What does “coming-of-age” mean to you? What does—and can—it mean to “come into your own”? Can you have such a journey at any age in your life? Life is full of challenges and experiences from which we can learn, grow, change, and become more of the person we aspire to be, no matter where we are in life. Here are 13 BC-published books that capture this journey of self-actualization at any age.
CHILDHOOD
Four Fallen Eagles by Karen Whetung (Medicine Wheel Publishing)
The need to belong is inherent in all living beings, but finding a home for yourself in this world has its challenges. In this children’s book, Karen Whetung presents an allegory of survivance.
When a storm plucks four eaglets from their nest to the forest floor, the displaced eaglets proceed on a journey across Turtle Island to rediscover where they belong. One by one, the eaglets encounter communities of creatures who claim them. Will these lost eaglets grow the courage needed to soar in their truths?
Inspired by the students and communities she has worked with, Anishinaabe author Karen Whetung explores the desire to tell our stories, share our truths, and claim our place in the world in Four Fallen Eagles.
Out now!
Meg and Greg: A Handful of Dogs by Elspeth Rae and Rowena Rae, illustrated by Elisa Gutiérrez (Orca Book Publishers)
Elspeth Rae was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was eight years old. She is now a teacher certified in using the Orton-Gillingham approach to teach children of all abilities to read and spell. Meg and Greg: A Handful of Dogs, the fifth instalment in the Meg and Greg series, is a decodable book featuring four phonics stories for striving readers, with special features to help children with dyslexia or other language-based learning difficulties find reading success.
Meg and Greg are back to school and ready for fall fun! Join Meg, Greg and friends as they plan an event for dogs at the fall fair, solve challenging clues in a scavenger hunt, complete their planned science-fair project and look after excitable kindergarteners at the pumpkin patch.
The four stories inside introduce different types of suffixes and prefixes (consonant suffixes -ful -ly -ment -s, vowel suffixes -en -er -es -est -ing -y, the suffix -ed and prefixes de- dis- ex- in- pre- re- un-) and the spelling rules for adding them to base words. In addition to the familiar comic-style kids’ pages, Book 5 features new highly controlled and decodable prose pages to gently increase the amount of text that readers experience and to provide even more opportunities to practice the reading skills previously introduced in Meg and Greg Books 1–4.
Out now!
Queenie Jean Is in Trouble Again by Christine Read (Heritage House Publishing)
When ten-year-old Queenie and her family move from small-town Ontario to a glitzy suburb of Vancouver, she is desperate to fit in and make a best friend for the first time in her life. With her creativity and bubbly personality, Queenie arrives at Western Canada Preparatory School ready to win over her classmates and conquer the world. But even before the first bell rings, she finds herself in trouble.
From always being late to talking out of turn to never being able to focus, Queenie stands out like a sore thumb, especially among the cool girls she wants to impress. Hardest of all, she has a secret. She’s been diagnosed with ADHD, and she hates how different it makes her feel. After struggling to navigate her new world, dreaming up ill-advised schemes to make the other kids like her, she must face her greatest fear of all: making a speech in front of the whole school that will show everyone her true self.
Queenie Jean Is in Trouble Again depicts a young person’s reality of living with ADHD with honesty, humour, and compassion. The author Christine Read has direct experience as the mother of a daughter diagnosed with ADHD. The book has also had a sensitivity read by the former executive director of the Centre for ADHD Awareness, Canada.
Out now!
The Secret Office by Sara Cassidy, illustrated by Alyssa Hutchings (Orca Book Publishers)
Twins Henry and Allie love the apartment they share with their mom, Sam, but their space has been feeling cramped ever since Sam started working from home. Her online meetings mean the siblings can barely use the living room!
At first, Allie and Henry figure out a quick fix—buying their mom some headphones. But when Allie stumbles upon a secret locked room in the basement, she and Henry ask the custodian, Mr. Jeff, for his help to turn it into an office. As they work away, the twins make new discoveries about themselves, Mr. Jeff and their amazing apartment building’s history.
As Allie and Henry use their problem-solving smarts, The Secret Office shows how self-sufficient kids can be. The real-world setting will help empower readers to take on their own projects.
Out now!
