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Sara Cassidy has been a human rights witness in Guatemala and won a Gold National Magazine Award. Having promoted other authors as the co-director of the Victoria Writers Festival, Sara Cassidy could finally gain her rightful share of the creative spotlight with four new titles released in 2019. Those titles are Helen's Birds illustrated by Sophie Casson (Groundwood) 9781773060385 $12.95; The Moon is a Silver Pond illustrated by Josee Bisaillon (Orca) 9781459818644 $4.95; Nevers (Orca) 9781259821637 $10.95; and Scalliwag on the Salish Sea illustrated by Mike Deas (Heritage) $10.95. With fourteen titles, Cassidy has not self-identified in promotional materials as the daughter of Carol Shields. She has published interviews with writers in BC BookWorld, had poems in The Antigonish Review, Grain, Qwerty and Zygote, and later published in Malahat Review, Geist, Grain and Prairie Fire. Her two chapbooks are Ultrasound of My Heart and Sardines (Greenboathouse Press). Her novel Skylark was one of three titles shortlisted for the Bolen's Book Prize in 2014 and A Boy Named Queen (Groundwood, 2016) was nominated for several awards. It was selected by both CBC and Quill and Quire as a 'best of' pick for 2016. While raising three children, she obtained an MFA in Writing from UVic.
[Author photo by Katrina Rain]
BOOKS:
Slick (Orca, 2009) $9.95 9781554693528
Windfall (Orca, 2011) $9.95 9781554698493
Seeing Orange (Orca, 2012) $6.95 9781554699919. Illustrated by Amy Meissner.
Double Play (Lorimer, 2013) Ages 10-13 $9.95 9781459403802
Skylark (Orca, 2014) Ages 12+ $9.95 9781459805903
Not For Sale (Orca, 2015). Ages 7-9 $6.95 9781459807198
Blackberry Juice (Orca, 2016) Ages 7-9 $6.95 9781459812284. Illustrated by Helen Flook.
A Boy Named Queen (Groundwood, 2016) $9.99 9781554989058
Black Gold (Orca Gold, 2017) Ages 7-9 $6.95 9781459814226. Illustrated by Helen Flook.
The Great Googlini (Orca Echoes, 2018) $6.95 9781459817036. Illustrated by Charlene Chua.
Helen's Birds (Groundwood, 2019) $12.95 9781773060385. Illustrated by Sophie Casson.
The Moon is a Silver Pond (Orca, 2019) $4.95 9781459818644. Illustrated by Josee Bisaillon.
Nevers (Orca, 2019) $10.95 9781259821637
Scallywag on the Salish Sea (Heritage House, 2019) $10.95 9781772032789. Illustrated by Mike Deas.
Genius Jolene (Orca, 2019) $7.95 9781459825291. Illustrated by Charlene Chua.
The Sun is a Peach (Orca, 2020) $10.95 9781459818675. Illustrated by Josee Bisaillon.
Painted Fences (Orca, 2020) $19.95 9781772033519. Illustrated by Sydney Barnes.
Kunoichi Bunny (Orca, 2022) $19.95 9781459827806. Illustrated by Brady Sato.
Union (Orca, 2022) $14.95 9781459834477
I Make Space (Orca, 2022) Ages 0-2 $10.95 9781459832022. Illustrated by Jimmy Tigani.
The Secret Office (Orca, 2024) $8.95 9781459839465. Illustrated by Alyssa Hutchings.
[BCBW 2024]
*
REVIEW
BCBW, 2022
In a slim novel told in verse for young readers 12+, Sara Cassidy’s Union (Orca $14.95) is the story of a teenage boy dealing with sexual abuse trauma. Tuck’s abuser is his mother’s ex-boyfriend. When someone calls the boyfriend Tuck’s ‘father’ he blows up: “Not my dad, I snarl // Right / your mom’s fling / that stayed / do you miss him?” Tuck self-harms as a way to deal with his inner pain: “I pour hot tea / on my wrist // to feel // relief // that will leave / a scar.” Tuck’s courage is evident when he organizes employees to join a union to improve working conditions at the fast-food outlet where he works. He also starts a romance with a childhood friend although conflicted by the shame he secretly carries: “if she loves me / she has to know me / but if she knows me / how can she love me.” Without using direct language, Cassidy depicts the damage done by abusive adults but also the healing offered by others – from compassionate friends and work colleagues to professional caregivers. 9781459834477
*
REVIEW
BCBW, 2021
Walking with her great-grandfather Afi on his birthday when the air is filled with the scent of spring blossoms and fluttering petals, Esther is surprised when he starts to tell her a story about one of the peeling paint colours on a nearby fence.
