“Jawbone”
By Meghan Greeley
Published by Radiant Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$20.00
ISBN 9-781998-926008
Original. Startling. Candid. Jawbone
is a quick-read novella by Newfoundland writer, performer and director Meghan
Greeley that encompasses the inherent joy and terror of being alive and being in
love. It’s outrageous that a book this polished is the author’s debut title.
I initially wondered what I was getting into. Greeley writes: “I was wired shut, and then a man put his latex fingers in my mouth and cut out the wires with gardening shears”. What? Plotwise, the narrator—a concertina-playing actor—is recuperating in a small cabin (she told the Airbnb owner that she was “looking for the loneliest place in the world”) after an accident left her both physically and emotionally shattered. We know her boyfriend had moved to California months earlier, and his letters are scattered throughout the text. The red-haired costumer designer the actor’d been sharing an apartment with was tantalizingly bizarre, ie: they created a list of tasks that take approximately a minute to complete, like “Microwaving a small portion of leftovers”. And the roommate—she of the “smoothest skin”—is difficult to read. Just friends? More than friends? Then there’s the climactic aquarium incident, among a crowd and before a bloom of jellyfish.
All in all, Planet Earth seems too alien to navigate and the narrator wants “to disappear,” so she decides to apply for a nonprofit-sponsored, never-return trip to Mars, and must create a minute-long video audition. Trouble is, her jaw’s been wired and speaking’s impossible. For now, there’s the cabin, where she learns that “twenty-nine showers” is “the lifespan of a bar of Irish Spring soap if you are rigorous”. For now: memories.
You can’t help but fall at least a little in love with this narrator; she bleeds insecurity, strangeness and desire across every page. Among the things that make her ache: “the smell of wet snow on pines; the last lines of television shows” and “any mention of the beaches of Normandy”. She bought a hat “that made [her] feel more like [herself] than anything ever had before”.
Though the premise sounds “out there,” the story’s completely earthy. The memorable cast is compelling, eccentric and will say (and do) almost anything, often apropos of nothing. The roommates “drank gin and put bras on [their] heads and pretended [they] were dumb men”. They played “Winter” in summer, exhaling smoke from a “half-smoked cigarette” and pretending “that the smoke was [her] breath, frosting in cold air”. Underneath the stream-of-consciousness reveries, remembered conversations, and the actor’s eclectic confessions (“My teeth felt different in California;” she “concoct[s] email passwords from the things of which [she is] most deeply ashamed”) lies a credible story of simmering attraction. Readers, you’ll feel it, too.
Looking to kick 2024 off with a fabulous read? Jawbone is a book for anyone who has ever “wanted something, something, something else”. Finally, the cover is another example of how Radiant Press is producing the most gorgeous books out there. It shimmers. And much like the text within it, it’s positively radiant.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
“The Star Poems: A Cree Sky Narrative\acâhkos nikamowini-pîkiskwêwina: nêhiyawi-kîsik âcimowin”
By Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber
Published by Your Nickel’s Worth
Publishing
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$24.95
ISBN 9-781778-690174
It’s innovative, bilingual, and gives us another kind of Genesis. The Star Poems: A Cree Sky Narrative/acâhkos nikamowini-pîkiskwêwina: nêhiyawi-kîsik âcimowin is a Cree/English poetry collection by Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber, a Regina writer, editor and professor of Indigenous Literatures at the First Nations University of Canada. Archibald-Barber has ingenuously combined traditional Indigenous creation stories—The Star stories—with quantum physics, and the result is a star-studded collection of eye-opening poems.
The author essentially contemporizes Cree oral tradition stories (that “teach us how we are all related to Creation through the same source of energy and spirit”) by spinning them into poems that merge with the “spiritual and scientific understandings of the cosmos and the quantum foundations of reality”. He cites Blackfoot scholar Leroy Little Bear’s talk on quantum physics and Indigenous spirituality as a major inspiration, particularly Little Bear’s discussion on “how the quantum superstrings are what Indigenous cultures have traditionally called spirit”. He also laud’s Cree educator Wilfred Buck’s video, “Legend of the Star People,” which describes the “Hole-in-the-Sky—a ‘spatial anomaly’ or a ‘wormhole’ that leads to and from the spirit world” via the help of Star Woman and Grandmother Spider. By presenting his work in English and Cree, he simultaneously also helps keep the Cree language alive.
