Follow the Elephant

by Beryl Young

$10.95

• February 2010
• ISBN: 978-1-55380-098-9
• 5-1/4 x 7-5/8
• 248 pp

What thirteen year old boy wants to travel on a hopeless quest to India with his grandmother? Not Ben Leeson, whose anger about his father’s recent death has led him to escape into the isolated world of computer games. India is the last place Ben ever thought of visiting and his grandmother is the last person he’d ever dreamed of travelling with, but the ticket is already bought and Ben finds himself in India on a search for Gran’s long lost pen pal, Shanti.

In the midst of insufferable heat, strange food and the constant haggling of street beggars, Ben and Gran meet magicians and snake charmers and see bodies burning on funeral pyres.

As they search for clues across the huge continent, Ben finds himself strangely compelled to follow the magnificent elephants and the elephant boy-god Ganesh.

The challenges of the journey teach Ben that real life can be more exciting than any computer game and that by accepting the dark mysteries of India, he can come to terms with his father’s death.

This adventure quest for children ten and up takes its place among the many captivating adult books about India, and is an invaluable resource for school curriculum studies on world religions.

“A richly colourful, adventure-packed novel — thirteen-year-old Ben’s unlikely trek across the South Asian continent keeps you turning page after page, while the sights, sounds and flavours of India permeate the senses.”

— PAMELA PORTER, GOVERNOR GENERAL’S CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AWARD WINNER 2005 FOR THE CRAZY MAN

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REVIEWS

“Beryl Young has written a rich travelogue that brings the sights, sounds, and smells of India to life. Readers who dream of visiting far off places will escape into the pages of this well-paced novel, and Young’s superb descriptions will make India very real in their minds. Young has expertly woven historical and cultural facts about India in with the prose of the novel, making this story one that will not only entertain readers, but teach them as well.”
— CM Magazine

Strange Bedfellows

The Private Lives of Words

by Howard Richler

$19.95

• APRIL 2010
• ISBN: 978-1-55380-100-9
• 6 x 9
• 164 pp trade paper

The bawdy English language has never been overly concerned with purity, and this promiscuous proclivity has contributed to many alluring word histories. Richler combines his etymological talents with those of the muck-raking journalist to expose the louche baggage that many words have accumulated throughout the centuries.

When reading Strange Bedfellows: The Private Lives of Words expect to learn the unexpected truth about the past lives of many words. You will discover why gossiping in church is etymologically proper and that words such as “avocado” and “porcelain” have past associations with some of the nether regions of the body that have been conveniently forgotten by the lovers of fruit and fine china.

As Richler reveals, the English language has slept around for centuries and in the process has been seduced by many foreign influences. Composed of short chapters with each containing ten words from specific fields, Strange Bedfellows will surprise and delight the reader.

Other Ronsdale books by Howard Richler:

• Can I Have a Word with You?
• Take My Words: A Wordaholic’s Guide to Language

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REVIEWS and MEDIA

“An etymological delight.”
— Concordia University Magazine

“One of the more delightful books to hit my desk this season. . . . It’s a fascinating, informative, and engrossing book on a great number of words, their origin, original meaning, and for some of them, where the English language has stolen them from. It’s also often amusing, and I find myself still—weeks after getting the book—dipping into it.”
— Joseph Planta, thecommentary.ca

“Word nerds rejoice! Howard Richler delivers another riotously funny and informative text. . . .Grade-A cocktail party conversation material.”
— Telegraph-Journal

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The Invention of the World

by Jack Hodgins

$18.95

• March 2010
• ISBN: 978-1-55380-099-6
• 6 x 9
• 356 pp

Jack Hodgins begins The Invention of the World with a ferry worker waving you aboard a ship that will take you not only to Vancouver Island but into a world of magic. The far west coast of Canada has always been regarded as a “land’s end” where the eccentrics of the world come to plot out the last best utopia. Hodgins both invents a world and shows how we continually invent that world in all its multiplicity.