Waltraut by Gabriele Goldstone (Heritage House Publishing)
Eleven-year-old Waltraut wants to fit in at school, but it’s not easy. Not only does her name rhyme with the ethnic slur that is often hurled her way, but no one can relate to her immigrant family and their complicated past. On weekends, however, she attends German school with friends who are just like her. They share a language, food, and customs—and they understand what it’s like to live in two cultures.
As Waltraut navigates between her two worlds, she copes by reading and imagines how much easier her life would be if her name was Nancy, like the heroine of her favourite mystery series. So when her family moves to a new neighbourhood, Waltraut seizes the chance to reinvent herself. But she soon learns the price of pretending to be someone else. With support from an insightful teacher, a warm-hearted father, a tough-minded mother, and even her annoying younger brother, she embraces her true self, with all of its complexities and contradictions.
Identifying as German-Canadian with German-Russian background, the author Gabriele Goldstone writes from personal experience as the child of war-displaced immigrants. The book’s positive message of embracing yourself, and the importance of family and community will appeal to those from newcomer and immigrant families who can relate to the protagonist dealing with a complicated family history and what it’s like to live in two cultures.
Out now!
ADOLESCENCE
The Science of Boys by Emily Seo, illustrated by Gracey Zhang (Tradewind Books)
The shy and studious Emma Sakamoto excels at science. So when a popular girl at school asks for Emma’s help in getting a boy she fancies to like her, Emma starts writing “The Science of Boys.” Can gravity pull a boy into a girl’s orbit? Emma applies theories from her favourite subject to a perplexing object— boys, but do people really conform to scientific principles? The results are unpredictable in this heartwarming story about the struggles of fitting in and the complexities of friendship.
“A nerdy Canadian teen blends real science principles with matchmaking in Seo’s low-key debut. . . .Told via homey-feeling prose, Seo’s story deftly portrays one teen’s struggles to juggle friendship woes, familial trials, and personal truths with fitting in, making for an earnest, low-stakes romp. Zhang’s illustrations, rendered in bold swathes of b&w ink, depict myriad scenes from Emma’s life, including an idyllic moment overlooking the ocean.” – Publishers Weekly
Out now!
Flash Flood by Gabrielle Prendergast (Orca Book Publishers)
Seventeen-year-old Zack has been living with his foster parents, the Tates, for three years. He used to be an angry mess with a broken heart, but with their love and support he’s doing better now—and managing his ADHD. His foster brother, troubled fourteen-year-old Peter, arrived three months ago. Struggling with ADHD and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, Peter reminds Zach of himself before the Tates took him in.
During a massive rainstorm, the town announces a mandatory emergency evacuation. Zack takes charge, gathering supplies and trying to make sure Peter is okay. As the water rises, Zack and Peter have to figure out whether to sit tight and wait or try to escape before they get washed away.
This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for teen readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read. The story highlights the importance of foster care, providing safe spaces for troubled youth, and being prepared for emergencies, while exploring themes of growing up and taking responsibility. The characters’ neurodivergence—attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD)—is depicted realistically and with sensitivity.
Out now!
My Turquoise Years (20th anniversary edition) by M.A.C. Farrant (Talonbooks)
The setting is Vancouver Island, the year 1960. It is the era of the Three Stooges and the Red Menace, the apex of plastic, Arborite, and everything turquoise: high heels, pedal pushers, refrigerators, even cars.
Throughout her childhood, Marion Farrant heard wild family stories of the sophisticated life her mother, Nancy, led far away in Australia. Nancy’s world of riches and men seemed light years away from Cordova Bay on Vancouver Island, where Marion lived a working-class life with her aunt and uncle. But things changed the year she entered her teens. That year, Nancy threw everyone into a flurry with the surprise announcement that she was coming for a visit.
This new edition of Farrant’s beloved memoir of her fourteenth summer, capturing a lost time and place with love and hilarity, includes five companion stories, an introduction by Lynne Van Luven, and a preface by the author. Witty, tender, and wry, My Turquoise Years is a book for anyone who remembers being a teenager.
Out now!