This stunning collection’s divided into two sections: “The Star People” is the stronger of the two. It’s told within a sweat lodge’s “dome of woven willows” and contains the Creation narrative. Throughout the book the poet effectively weaves the here and now with the celestial, ie: “a sudden splash cuts the silence/rocks cracking in the cosmic hearth/the universe takes its quantum shape/fills itself with its first breath”. This first powerful poem, “Emergence,” includes: “and I crawl out through the door/a dazed child, a little spirit/dragging space-time behind me/like an old blanket”. The three-page piece introduces the “story of the stars/of the stones/of our grandfathers and grandmothers,” and in following poems we meet the Star Woman, who “dances/with a blanket made of stars” and Grandmother Spider, guardian of “the quantum door”. Star Woman “plucked a string” from “countless self-amplifying loops” and eventually “the galaxy began to fray/stars spilling out like scattered beads”. The Creator steps in and warns to respect “the threads” as they “belong to the universe and hold the sky together”.
Star Woman sees the “earth gleaming in the starlight”. She wants to go there, and does, in human form. The other Star Children, hearing her sing, soon follow, and become “the People of the Earth”.
It's a fascinating braiding of the traditional and scientific, and some kind of magic happens as a result. The poems also touch on how “the balance was undone”: the “Paper People” arrived, the Indigenous “were barred/from walking on the open land,” and traditions were lost.
This stanza alone proves this poet’s prowess:
the busker strums a song
on
the corner
where our light
cones overlap
and the strings vibrate
for a moment
as I catch your glance
from the window of a passing car.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
Written by Ashley Vercammen, Illustrated by P Aplinder Kaur
Published by Home Style Teachers
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$20.00 ISBN 9-781778-152924
On the first page we learn that the titular “Benny” is a paleontologist about to lead a tour because “It’s a field trip day!”. A picnic will also ensue. Dressed in a brown uniform with a ranger-type hat, brown boots and a backpack, the swarthy blond paleontologist introduces us page-by-page to a variety of well and lesser-known dinosaurs in a rainbow of colours, and some of the creatures feature spots, horns and feathers. The story is illustrated by P Aplinder Kaur with playful-looking dinosaurs—Triceratops is green, Kosmoceratops is blue with fifteen horns and spikes, Tyrannosaurus Rex is dark pink—and their polka-dotted eggs. P Aplinder Kaur—also a cartoonist and digital marketer— lives in Kharar, India. Author and illustrator have teamed before.
Tour guide Benny engages his audience with questions and comments, and on each page Vercammen includes the phonetic pronunciation of the dinosaur being discussed, ie: Giganotosaurus, which “was a little bit bigger than the T-Rex,” is pronounced “Jai-ga-nuh-tuh-saw-ruhs,” and the elephant-sized Xenoposeidon is pronounced “Zen-o-puh-sai-dn”). This could be very helpful for early readers and older folks.
Young children will enjoy the bold, cartoon-like illustrations, and even at this reviewer’s great age, it’s fun to learn new things about dinosaurs. I didn’t know that the dinosaur with the longest name is Micropachycephalosaurus. “Phew, I bet he took a long time to write his name!” Benny says. Vercammen often includes light humour in her numerous children’s books. I also didn’t know that Leptoceratops “sometimes walked on two legs” and “lived in caves,” and that “there are over 700 known dinosaurs”. On the prairies, the small and light Albertosaurus “often travelled in packs to stay safe and find food,” Benny explains. And can you name a dinosaur that is the “the height of an average man”? Perhaps the dinosaur-lovers in your family or classroom—or this book!—can enlighten you.
Vercammen lives in Saskatchewan and writes books to engage “readers of varying English abilities in conversation”. She regularly markets her titles at book fairs and other in-person events. If you’d like to see her growing library of books, please consult her website at www.ashley-vercammen.ca. Interestingly, she’s also published a colouring book version of Benny’s Dinosaurs, and readily helps other writers publish their stories via her publishing company, Home Style Teachers.
Benny’s Dinosaurs is a treat. I wonder what this enterprising author will entertain young readers with next? From haircut and dentist appointments to the touching sibling story, Little Big Sister: Big Little Brother, Vercammen’s always got surprises up her sleeves, and she regularly rolls them up to do the hard work of book marketing.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
__________
By Tekeyla Friday, Illustrated by James Warwood
Published by Tekeyla Friday Studios Publishing
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$11.99 ISBN 978-1-7772418-4-1
How in the world did she come up with this?
That was my initial reaction to the multi-talented Tekeyla Friday’s enchanting chapter book, Prince Prickly Spine. Its royalty, dragon, castles and jousting make it medieval. The futuristic “Pizza Pads” (for playing music) and Pizza Palms (like cellphones, they’re used for calls and texting, but also feature a “pepperoni-flavoured keypad” and are pizza-shaped) give it a sci-fi touch. And the fact that the story’s protagonist is a kid who’d rather be playing video games than keeping his room tidy, exercising or “paying attention to [his] tutor” gives it a very “contemporary kid” feel. And I haven’t even mentioned the prince’s fairy godfather, Joe Troll, who frequently screws up wishes, but then “Nowadays in Medievaldom, anyone could apply to be a fairy godparent, as long as they had a pixie spark”. The Swift Current author delivers a strong dose of humour, and that works in every genre.
