CHILDREN’S BOOKS: Fashion-themed tale designed for female teens

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This article was published 21/05/2011 (5609 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORI by Design by local author Colleen Nelson (Great Plains, 187 pages, $15 paperback) has all the elements needed to appeal to female teens: a New York setting with connections to high fashion; a witty and resourceful main character; and, of course, a romantic interest.

Tori Edwards has moved from Winnipeg to New York for a year with her family. Her hopes for studying dress design are bolstered when she makes friends with Gabby, a fashion consultant, and learns about an internship at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

But an unexpected and devastating development in Tori’s family threatens to end all her chances.

Nelson has lived in both New York and Japan but currently calls Winnipeg home. Tori by Design is her first novel.

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New Brunswick author Valerie Sherrard is both prolific and versatile. She has written for all ages of young people, from books for early readers through junior fiction to novels for young adults.

The Glory Wind (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 222 pages, $13 paperback) is a touching story about an 11-year-old boy’s first love and its strange consequences. He’s fascinated by the new girl in town.

Even when almost everyone in his town shuns her and her mother, he remains her friend, until the fateful day when a tornado approaches their town.

A story about prejudice and misplaced morality in a small prairie town in the 1940s, this novel packs a powerful punch. As a foster parent over the years for more than 70 teenagers, Sherrard knows the value of true friendship and also the pain caused by malicious gossip. Recommended for ages 10-13.

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Accomplice (Dundurn, 142 pages, $10 paperback), also by Sherrard, is for an older age group, above 13. Set in contemporary Vancouver, this gritty novel deals with the current issue of drug addiction and its effect on both the user, Devlin, and those around him. Devlin’s addiction eventually involves his girlfriend in a nightmare she could never have imagined.

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That Summer in Franklin by former Winnipegger Linda Hutsell-Manning (Second Story Press, 242 pages, $20 paperback) describes a murder committed and covered up more than 50 years ago in a small prairie town.

Two young women, Hannah and Colleen, were both present in the hotel when a young man died, but have chosen to keep their knowledge secret. Now, as Hannah returns to the town years later, the two meet again, and a young reporter threatens to expose the truth.

Hutsell-Manning, now living in Coburg, Ont., has written a variety of prose, including plays, TV scripts and several novels for children. Readers may find the conclusion of this novel unsatisfactory, as compromises are made and justice is avoided. For young adults.

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Scholastic Canada has a new series called I Am Canada written for nine- to 12-year-olds about important events in the history of Canada.

Prisoner of Dieppe (232 pages, $15 paperback) by Toronto historian and author Hugh Brewster brings the disastrous landing on the shores of Normandy in 1942 into sharp focus. Written as a grandfather’s account to his grandson, it is a very personal record of one young soldier who signs up right out of school, is captured during the Dieppe raid and spends three difficult years as a prisoner of war.

Other juvenile novels in this series, all written by well-known authors, include Blood and Iron, about the building of the Canadian Pacific railway, by Paul Yee, and projected works Shot at Dawn, about the First World War, by John Wilson, and Deadly Voyage, about the Titanic, also by Brewster.

Winnipegger Helen Norrie is a children’s literature specialist. Her column appears on the third weekend of the month.