Tag: Canadian author

Michelle Barker’s — My long list of impossible things *****

In 1945 when Soviet troops arrive in Muttt’s German town and kick her and her two daughters, Hilde and Katja, out of their house, they begin to leave with other refugees. Not long into their journey on foot heading to Fahlhoff, Mutti is shot by a Russian soldier and the two girls are left to fend for themselves. When they reach Fahlhoff, they learn that their mother’s friend has a reputation for being a mean hag. Will they be allowed to live under her roof, or will they be forced to remain homeless the way they had been on their long journey?

Janie Chang’s — The Library of Legends *****

With the invasion of the Japanese into China in 1937, students at Minghua University leave their campus and escape on foot inland. Each student carries an original volume of the Library of Legends — a 500 year old collection of Chinese myths. Among them is Lian who learns from a letter that her mother is headed to Shanghai, but it is safer for her to stay with her professors and students. They walk mostly at night to avoid being spotted by enemy aircraft and while she walks, Shao and Sparrow befriend her. When they start out, it seems like a adventure, but soon they encounter starving refugees, Japanese bomber planes and death.

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Mariam Toews’ — A boy of good breeding *****

Hosea Funk, the mayor of a small Canadian town, is obsessed with obtaining the perfect population number in the hope of meeting the prime minister. He drags Knute along as he checks on births and deaths, making this a humourous tale.

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Claire Holden Rothman’s — The heart specialist *****

Agnes’s father is acquitted of murdering his maimed sister, but he still loses his teaching position at McGill University, and abandons his pregnant wife and daughter. But Agnes cannot forget the image she holds of her father. She is not like her younger pretty sister, Laura. She is determined to follow in her father’s footsteps and seek a medical degree at McGill and determined to find her father. In the late 1900s when women are barred from entering the medical faculty, will she succeed?

This fictional book was inspired by the work and professional life of one of Montreal’s first female physicians, Dr Maude Elizabeth Seymour Abbott.