"What if I told you a boy painted it here 75 years ago, with a paintbrush sneaked from a neighbour's shed? All because he wanted some meatballs," said Afi.
"You can't know that!" replies Esther.
"Oh, can't I?" chuckles Afi. "Listen to this story …"
And with that, Afi regales Esther with tales of what it was like living during WW2 in 1945, when fathers were overseas fighting and times were hard for little boys -- like Bob and his friend Charlie. Their clothes were patched, their shoes had holes and it was difficult to make money to buy extras. Food was rationed and had to be bought with ration tokens.
Bob is off to get meat for a special meatball dinner his mother is making for his birthday. He meets up with Charlie and they run to the butcher's shop. But Bob loses the ration token he needs to get the meat through a hole in his pocket.
Charlie agrees to help Bob make some money so they can get the meat anyway. They salvage some paint, borrow paintbrushes from Charlie's Uncle Zing's shed (who, like Bob's father is away fighting in the war), and look for a neighbour who can afford to pay the boys to repaint their fence.
Just as they finish, there is excitement on the street. It has just been announced that the war is over. At this point in the story, Esther realizes that Bob is really her Afi. Now she wants to paint a fence like Charlie and Bob did, starting with some salvaged paint.
Painted Fences by Sara Cassidy, is a cleverly disguised history lesson for young people. The book's blurb describes it this way: "From a memory revealed in a chip of paint comes a story of friendship, hardship, and hope for the future."
Illustrated by Sydney Barnes, the pictures creatively separate the current story (using multi-colours) from the past story (using monochrome hues).
Sara Cassidy's previous book Nevers (Orca) has been nominated for a 2020 Governor General's Literary Award. 9781772033519
*
REVIEW
BCBW, 2010
Cassidy's first novel for young readers, Slick (Orca, $9.95), is about oil, politics and people-not the massive spillage that has decimated the Gulf of Mexico but rather the slow seepage of corruption and environmental degradation in Guatemala as it infiltrates daily lives on Vancouver Island.
Liza is in grade seven and she likes her little brothers. She has an environmentally-minded mom who collects butter knives. Their family scoots around Victoria in a Vixen Red "limpet-size" hybrid car. Trouble is, Liza's Dad has moved out, plagued by sadness.
The absence of Liza's father enables Robert to become her mom's boyfriend. Liza has nicknamed him Slick.
It's disconcerting for Liza to see her normally level-headed mom suddenly dolling up her hair and wearing lipstick, making excuses for Slick's gas-guzzling SUV and defending the oil company that Slick works for.
The plot thickens-with oil-when Liza conducts some research and discovers Slick's company has been breaking the law in Guatemala. It owes Mayan farmers half a million dollars in compensation for drilling damage to croplands and buildings, pollution and the deaths of farm animals.
Before you can say "Girl Power," Liza has organized GRRR! That's the acronym for Girls for Renewable Resources, Really.
The girls in GRRR! set up a Facebook page, write letters to the newspapers and begin planning a demonstration at the oil company's head office which just happens to be in Victoria.
When Liza's mom finds out, she says, "I can't keep this a secret from Robert." So is all Liza's hard work going to be for naught? Is her own mother going to betray her? How exactly Sara Cassidy cleans up this domestic mess shall remain a mystery.
But we can reveal that in a future Orca Currents (ages ten and up) book, Liza will travel to see the Peten-Izabel pipeline in Guatemala. As well, GRRR! will respond to real-life activist Lynne Hill's vision of a symbolic protest against oil tanker traffic in the form of a four-kilometre crocheted chain stretching across the coastal channel.
[Slick review by Louise Donnelly]
*
Also featuring Liza and the girls of GRRR!, Windfall (Orca, 2011) involves the death of a local homeless man and a school principal who blocks the environmental campaign projects - until Liza and her friends decide to create change on school grounds without seeking permission.
*
Neither lazy or criminal, Angie, the young protagonist of Skylark (Orca 2013), sleeps in an old car with her brother and mother, evading police, finding new places to park each night, finding inspiration and self-expression in slam poetry. For Cassidy, writing about living in a car wasn't inconceivable because she once lived lived in a ten-by-ten-foot survival shelter in the Manitoba bush.
