Worlds We Make by Megan Crewe

This novel is the final book in the Fallen World trilogy, a series of novels set in Canada, about a plague devastated world and one girl's struggle to save it.

Kaelyn, Leo, Gav, Tobias, Justin and Anika have left Toronto and are on their way to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. Kaelyn has a cooler containing vials of vaccine serum plus her father's notes on how to sequence the vaccine. She had hoped to find help in Toronto, but the city was in chaos, controlled by a man named Michael and his gang known as the Wardens. When the Wardens learned of Kaelyn's vaccine, they became determined to steal it. Now the six of them are running for their lives, hoping to reach Atlanta without another run-in with the Wardens.

The black SUV the fled Toronto in, becomes disabled with a flat tire, forcing them to stop at a home. During their stop, Gav wakens and becomes very ill, turning so violent they have to lock him in a room in the house they've taken shelter in. He dies overnight and the next morning Tobias' illness begins to manifest itself.

Meanwhile, Leo attempts to contact the CDC via radio, but only manages to receive a transmission from the Wardens who are listening in and warn them that they will take the vaccine. Nevertheless, Kae and her friends forge onward. When they run low on fuel, they stop at a home and Kae orders Leo to take all the gasoline stored in the owner's shed, even though she understands how this person will feel when he returns to find he's been robbed. Kae knows Leo wonders what kind of person she's becoming - someone who must push her conscience down to do the things required in a world where each must look out for themselves. When they attempt to contact the CDC again, they reach Dr. Sheryl Guzman. However, when they explain to her what they have and what they are trying to do, Guzman is skeptical. Kae proves to Guzman who she is and that it was her father, microbiologist Dr. Gordon Weber, who made the first vaccine. Guzman tells Kae that she must make it to Atlanta on her own but that when she gets into the city to contact her and she will help her make her way to the CDC. She also hints that things are not stable where the CDC is situated.

As it turns out the Wardens are hot on the group's trail. When Kae and the group go out to search for Tobias who has left the group, they discover the Wardens searching a house where they have parked the SUV. Barely managing to escape and leaving Tobias to his fate, they find themselves being hunted by Michael and the Wardens in helicopters. In what becomes a game of cat and mouse with Michael, Kae's group finds themselves in a race against time to make it to Atlanta. Complicating matters is that fact that both groups have indicated to Kae that their will be restrictions on who gets the vaccine once it's developed. Kae decides that she can have a say in they type of world that will exist once the plague has been brought under control. Can she devise a plane that ensures that regardless of whether Michael or the CDC makes the vaccine, no one will be denied treatment.

Worlds We Make is a fitting conclusion to Crewe's trilogy, but it is predictable and bland. The linear storyline throws no surprises and even the deaths of two of the characters are to be expected. Crewe wraps up her story in a tidy manner, ending on a positive note. There's nothing special here, except that readers of the previous two novels will simply want to know how it all ends.

There are no especially brilliant characters and even the villain, Michael, isn't a particularly bad person. Perhaps the deaths of too many characters in this trilogy ultimately worked against the storyline.

Book Details:
Worlds We Make by Megan Crewe
New York: Hyperion   2014
280 pp.

Counting Back From Nine by Valerie Sherrard

This touching novel-in-verse explores themes of betrayal, forgiveness and self-acceptance.

Laren Olivier has been seeing the boyfriend of her best friend, Nina for weeks. Laren has been sneaking around with Scott, hoping that Nina and her other friends have not noticed. She is overwhelmed by guilt and the lies she has told her friends, Nina, Morgan and Angie. She knows she has broken the cardinal rule of friendship.

When Laren tells Nina and apologizes to her, her confession not surprisingly, results in the loss of her longtime friend. She is shunned at school and defriended on facebook by Morgan and Angie. An outcast at lunch, Laren is befriended by Christine Oaken and her friend, Denise (Dee).At first Laren is not impressed that she is reduced to eating lunch with the Outcasts but that will eventually change.

Laren's world shifts dramatically again when her father is in a minor car accident on March 15. Laren and her family go to visit her father in the hospital and he is fine. However, he unexpectedly dies the next day. Both Laren and her younger brother, Jackson, have trouble coping with his death.

Then one day a seemingly innocent comment by a classmate throws Laren's world into even more turmoil. Tessa Landau, tells Laren that she witnessed Laren's father's accident and her mother being placed on a stretcher. But Laren's mother wasn't in her father's car at the time and Laren believes this is just her classmate wanting attention. However, days later she finds a note stuffed in her locker about her father and the woman passenger. Laren vaguely recalls the nurse mentioning a woman passenger and she decides that she needs to find who this person is because she might be able to tell her more about her father's final day alive.

