. Still, no matter what environment he finds himself in, he meets whatever challenges he faces with a remarkably level head and a strong grasp on his core values. I hope he is able to protect the children as he intends and start another Longlight-esque society.
Memorable Quotes:
“‘Exactly. Like King Zheng, when they took control, they acted without hesitation. Thought breeds dissent. Eliminate the thinkers and you control the population. So they closed the schools, burned books, and executed anyone who had knowledge that was not in their service. That’s the real reason no one know how to read and why we live in chaos.'” – Saint from The Dirt Eaters by Dennis Foon, page 52
“‘He watched revenge consume the world. And we turned away from it. We established this new community at Longlight, and we will never again raise a weapon, for fear of what we’ll become. You cannot get peace from war. Remember, Roan, remember.’
But Roan no longer accepts his father’s words.
He shouts into the darkness. ‘I will fight, Father!'” – Roan remembering the words of his father and choosing another way from The Dirt Eaters by Dennis Foon, page 112
“‘Ask yourself, Roan of Longlight, is there only one good story in you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I think you do,’ Kamyar smirks. ‘Here’s some free advice. Ask many questions. Accept nothing at face value. Create the future as you go.’ With that, he turns and vanishes into the catacombs.
Kamyar’s a bit overbearing, Roan thinks, but there’s nothing wrong with his counsel. Be cautious. Be careful who you trust.” – Conversation between Kamyar and Roan from The Dirt Eaters by Dennis Foon, pages 194-195
“That the love you bestowed might bear fruit
We stay behind.
That the spirit you shared be borne witness
We stay behind.
That your light burn bright in our hearts
We stay behind.
We stay behind and imagine your flight.” – A Longlight prayer from The Dirt Eaters by Dennis Foon, page 309
The Dirt Eaters by Dennis Foon is published by Annick Press, (2003).
Shade & Sorceress by Catherine Egan
Summary: At the tender age of twelve years old, young Eliza comes into the knowledge of her birthright. The daughter of the former Shang Sorceress, Eliza’s destiny is to take her mother’s place and protect the connection between the lands of Tian Xia and Di Shang through developing her magical powers and having a daughter of her own. But when she is discovered by the Mancers and expected to take her place, everyone is surprised by the fact that she appears to have zero magical ability at all. Despite lacking essential powers, a competing sorceress who has been locked away for a decade arranges to have Rom, Eliza’s father, kidnapped, hoping to lure Eliza to her prison in the Arctic. In a trial by fire situation, Eliza must figure out the talents she does possess, unlock the secrets of her past and go after her father.
Number of Pages: 279
Age Range: 13-14
Review: Imagine being twelve years old and suddenly having to save two worlds and your father with a power you don’t possess and a questionable friend who could easily be an enemy. This is the position Eliza finds herself in after the Mancers find her despite the lengths her father Rom has gone to in hiding her from them.
Her destiny is simple, do her duty, and die young in the process, after procreating to ensure the next generation of sorceress. It seems easy and straight-forward, but when it comes to Eliza’s mother’s generation of sorceresses, things seem to go awry. The Xia Sorceress becomes so drunk with power she must be confined to an Arctic prison and values living forever instead of passing on her power to any progeny, and Eliza’s mother, the Shang sorceress, refuses to marry the Mancer she is supposed to in favour of a human man instead. When her daughter arrives, she hides Eliza’s powers deep inside so the Mancers won’t be able to track her and she can have a regular life.
It appears that Eliza will be the last in her line, especially when she seems to have no magical abilities. But when the Xia Sorceress gets wind of her she kidnaps Eliza’s father and demands she bring a certain book with her when she comes to rescue him. What follows is a fantastical fantasy adventure with many challenges to overcome, puzzles to solve and lives to save. Though Eliza lacks magical skill, she along with her best friend Nell and the Shade named Charlie she comes to trust are up to the task.
Eliza and Nell are both great characters, but Nell was my favourite. She’s spirited, always enthusiastic and willing to follow Eliza to the ends of the earth. When she goes with Eliza and Charlie to Tian Xia but has to give up her memories of the adventure for them to get back to Di Shang, Nell truly shows her loyalty and willingness to sacrifice for her friend. Egan makes it clear Nell has an incredible thirst for adventure, and those memories would have kept her going for a long, long time. I admired her sacrifice because it really was one and Nell made her decision in a spilt second.
It’s a complete story and a good set up for The Last Days of Tian Di trilogy.
Memorable Quotes:
“She quite enjoyed these mornings in the Library, poring over huge musty books and learning how to decipher the mysterious script within them. She particularly liked being allowed to climb the ladders way up to fetch books, balancing carefully along the ropeways, following the leaping amber lights that spun and twirled acrobatically. She felt like she was climbing about in a forest of books, as if they grew naturally from the lofty marble shelves.” – Eliza from Shade & Sorceress by Catherine Egan, page 56
“‘You foolish girl,’ he said, his voice like a whip. ‘Why did you come? You were safe. Why did you come?’