***
The Secret Office
by Sara Cassidy
(Orca $8.95) Ages 6–8
Review by Beverly Cramp (BCBW 2024)
In what is an increasingly common portrait of a family, Sam, a single mother, works from home where she raises two children in a one-bedroom apartment in Sara Cassidy’s The Secret Office with illustrations by Alyssa Hutchings.
Yes, it’s crowded but for the most part this is a well-adjusted, happy home for nine-year-old twins, Allie and Henry. It’s only recently that Sam left her work office for the living room sofa and coffee table in the family apartment. At night, Sam opens the sofa into a bed and sleeps there. The twins have the bedroom.
That doesn’t mean the children don’t notice that, with their mother now working at home, their lifestyle has become constrained. Take this scene when they arrive home from school and rambunctiously fly through the doorway just as Sam is digitally conferencing with her boss, Mr. Kahlil, and other coworkers: “As they tumble into their apartment, Sam scowls at them, finger on her lips. Quiet, she mouths. She is at her computer in the living room, on Zoom. It is clearly an important meeting.”
Allie and Henry tiptoe to their bedroom to do schoolwork. Memories of having the apartment to themselves after school are still fresh; when they could watch TV, run the blender to make smoothies, build LEGO cities on the living room carpet—activities all now forbidden.
“I’m so tired of Mom taking up the living room,” Allie says to Henry. “I’m sick of crawling around and being quiet. I’m sick of Mr. Kahlil and his plans and strategies. I’m sick of the strange voices. It’s like people have moved in, but they don’t eat with us or help with the chores. It’s like living with a bunch of ghosts.”
The twins are resilient, though, and they soon hatch a plan to save their pocket money to buy their mother headphones from the local thrift store. That will solve some of the new restrictions at home. They’ve picked up clues from their mom’s work conversations for solving problems and setting goals as they check out prices and plan how to budget for the cost.
Then, while washing their clothes in the basement laundry one day, they stumble upon an unused locked room, which they look at through a keyhole. It’s an old coal storage room no longer in use after the heritage building in which they live stopped using coal for heating purposes. Allie and Henry immediately begin brainstorming a way to secretly turn it into an office for their mother as a surprise.
It takes a lot of scheming to overcome the challenge of turning the dusty, dirty room into a suitable work space. Allie and Henry find a way around all the challenges, such as the building owner wanting $50 a month in rent for the room. Along the way, they are helped by other people in the building including the fastidious 32-year-old building superintendent and a grandmotherly neighbour named Olive.
Award-winning Sara Cassidy creates a cast of believable people and life situations in this captivating tale. The Secret Office is part of the Orca Echoes series with character-building themes and school curriculum tie-ins.
9781459839465
[Author photo by Katrina Rain]
BOOKS:
Slick (Orca, 2009) $9.95 9781554693528
Windfall (Orca, 2011) $9.95 9781554698493
Seeing Orange (Orca, 2012) $6.95 9781554699919. Illustrated by Amy Meissner.
Double Play (Lorimer, 2013) Ages 10-13 $9.95 9781459403802
Skylark (Orca, 2014) Ages 12+ $9.95 9781459805903
Not For Sale (Orca, 2015). Ages 7-9 $6.95 9781459807198
Blackberry Juice (Orca, 2016) Ages 7-9 $6.95 9781459812284. Illustrated by Helen Flook.
A Boy Named Queen (Groundwood, 2016) $9.99 9781554989058
Black Gold (Orca Gold, 2017) Ages 7-9 $6.95 9781459814226. Illustrated by Helen Flook.
The Great Googlini (Orca Echoes, 2018) $6.95 9781459817036. Illustrated by Charlene Chua.
Helen's Birds (Groundwood, 2019) $12.95 9781773060385. Illustrated by Sophie Casson.
The Moon is a Silver Pond (Orca, 2019) $4.95 9781459818644. Illustrated by Josee Bisaillon.
Nevers (Orca, 2019) $10.95 9781259821637
Scallywag on the Salish Sea (Heritage House, 2019) $10.95 9781772032789. Illustrated by Mike Deas.
Genius Jolene (Orca, 2019) $7.95 9781459825291. Illustrated by Charlene Chua.