Sunrise over Half-Built Houses: Love, Longing and Addiction in Suburbia by Erin Steele (Caitlin Press)
Enter into the life and mind of a shy teenager coming of age in the early 2000s in a pretty, suburban neighbourhood where nothing is quite as it seems—including her. At a glance, she’s a student with a boyfriend and a job at the coffee shop. Yet she’s skipping class, grappling with intense feelings for girls and growing dangerously dependent on illicit pills with cute names.
Wanting nothing more than to be who she is on the inside, Erin Steele’s spiral into addiction and parallel quest for meaning takes readers into big houses with spare room for secrets; past quiet cul-de-sacs where kids party in wooded outskirts zoned for development; where West Coast rains can pummel for days.
Written with searing honesty that stares at you until you turn away, then stares at you some more, Sunrise over Half-Built Houses digs down past pleasantries and manicured lawns, through the sucking hole of addiction, then further still to reveal a place where we can all see ourselves and each other more clearly.
Out now!
ADULTHOOD
Death of Persephone: A Murder by Yvonne Blomer (Caitlin Press)
In Death of Persephone, award-winning poet Yvonne Blomer displaces the myth of young Persephone in Hades’ violent underworld, challenging modern concepts of gods and humanity. The patriarchal myth of the maiden taken, raped, and made the potent and sexualized queen of the underworld is questioned, altered, flipped. Instead, we have Stephanie, a girl of seven, taken and raised by her Uncle H. who is obsessed by her, tries to control her, to keep her, to have her even as she blooms out from underneath him.
In poems both lyrical and narrative, a woman paints Hecate on a building, a Hyacinth Macaw flies overhead, a detective bumbles from crime to crime. This is a city with a vast underground where bats hang and paperwhites bloom, a city where men still rule.
Out now!
Keefer Street by David Spaner (Ronsdale Press)
Based on real events, Keefer Street brings to life the vibrancy of the largely Jewish Keefer Street in Strathcona, Vancouver, which was a dynamic working-class immigrant neighbourhood in Vancouver in the 1930s. The protagonist Jake Feldman’s left-wing, rabble-rousing street politics of his youth eventually lead him to leave Depression-era Vancouver to join the international volunteers fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War. But his return home is unheralded and his idealism is worn down by the mundaneness of everyday life and family conflict.
Fifty years later, he recaptures the passion of his youth during a reunion of civil war volunteers in Spain. Keefer Street explores how to preserve your idealism in order to live a life of purpose.
Spaner was inspired to write the novel after accompanying a group of Spanish Civil War volunteers returning to Spain for a reunion and hearing their stories. He was fascinated by how they kept their optimism and maintained their principles throughout their lives. Being a film critic, Spanner integrates that extensive knowledge throughout the book by connecting films of the period with themes and scenes in the book.
Out now!
Everything is Poa: One Man’s Search for Peace and Purpose in East Africa by Jamey Glasnovic (Rocky Mountain Books)
“Poa” is Swahili slang for “cool; good; nice.” It is a word that laid-back adventurer Jamey Glasnovic picks up in East Africa, where he commits to testing his physical limits beyond the comfort zone of the pub. A sense of place and a desire to understand the connection all humans have to their surroundings are what compel him to explore foreign cultures and unfamiliar terrain.
Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro went a long way in accomplishing that goal. But it was the misadventures on his bicycle in Tanzania and Rwanda that helped define the journey. The warm and generous people he met along the way, along with the spectacular wildlife that is part of the African continent’s allure, are what stole his heart in the end.
Out now!
Instead: Navigating the Adventures of a Childfree Life by Maria Coffey (Rocky Mountain Books)
This is a compelling memoir about opting for adventure instead of motherhood, and the lifelong outcomes of that choice.
After a couple of traumatic experiences in her youth that leave her with a new fear of loss, Maria Coffey decides that parenthood is not for her. She chooses a life of adventure instead. The memoir follows Coffey’s trajectory as she shares her guilt-ridden relationship with her Irish Catholic mother; her baby debates with Dag in unlikely situations, like kayaking through a storm; the doubts that rear up in remote cultures where her childfree choice is unfathomable; and how children eventually – and surprisingly – come into her life.
An adventure story with a unique twist, Instead tackles the universal themes of choice and consequence, agency versus fate. It is a must read for anyone curious about stepping off the beaten track, and a testament to the power of being open to the unexpected.
Out now!