‘The Mancers weren’t going to rescue you,’ she said furiously. ‘Nobody was. I had to come.’
‘But you were safe!’ he said again. The pain in his eyes was too awful for her to look at. ‘That’s all that mattered to me. I could spend my life here, she could torture me or kill me, but I knew you were safe.’
‘I’m going to get us out of here,’ she insisted, half-pleading.” – Conversation between Rom and Eliza from Shade & Sorceress by Catherine Egan, page 229
“‘Eliza…’ Rom began, then stopped. She seemed to have gone into a kind of a trance. He watched her closely, and a great confusion of pride and horror and grief tangled together within him. He wanted to tell her to leave everything to him, to stop whatever she was doing. He wanted to promise that he would save her. But no words came. Ever since his wife had come back from Tian Xia twelve years ago holding this tiny squalling bundle with his face, all that had mattered to him was protecting her, keeping her safe. What he saw now with such a mix of emotions was that she was no longer really a child, and that she was indeed her mother’s daughter.” – Rom from Shade & Sorceress by Catherine Egan, page 235
Shade & Sorceress by Catherine Egan is published by Coteau Books, (2012).
Rabbit Ears by Maggie de Vries
Summary: Sisters Beth and Kaya are inexorably linked by their shared childhoods and the illness and death of their father. But when Kaya starts pulling away, using drugs and becoming a sex worker, Beth is left wondering how she and their mom can reach out to Kaya and get her to come home again. What they don’t know is that Kaya’s childhood also included years of abuse at the hands of a neighbour, and the shame Kaya feels over events she couldn’t control prevents her from telling her family what happened. Determined not to lose Kaya, Beth and her mother hold onto their love for her and are determined to help her find her way back to the life they share.
Number of Pages: 222
Age Range: 16-18
Review: Rabbit Ears by Maggie de Vries is billed as being about Kaya’s journey to becoming a sex worker and it is about that, but what struck me most was how it was the story of two girls instead of one. Dealing with the long-term illness and then death of their father, sisters Beth and Kaya cope in different ways. Beth takes an interest in magic and also overeats to suppress her feelings, and Kaya finds solace in an elderly neighbour who listens to her woes with rapt attention.
Two girls, two separate grief responses, except Kaya’s leads her into the hands of a child abuser who pretends to be her best friend in order to gain her trust and make her do horrible things, Beth’s response, on the other hand, leads to wounds that are self-inflicted. They’re both caught up in the silence of being unable to express what they have gone through.
Repressed for years, when Kaya is reminded of the abuse that took place she finds solace in heroin and becomes friends with a sex worker named Sarah. Kaya becomes a sex worker herself to earn money for drugs, living in downtown Vancouver at a time when women are disappearing mysteriously off the streets. Even though she is told by Sarah to go home on several occasions, Kaya’s feelings of guilt and shame over the past lead her to seek escape and to undervalue her worth as a human being. She feels like she won’t be able to connect with her mother and sister, and is ashamed to tell them what happened when she was younger.
Beth and her mother are quite determined to get Kaya back though, and once Beth figures out about Kaya’s abuse, she finds Kaya to let her know she is still loved and supported. It’s not an easy road to recovery from her heroin addiction and giving up her life as a sex worker, but de Vries provides a positive example of female support with Beth and Kaya’s friends all rallying around her to help her through.
There were so many aspects of de Vries’ book I loved. The blend of fact and fiction. The devout love and determination on the part of Kaya’s family, and how Beth’s interest in magic is heart-breaking, because she and her sister both needed some magic to stop their dad from dying.
Just a word of warning about the memorable quotes. You may need to read the whole book for some of them to make sense. de Vries uses a style for Kaya’s part of the story that takes time to acclimate to, and reading random quotes from her parts are likely to be confusing out of context if you haven’t had the chance to read and understand what de Vries is doing. I loved how de Vries uses language style choices to convey distance from Kaya’s own experiences. It’s confusing at first, but becomes genius.
Frankly though, the Afterword makes the story. de Vries opens up about loosely basing Rabbit Ears on the life of her sister Sarah who sadly was abused, had a drug addiction and was a sex worker until she disappeared in 1998, killed by Robert Pickton. de Vries writes her sister into Kaya’s life. Like author Judie Oron, de Vries draws on experiences from her own life to create a well-informed, fictional story. Her writing is simply beautiful, and her characters will capture your heart.