Past and present intermingle while hilarious farce rubs up against epic tragedy. Intertwined are a love story, a portrait of a nineteenth-century village, a clash between wild loggers and weight-watching town folk who have to wear a pig when they fail to meet their weight goals. Pagan myths rub shoulders with the harsh pioneer days of the British Columbia rainforest.

As always with Hodgins, this novel is based on the portrayal of character. At the centre of the mystery is Donal Keneally, the mad Irish messiah who eighty years ago persuaded an entire Irish village to emigrate to Canada, there to become his slaves in the Revelations Colony of Truth. His heir is Maggie Kyle along with her collection of boarders in the old Colony of Truth building. Here truly is a novel that is itself an invention of the world.

Skin Like Mine

by Garry Gottfriedson

$15.95

• APRIL 2010
• ISBN 978-1-55380-101-6
• 6 x 9
• 122 pp trade paper
• Poetry

In Skin Like Mine Garry Gottfriedson offers a suite of poems that peel away the skin of contemporary first nations people to reveal an inside view of their experience. He pulls no punches as he explores their challenges.

He speaks of “minds full of anticipation” yet with “tongues pointing
arrowheads.” Telling it “like it is,” he encourages readers to examine what lies inside many of today’s native youth, who are “afraid to live / afraid to die / afraid of ourselves.” He draws attention to the rape of the natural environment, the skin of Mother Earth, when he speaks of “forests being / eaten from the inside out.” He tackles the political dysfunction within present-day band management, calling the leaders “political bullies” who “sweet-talk their way to stage management / . . . then vote for themselves” to perpetuate internalized oppression.

But as the collection continues, Gottfriedson’s love for his land begins to emerge, and he calls on the mysterious Horsechild when he says: “I will bind the drying racks once again / with hemp to make ready / the rows for drying salmon / so that beneath your skin / the mountains will be forever abundant.” Here the age-old rituals of the people and the land return, for the skin of the land provides comfort and assurance that some things will never change.

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REVIEWS

“A beautiful and complex collection of poems.”
— CM Magazine

“This is a poet who cannot be pinned down. . . . Accessible plain talk, not literary poetry, with terrific speech rhythms. . . .These poems describe a wide emotional arc. . . . Skin Like Mine is an eye opener.”
— BC BookWorld

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Survivor’s Leave

by Robert Sutherland

$10.95

• February 2010
• ISBN: 978-1-55380-097-2
• 5-1/4 x 7-5/8
• 176 pp

It’s 1944, and two young Canadian able seamen, Glen Cassley and Arthur “Ding Dong” Bell, find their ship sinking beneath them after a German submarine unleashes an acoustic torpedo. Miraculously, everyone on board survives, and Glen shouts out triumphantly:

“You know what this means, Ding? Survivor’s Leave. We qualify for Survivor’s Leave!”

With fun and adventure on their minds, Glen and Ding set off for London. But there is no rest from battle, for the Germans have begun dropping a new kind of bomb, the horrific V-1s, or doodlebugs. When a neighbour and her baby are trapped under their collapsed and burning home, an injured Glen is on the frontlines. Glen and Ding then accept an offer to travel to Cornwall where they are to stay in a rundown manor house, Penraven. Their stay turns out to be more exciting than the boys could have imagined. Built atop a cave-riddled cliff, Penraven has been the home of smuggling, murder, dungeons and ghosts. To add to the excitement, the boys meet two young English girls who turn out to be charming company!

But the young seamen soon discover that sinister forces have an interest in what lies hidden below Penraven, for the Nazis have hatched an unprecedented scheme involving biological warfare, and it seems the caves are the perfect place from which to set the destruction in motion.

“With thirteen splendid novels to his credit, Robert (Bob) Sutherland
is one of Canada’s most treasured youth authors.”
— FRIENDS OF THE OTTAWA PUBLIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

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REVIEWS

“Survivor’s Leave is both factually detailed and a pleasing adventure story from stem to stern.”
— Canadian Children’s Book News

“a fast-paced, action-filled adventure. . . . Recommended.”
— CM Magazine

“Survivor’s Leave was an outstanding book. . . If you like reading historical fiction about the Second World War, I highly suggest reading this book.”
— What If? magazine
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