Friday, who is also a stop motion animation and claymation artist, clearly has a wonderful imagination and knows just what juvenile readers appreciate in a book: an irreverent child; a dangerous rescue-the-princess-from-the-dragon mission; and lots of physical comedy, thanks here to a clumsy young prince. Twelve-year-old Prince Evert doesn’t behave like a real prince in any way, shape or form. When his mother enters his messy, foul-smelling room and confiscates his electronics, the prince says fine, he’ll “go outside and walk around the moat,” but that doesn’t cut it with the queen. She sends her lazy, stinking son—he’s not bathed in a month—on a quest: he must journey to “the Shadow Dragon’s Cave and rescue Princess Amelia”. Prince Evert says: “Are you batty, woman?” And even worse luck: he’s not allowed to take his Pizza Palm, so will be relying on an old-fashioned parchment map: “It looked sort of like a caveman’s drawing of a GPS.”
The prince’s humiliating attire for his adventure demonstrates Friday’s fine use of similes: “The sock smelled rancid, like dead, salted fish that had gone rotten”.
The writing is witty, the characters delightful, and the book is illustrated in comical drawings by James Warwood, from Wales. I laughed when I saw the image for the “WANTED ALIVE NOT DEAD” poster, which included this: “Note: She’s too young to marry.” That’s just fine with Prince Evert, who only “wanted to play video games and chat on Medievaldom social media and play MeTube videos,” plus “hang out” with his bestie, Prince Roman Porter.
Other characters include the protagonist’s brother, Don, who calls Evert the “Sloth Prince” and tells Evert that after the Shadow Dragon eats the prince’s feet, he’ll “have to wear wooden ones,” and Tilly, the teasing maid. After the prince loses his horse he connects with his comical fairy godfather, the bulbous-nosed Joe Troll, and the boy hopes for a magical fix to his situation. Unfortunately, the bumbling troll has made another mistake. Will someone be “dragon food by sundown”?
This book is a royal romp. Enjoyed it!
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
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“Faith in the Fields: Picturesque
Ukrainian Churches of Saskatchewan”
Paintings, drawings and sketches by Fritz
Stehwien
Published by Landscape Art Publishing
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$19.95 ISBN 9-781738-021901
Fritz Stehwien was a German-born Saskatoon artist (1914-2008) whose life and work continue to be celebrated by many, including his family. The art-filled hardcover is an archival project produced by Waltraude and Barbara Stehwien, and in its introduction we learn that the book “was inspired by two exhibits held at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada in Saskatoon: Faith in the Fields (1997) and Faith in the Fields II (1999)”.
The beautifully-bound book features page after page of full-bleed, mostly pastel images of the singular churches and landscapes Stehwien encountered in his adopted home on the Canadian prairies. (The lifetime artist was forced to serve as a soldier in Eastern Europe during WW II.)
This art book also commemorates the “resilience” of “European settlers encountering the harsh prairie climate”. This resilience came, in part, due to “their faith and strength,” and memorials to this history are found in the Ukrainian churches—“revered prairie icons”—still scattered across Saskatchewan. While some of these architectural delights are now abandoned, others have become designated heritage sites.
The artist returned to Europe in 1942, attracted especially by “the picturesque onion domes in Belarus and Russia”—architecture commonly replicated in Ukrainian churches on the prairies. Russia’s war on Ukraine in 2022 prompted Stehwien’s family to publish this latest book, which they’ve dedicated “to the resilience of the people of the Ukraine who are once again required to draw on their strengths for survival”.
The pastel, acrylic and charcoal images draw the gaze in and make me contemplate what it may have been like to arrive as a settler on the bare, harsh prairie. Several of the paintings include neighbouring cemeteries, the graves marked with tall Orthodox crosses. The landscapes illustrate the seasons as well, ie: barren winter fields, and spring-filled ponds, as we see in the paintings of the churches in Plainview, Bankend, Fernwood and Theodore. I admire the sunset-strokes behind the Catholic churches Stehwien captured in Bodnari and Yorkton.
The book also includes a list of the Ukrainian churches and the year they were built, as well as a map showing their locations in Saskatchewan. I find the grand Ukrainian Orthodox Holy Trinity Cathedral in Saskatoon, where I attended a very traditional wedding decades ago. Across the page there’s St. George Cathedral, also in Saskatoon, with several onion-shaped domes crowning its glory. I’ve also personally admired many of these churches from the highway during my travels across the province, and on page 36 I find All Saints (Orthodox) nestled between golden-leaved trees and spruces in my hometown of Meadow Lake. Certainly I remember this domed beauty, but I don’t recall ever entering its doors, and that’s a pity.
I’m so pleased that the Stehwien family has chosen to honour their father’s art and their cultural heritage in this artistic way. I hope that it finds its way into the hands and hearts of those who will cherish it.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
