Tanya Christenson's debut YA novel A Soft Place to Fall (Red Deer Press $14.95) follows Creighton who loses his mother at the age of five and doesn't settle in one place until he is 14 years old because his father works with a carnival. With little formal education, he must go to an alternate school for kids who struggle with learning. Here, he meets Schooner who can't read but has his own kind of wisdom and Carin who was a victim of sexual assault when she was thirteen. When the only teacher who seems to truly care about the students announces she is leaving at the end of the year, the students feel abandoned and have to fend for themselves. How will they manage to survive in spite of all the personal disasters that challenge them?

Christenson is an elementary school counselor and holds a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology (2013). She lives in Creston.

Books:

A Soft Place to Fall (Red Deer Press, 2021) $14.95 ‎ 978-0889956384

[BCBW 2021]