When Laren confronts her mother about the mysterious passenger, her mother refuses to talk about it, leaving Laren to suspect the worst. She wonders who this unknown woman is whom no one will talk about. So she decides she will learn the identity of the woman from her Aunt Rita. During this time, Laren's family is struggling to cope with Jackson who is acting out by refusing to eat meat. As well Laren begins seeing a private psychologist, Dr. Socorro, who comes to the school one day per week.

As the months pass by and the school year ends, summer begins and Laren gradually works through her anger and her grief over her father's death. With the start of the new school year, Laren's relationship with Scott begins to show its true nature and she begins to see that their relationship was built on a foundation of lies and deceit. Can Laren forgive her father for what has happened but more importantly can she forgive herself?

Valerie Sherrard has crafted a brilliant novel in which the main character's revelations about her own behaviour lead to forgiveness and healing towards her deceased father. Laren realizes that her so-called "harmless" flirtation with Scott was anything but, that she knew it and she behaved badly. She questions whether this lapse in judgement means she is forever untrustworthy. She vows she will not be like her father. However, it is her mother who makes her reconsider this point of view when she tells her that her father once remarked that nothing is ever perfect but that we find the good and focus on that.

What helps Laren recognize that good in her father are the nine memories of her and her father that she reflects on through the story and that give the novel its title, Counting Back From Nine. In all those memories her father was there for her each and every time. Will Laren allow one lapse in judgement erase all of that?

Laren also discovers the meaning of true friendship too with Christine and Dee. When all her friends bailed after she made a mistake, Christine and Dee are there for her through the year she is recovering from her father's death and especially when she leaves Scott who has already moved on to another girl. They don't judge her, they are simply there for her.

Sherrard's free verse manages to convey the essence of each character in a remarkable way while presenting some important lessons about life. Laren is a young person who has been taught to live with integrity and when she fails, she eventually must confront her own actions. From her we learn that sometimes in our lives we deny the truth in order to justify the choices we've made.

Laren's mother has tried to live her life the best she can; she's been a good mother and a good wife so when Laren blames her mother for her father's actions her mother tells her that she can't be responsible for Laren's father's choices.

"Whatever your father did
or didn't do, was his choice.
I will not be accused or
blamed or held responsible
for his actions."

The beautiful cover combined with a great opening hook to grab young readers make Counting Back From Nine a popular choice for book clubs and reluctant readers. But really this is a story that all readers will enjoy. Valerie Sherrard is an award winning Canadian author who currently lives in New Brunswick. Counting Back From Nine  has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Awards in the Children's Text category, shortlisted for the 2013-2014 Red Maple Award and winner of the 2013 Horn Book Award in the Juvenile category. Sherrard has stated that she first wrote Counting Back From Nine as prose but then rewrote it as a novel in verse. So very glad she did so! It's wonderful to read well written fiction for young people. Well done!

Book Details:
Counting Back From Nine by Valerie Sherrard
Markham, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside    2013
198 pp.

The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe

The Lives We Lost is the second book in the post-apocalyptic Fallen Worlds trilogy by Canadian author, Megan Crewe. Kaelyn's friend, Leo, arrives unexpectedly on the island ferry with news about the mainland. To the shock of everyone, Leo tells those on the island that the virus had infected nearly everyone in both Canada, the United States, and most likely the world. Everyone is just as badly off as those on the island and help will not be forthcoming.

As the pandemic continues to rage, Kaelyn is now sharing a house with her boyfriend, Gav, her cousin Meredith, and Tessa and the recently returned Leo. When Kaelyn finds the keys to her father's research center, she decides to investigate to see if he had made any progress in developing a treatment for the virus. She finds the lab intact, her father's notes on his research into a cure, and several vials of vaccine. Apparently her father injected himself with vaccine three weeks before he was murdered, so Kaelyn feels certain that he must have found an antidote for the illness.

Kaelyn approaches Nell at the hospital, telling her about the find and asking her if she can make more. But Nell tells Kaelyn that she doesn't have the expertise. So Kaelyn decides that she must travel to the mainland to find someone who can replicate her father's work and produce more vaccine.

Initially Kaelyn and Gav decide they will make the journey to Ottawa in the hopes of locating scientists. But when the island is attacked by a military helicopter, they along with Leo, Meredith, and Tessa flee, with the help of a mainlander who came to warn them. This man, Tobias Rawls, is a young soldier from a nearby, secret military base on mainland Nova Scotia. Tobias has an armoured vehicle and he is asked to join them on their trek to Ottawa. After scavenging supplies from nearby stores, the group sets out.