The Sun is a Peach (Orca, 2020) $10.95 9781459818675. Illustrated by Josee Bisaillon.
Painted Fences (Orca, 2020) $19.95 9781772033519. Illustrated by Sydney Barnes.
Kunoichi Bunny (Orca, 2022) $19.95 9781459827806. Illustrated by Brady Sato.
Union (Orca, 2022) $14.95 9781459834477
I Make Space (Orca, 2022) Ages 0-2 $10.95 9781459832022. Illustrated by Jimmy Tigani.
The Secret Office (Orca, 2024) $8.95 9781459839465. Illustrated by Alyssa Hutchings.
[BCBW 2024]
*
REVIEW
BCBW, 2022
In a slim novel told in verse for young readers 12+, Sara Cassidy’s Union (Orca $14.95) is the story of a teenage boy dealing with sexual abuse trauma. Tuck’s abuser is his mother’s ex-boyfriend. When someone calls the boyfriend Tuck’s ‘father’ he blows up: “Not my dad, I snarl // Right / your mom’s fling / that stayed / do you miss him?” Tuck self-harms as a way to deal with his inner pain: “I pour hot tea / on my wrist // to feel // relief // that will leave / a scar.” Tuck’s courage is evident when he organizes employees to join a union to improve working conditions at the fast-food outlet where he works. He also starts a romance with a childhood friend although conflicted by the shame he secretly carries: “if she loves me / she has to know me / but if she knows me / how can she love me.” Without using direct language, Cassidy depicts the damage done by abusive adults but also the healing offered by others – from compassionate friends and work colleagues to professional caregivers. 9781459834477
*
REVIEW
BCBW, 2021
Walking with her great-grandfather Afi on his birthday when the air is filled with the scent of spring blossoms and fluttering petals, Esther is surprised when he starts to tell her a story about one of the peeling paint colours on a nearby fence.
"What if I told you a boy painted it here 75 years ago, with a paintbrush sneaked from a neighbour's shed? All because he wanted some meatballs," said Afi.
"You can't know that!" replies Esther.
"Oh, can't I?" chuckles Afi. "Listen to this story …"
And with that, Afi regales Esther with tales of what it was like living during WW2 in 1945, when fathers were overseas fighting and times were hard for little boys -- like Bob and his friend Charlie. Their clothes were patched, their shoes had holes and it was difficult to make money to buy extras. Food was rationed and had to be bought with ration tokens.
Bob is off to get meat for a special meatball dinner his mother is making for his birthday. He meets up with Charlie and they run to the butcher's shop. But Bob loses the ration token he needs to get the meat through a hole in his pocket.
Charlie agrees to help Bob make some money so they can get the meat anyway. They salvage some paint, borrow paintbrushes from Charlie's Uncle Zing's shed (who, like Bob's father is away fighting in the war), and look for a neighbour who can afford to pay the boys to repaint their fence.
Just as they finish, there is excitement on the street. It has just been announced that the war is over. At this point in the story, Esther realizes that Bob is really her Afi. Now she wants to paint a fence like Charlie and Bob did, starting with some salvaged paint.
Painted Fences by Sara Cassidy, is a cleverly disguised history lesson for young people. The book's blurb describes it this way: "From a memory revealed in a chip of paint comes a story of friendship, hardship, and hope for the future."
Illustrated by Sydney Barnes, the pictures creatively separate the current story (using multi-colours) from the past story (using monochrome hues).
Sara Cassidy's previous book Nevers (Orca) has been nominated for a 2020 Governor General's Literary Award. 9781772033519
*
REVIEW
BCBW, 2010
Cassidy's first novel for young readers, Slick (Orca, $9.95), is about oil, politics and people-not the massive spillage that has decimated the Gulf of Mexico but rather the slow seepage of corruption and environmental degradation in Guatemala as it infiltrates daily lives on Vancouver Island.
Liza is in grade seven and she likes her little brothers. She has an environmentally-minded mom who collects butter knives. Their family scoots around Victoria in a Vixen Red "limpet-size" hybrid car. Trouble is, Liza's Dad has moved out, plagued by sadness.
The absence of Liza's father enables Robert to become her mom's boyfriend. Liza has nicknamed him Slick.
It's disconcerting for Liza to see her normally level-headed mom suddenly dolling up her hair and wearing lipstick, making excuses for Slick's gas-guzzling SUV and defending the oil company that Slick works for.