Memorable Quotes:
“After the first time, I lay awake in bed, running through it in my mind: the teachers splaying out the cards, Ben hesitating and finally sliding one out, looking at it and holding it face down against his chest, the teacher putting the cards down in a stack and asking someone to cut the deck. After that, it was hard to get the steps quit right, except for the last one, the one where Mr. Duncan said, the first time, ‘Is it the nine of hearts?’ and Ben’s whole body gathered itself into a whoop of joy. ‘It is!’ he said, flourishing the card so that the whole class could see.
And it was.
I knew it was just a trick. But it seemed like something else. It seemed like the magic of Narnia or Middle Earth. It seemed like Mr. Duncan had special powers. I dug an old deck of cards out of the games cupboard and set myself to learning how to shuffle.” – Beth’s reaction to her teacher Mr. Duncan performing a card trick from Rabbit Ears by Maggie de Vries, pages 85-86
“The crisp air brings instant tears, as the world, the real place where you’re standing – Earth – compels you, woos you with a stunted tree, a few red leaves still hanging on, with the blue sky, when you look up, with a dog’s face in the window of a car, tongue lolling.” – Kaya from Rabbit Ears by Maggie de Vries, page 147
“The innocence of mothers and sisters and friends revolted you. Only the innocence of animals would do. You would come home from that locked door and walk into your house and fall to your knees as Sybilla bounded up to you. She filled your arms. Her fur enveloped your face. You breathed in dog. And – when you could find her – cat.” – Kaya from Rabbit Ears by Maggie de Vries, page 187
“In the meeting you look around. What would Raven see? You have no idea, but this time when you look, you see how crumpled some of the people look, and not just their clothes or uncombed hair or smudged makeup, but them. Several look as if they have been crying for weeks, and one looks as if she’ll soon have her fingers gnawed down to the knuckle. Despite this, you see them chatting with one another, reaching out. As you look around the room, three people meet your eyes and make the effort to smile at you. You cast your mind back over the past four days and remember the stories. You glossed over them then, but now you replay them for yourself. You remember the friendliness. And you remember how you have snubbed every single person who tried to talk to you. But still they smile.
…
At the end of the meeting you collect yourself, put the tissue box with the others on the side table and say goodbye to three people on the way out. You discover real empathy in their eyes. You hope they can see it in yours.” – Kaya at a meeting for addicts from Rabbit Ears by Maggie de Vries, pages 205-206
“The therapist does not ask. She just looks. She just sits there like a big person-shaped brick. Directing and redirecting. Asking about everything else, every single little thing. Until, at last, you break.
‘That’s what you want me to say, isn’t it,’ you scream, on your feet now. ‘It felt good. Yeah, sure, It felt good. It felt bad. It felt disgusting. It hurt.’ And you stand, like an animal, on the far side of the room from the therapist, who sits and looks at you calmly, as if the world has not just collapsed on you both.
Not like a brick, more like a great big sponge, the therapist sits and looks at you and soaks up the horror of it, soaks it up without getting tainted by it. No, a sponge isn’t right either.
‘He had to make you like it,’ she says, once your breathing has slowed, once you are edging back toward your chair, ‘or you would never have gone back.’
You sink back onto your chair and stare at her. The truth of what she has just said, so obvious. ‘He had to make your like it, or you would have never gone back.’ In that moment, the two parts join and become one. The tea, the toys, the roses, the stories. And what happened down in that basement room.
With that comes a glimmer. Mr. G was not kind. He was never, not for one single moment, kind.” – Conversation between Kaya and her therapist about her abuse from Rabbit Ears by Maggie de Vries, pages 208-209
“This morning, Beth and Mom and I went to the memorial for the missing women. I really went for Sarah, since I didn’t know any of the others. Beth and Mom went to be there for me. We snuck past all those TV camera, but at the entrance, three women were burning sweeetgrass in a great big shell and smudging everyone, sweeping a feather up and down near our bodies. I washed myself from head to toe with that smoke. I’ll bet I had ancestors who did that too. It was crazy. While I was doing it I cried and cried, and the woman with the feather just smiled a small smile. I felt something like a hairline crack forming right through my heart, and that smoke slipped in through that crack and flushed some of the black guck out of there.” – Kaya from Rabbit Ears by Maggie de Vries, page 213
“I wanted to tell a story about a girl who went through what my sister went through, but survived, a story about a girl who broke the silence that was holding her prisoner, a story about a group of girls who paid attention, who reached out. I believe in these possibilities for Kaya and for each one of us.” – Afterword from Rabbit Ears by Maggie de Vries, page 219
Rabbit Ears by Maggie de Vries is published by HarperTrophy Canada, (2014).
About Amy
Amy Mathers has been passionate about reading from a very young age, and hopes others will share her enthusiasm for funding a teen book award. Read more Follow Amy
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