As expected, things do not go as planned. Just as they enter New Brunswick, they run out of gas. When the group goes to look for fuel, their truck is vandalized and they must now walk on foot to Ottawa. Packing as much supplies as possible onto sleds they continue their journey on foot by following a major highway. However, those who vandalized them are not so eager to see them leave. Kaelyn's group narrowly escapes these people who are armed and driving a green van, by hiding in the forest by the highway. They continue onward traveling in the woods adjacent to the highway until they arrive at a hidden colony run by Hilary Cloutier. The colony was once an artist's colony for painters, writers, and composers to spend some time working on their craft. At the colony they meet a woman from Ottawa who tells them that traveling to the capital will be pointless because the government and scientists have abandoned the city.

So Kaelyn and her friends, Gav, Leo, and Tobias decide to travel to Toronto because of its numerous hospitals and the higher probability of locating researchers who might be able to make vaccine. Kaelyn decides to leave Meredith with Tessa who has opted to stay behind at the colony. But before they can set out, the unknown people in the van search the colony. Everyone hides, the vigilantes leave and the group manages to flee safely, although they have now unwittingly picked up Hilary's son, Justin, an unpredictable teenager who doesn't fully understand the dangers involved.

Kaelyn's goal now is to try to arrive safely in Toronto with the vaccine. But Kaelyn has an unknown group pursuing her and they seem to know that she has a vaccine. When they arrive in Toronto, Gav falls ill with the virus. Leo and Kaelyn learn that a man from British Columbia, Michael, has risen to take control of every area he passes through by offering food and medicine to those who will side with him. Known as Michael's Wardens, they are now in pursuit of Kaelyn. Can she outwit her pursuers and keep the vaccine from falling into the wrong hands?Can Kaelyn save both Gav and Tobias?

Crewe's novel is a decent second installment in the Fallen World series. Kaelyn and her group must deal with the winter weather, a lack of food, the ever present danger of contracting the virus, and the knowledge that they are being pursued by hostile survivors. However, for the most part, any hardships the group encounters seem to be easily remedied and any suspense created by their pursuers is not sustained. Instead the focus is on the main characters having to accept the fact that the lives they once had are gone forever - a point Kaelyn returns to again and again. They are hopeful that a vaccine might make their lives what they once were.

" 'I don't want our lives to stay like this, ' he said. 'I don't know if this vaccine is going to make a difference, but it could. It's the best chance we've got. I want to fight for that....' "

Kaelyn is presented as a strong female character who, although having doubts, generally seems completely determined to find someone who can replicate her father's vaccine even though she's not certain that the vaccine works. (There is a hint that it does because both Gav and Tobias were not innoculated and by the end of the novel, they are now sick. Tessa and Leo were and remain healthy.) Even when she witnesses the unintended murder of the three people tailing them, she seems to quickly recover. Even when Gav becomes desperately ill, Kaelyn still remains focused on her goal - to get the vaccines to someone who can make more of the same.

The basic storyline is somewhat predictable - we knew that both Gav and Tobias would likely sicken after Gav refuses the vaccine and Kaelyn doesn't offer Tobias an inoculation. And we know it's predictable that they would be pursued by someone wanting what they have. Having an army man who just happens to be a crack shot,  along for the adventure turns out to come in quite handy too. There's the hint of a love triangle, with Kaelyn loving Gav, but unable to admit to herself that she is attracted to her best friend, Leo who is put out when his girlfriend, Tessa, seems more interested in gardening than being with him. But it all makes for an enjoyable read and a suspenseful but hanging ending to the second novel.

Book Details:
The Lives We Lost by Megan Crewe
New York: Hyperion    2013
276 pp.

Oddrey by Dave Whamond

 Oddrey is cute little girl, with her short black hair and her red and white striped tights. But Oddrey is a very different girl. She's unlike anyone else. Oddrey likes to do the unexpected and she doesn't mind being different. She likes blue apples and crazy hop-scotch games. While her classmates get "run-of-the mill" light-bulb ideas, Oddrey gets ideas so big and unusual, she needs a chandelier to represent them!
But sometimes being different and choosing your own path can be challenging. Oddrey wishes she had friends who are just like her. Despite her disappointment at being cast as a tree in her school play, Oddrey decides to be the best tree she can. When things go awry during the play though, Oddrey's creative approach saves the day. Afterwards, Oddrey isn't quite so odd anymore.

Canadian author-illustrator Dave Whamond is the winner of the 2011 Blue Spruce Award for My Think-A-Ma-Jink. His work has appeared in OWL, Chickadee, and National Geographic Award.

Oddrey is a delightful picture book, reminding us that each person is unique and special and that we all have gifts worth sharing. An ideal book for Reading Buddies programs, Oddrey is an Owlkids Books. Their website offers free Oddrey activity pages for children to enjoy.

Book Details:
Oddrey by Dave Whamond
Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2012