The plot thickens-with oil-when Liza conducts some research and discovers Slick's company has been breaking the law in Guatemala. It owes Mayan farmers half a million dollars in compensation for drilling damage to croplands and buildings, pollution and the deaths of farm animals.
Before you can say "Girl Power," Liza has organized GRRR! That's the acronym for Girls for Renewable Resources, Really.
The girls in GRRR! set up a Facebook page, write letters to the newspapers and begin planning a demonstration at the oil company's head office which just happens to be in Victoria.
When Liza's mom finds out, she says, "I can't keep this a secret from Robert." So is all Liza's hard work going to be for naught? Is her own mother going to betray her? How exactly Sara Cassidy cleans up this domestic mess shall remain a mystery.
But we can reveal that in a future Orca Currents (ages ten and up) book, Liza will travel to see the Peten-Izabel pipeline in Guatemala. As well, GRRR! will respond to real-life activist Lynne Hill's vision of a symbolic protest against oil tanker traffic in the form of a four-kilometre crocheted chain stretching across the coastal channel.
[Slick review by Louise Donnelly]
*
Also featuring Liza and the girls of GRRR!, Windfall (Orca, 2011) involves the death of a local homeless man and a school principal who blocks the environmental campaign projects - until Liza and her friends decide to create change on school grounds without seeking permission.
*
Neither lazy or criminal, Angie, the young protagonist of Skylark (Orca 2013), sleeps in an old car with her brother and mother, evading police, finding new places to park each night, finding inspiration and self-expression in slam poetry. For Cassidy, writing about living in a car wasn't inconceivable because she once lived lived in a ten-by-ten-foot survival shelter in the Manitoba bush.
***
The Secret Office
by Sara Cassidy
(Orca $8.95) Ages 6–8
Review by Beverly Cramp (BCBW 2024)
In what is an increasingly common portrait of a family, Sam, a single mother, works from home where she raises two children in a one-bedroom apartment in Sara Cassidy’s The Secret Office with illustrations by Alyssa Hutchings.
Yes, it’s crowded but for the most part this is a well-adjusted, happy home for nine-year-old twins, Allie and Henry. It’s only recently that Sam left her work office for the living room sofa and coffee table in the family apartment. At night, Sam opens the sofa into a bed and sleeps there. The twins have the bedroom.
That doesn’t mean the children don’t notice that, with their mother now working at home, their lifestyle has become constrained. Take this scene when they arrive home from school and rambunctiously fly through the doorway just as Sam is digitally conferencing with her boss, Mr. Kahlil, and other coworkers: “As they tumble into their apartment, Sam scowls at them, finger on her lips. Quiet, she mouths. She is at her computer in the living room, on Zoom. It is clearly an important meeting.”
Allie and Henry tiptoe to their bedroom to do schoolwork. Memories of having the apartment to themselves after school are still fresh; when they could watch TV, run the blender to make smoothies, build LEGO cities on the living room carpet—activities all now forbidden.
“I’m so tired of Mom taking up the living room,” Allie says to Henry. “I’m sick of crawling around and being quiet. I’m sick of Mr. Kahlil and his plans and strategies. I’m sick of the strange voices. It’s like people have moved in, but they don’t eat with us or help with the chores. It’s like living with a bunch of ghosts.”
The twins are resilient, though, and they soon hatch a plan to save their pocket money to buy their mother headphones from the local thrift store. That will solve some of the new restrictions at home. They’ve picked up clues from their mom’s work conversations for solving problems and setting goals as they check out prices and plan how to budget for the cost.
Then, while washing their clothes in the basement laundry one day, they stumble upon an unused locked room, which they look at through a keyhole. It’s an old coal storage room no longer in use after the heritage building in which they live stopped using coal for heating purposes. Allie and Henry immediately begin brainstorming a way to secretly turn it into an office for their mother as a surprise.
It takes a lot of scheming to overcome the challenge of turning the dusty, dirty room into a suitable work space. Allie and Henry find a way around all the challenges, such as the building owner wanting $50 a month in rent for the room. Along the way, they are helped by other people in the building including the fastidious 32-year-old building superintendent and a grandmotherly neighbour named Olive.
Award-winning Sara Cassidy creates a cast of believable people and life situations in this captivating tale. The Secret Office is part of the Orca Echoes series with character-building themes and school curriculum tie-ins.
9781459839465
