February Queen Book of the Month

The Foghorn Echoes, by Danny Ramadan

@SPL: FIC Ramad

With winter deepening, many of us are on the hunt for immersive, engrossing stories to keep us company through the cold, dark nights. If this sounds like you, I humbly suggest one of my favourite books of 2022: Danny Ramadan’s The Foghorn Echoes.

The book begins in Syria in 2003, with two teen best friends who find themselves falling in love. Their sweet romance is marred by a tragic accident, when Hussam’s father catches him acting on his feelings

for Wassim. In the ensuing struggle, Hussam’s father falls from a roof to his death.

The rest of the book traces the fallout, as both boys struggle to carry their blame and their love.  Sponsored by a controlling older man, Hussam finds himself in Vancouver, slowly spiraling downward in the party scene, weighted by drugs, trauma, and his sponsor’s emotional abuse. Wassim, meanwhile, lands on the streets of Damascus, cast out by his family when they discover his relationship with Hussam.

Frankly, this book has everything: star-crossed lovers, extravagant parties, a ghost story or two, incisive commentaries on war, racism and colonialism, and redemptive love, though nothing like the simplified fairytale version of romance novels. The writing in this book is searing, immediate and stunning. Readers should know going in that Ramadan holds nothing back on the page - not the sex, not the drugs, not the trauma – and thank goodness he doesn’t. The Foghorn Echoes is too honest for anything less.

Shauna Costache

Public Service Supervisor

Stratford Public Library

 Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao

@SPL: YA FIC Zhao 

Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao, is an amazing young adult sci-fi adventure that uses references to Chinese history and culture to weave a captivating tale of love and revenge. Humanity is at war with giant alien creatures and uses large war machines called Chrysalises to fight the invaders. These mecha can only be piloted by young men, assisted by young women volunteers, “concubine-pilots,” who are inevitably killed by the power drain. Wu Zetian has volunteered to copilot with the goal of pairing up

with and killing the man who murdered her older sister, another pilot concubine. 

Zetian far exceeds her original plans, discovering she is one of the few women able to pilot a Chrysalis by draining male pilots, an Iron Widow. She is too valuable to the war effort to outright execute, so she is paired up with a male pilot who has a violent reputation, in the hopes they will destroy each other.

 She suspects that she is not the only woman capable of this ability and investigates. The novel follows her as she confronts the patriarchal society in which she lives and establishes a unique polyamorous relationship that leads her to believe she has the power to smash the system.

Zetian is an unapologetically ruthless protagonist, who draws you along with her through sheer force of will.  Xiran Jay Zhao is a non-binary Chinese Canadian author, YouTuber, and cosplayer. 

CJ Nyssen 

Public Service Librarian

Stratford Public Library

 We Are Okay by Nina LaCour @SPL: YA FIC LaCou 

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour is the story of Marin and her best friend Mabel. The young women are separated by thousands of miles because Marin is attending university in New York and Mabel has remained in San Francisco. The story takes place over the Christmas holidays when Marin, not having any family in New York, has been given permission to stay alone in the university dorms. It’s clear from the outset that Marin is grieving the people and places from her previous life, and what has brought Marin to New York is gradually revealed in flashbacks to a time when Marin lived in San Francisco with her grandfather. Mabel’s texts and calls to her friend have gone unanswered and a worried Mabel flies to New York to talk to Marin. Her plan is to persuade her to return to San Francisco with her where Mabel’s family have asked her to come and live with them. We Are Okay is a tender coming of age love story. It touches on grief and betrayal, but also feelings of belonging and finding family in unexpected places - a family that refuses to give up on you no matter how hard you try to push them away. Nina LaCour is one of the finest writers of Young Adult fiction of her generation and Time magazine added We Are Okay to its 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time list. LaCour leaves the end of Marin’s story open, and it’s not all neatly tied up and solved in the final pages, but she also leaves us with a feeling of hope for Marin and Mabel and a reassurance that whatever happens, things really will be okay. 

Heather Lister

Public Service Librarian

Stratford Public Library 

The Perks of Loving a Wallflower / Erica Ridley @SPL: ROM PB Rid 

The Perks of Loving A Wallflower is a Regency romp, second in a series following the Wild Wynchester family, and a great read-alike for fans of Bridgerton.  This series follows an unusual family on the outer edges of Regency society, made up of orphans all adopted by the late Baron Wynchester. This story focuses on Thomasina, known as Tommy, who identifies as non-binary. Tommy is also an expert in disguise, and  appears in society in the form of her own aged aunt, a young Regency miss, or (vital to this story) a continental cousin, the Baron Vanderbean.  The wallflower of the title is Miss Philippa York, a bluestocking who wasn't too heartbroken when her betrothed duke married Chloe Wynchester instead of her, in the first book of the series. She's never felt that tug of romance, until she meets Baron Vanderbean. He's an answer to her mother's obsession with the marriage mart, and shockingly, Philippa even likes him.   Philippa is plump and pretty, but she's also a brilliant scholar. She wants to decipher a centuries-old manuscript to refute the claims of an army captain who is taking credit for work that isn't his. And she finds that she needs the help of the Wild Wynchesters, who are also investigators on the side of what's right.  When she discovers that Baron Vanderbean is actually Tommy, and a woman, the stakes of this escapade become even higher for both of them. But as they investigate, sparks fly, and their partnership takes on new resonance. 

Melanie Kindrachuk

 Public Service Librarian

Stratford Public Library

Go Tell It On the Mountain

by James Baldwin

@SPL: FIC Baldw 

 Go Tell It On the Mountain is American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin’s first novel. Published in 1953, this semi-autobiographical work is about fourteen-year-old John Grimes, son of a Pentecostal preacher, who is coming of age in 1930s Harlem. Quiet and smart, John grapples with how his emerging sexuality is challenging his relationship with God, and by extension his family and church community.   Using a non-linear narrative, Baldwin unravels the complex and sinful histories of John’s abusive father, Gabriel, his loving mother Elizabeth, and his father’s sister, Florence. These memories also reflect the social conditions Black Americans were subjected to at the turn of the 20th Century, including the racist violence that encouraged John’s parents to move from the South and the bitter treatment they continued to endure in the North. Each peek into the family’s history gives insight into how Gabriel and Elizabeth’s experiences informed the tense nature of their family dynamic, especially the roots of John’s troubled relationship with his father.   For fans of literary fiction who can handle some grey areas, Go Tell It On the Mountain makes a great fit. While the story deals with the moral hypocrisy, repression, and fear its characters experience as devout worshippers, it never denies the importance of the religious community that inspires John’s spiritual relationship with God and others. When reflecting on the depictions from Baldwin’s real life, readers will appreciate his work incorporating the multiple facets of his identity as a queer Black man so meaningfully into this story.  

Emma Brommer

Public Service Librarian

Stratford Public Library   

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz 

@SPL: YA FIC Saenz

 Fifteen-year-old Aristotle Mendoza isn’t an only child, but he feels like one. He has two older sisters who have moved away from home and an older brother who is in prison. He wants to learn to swim, and a chance encounter at the local pool with Dante Quintana, another fifteen-year-old, leads to a lasting friendship. The two boys, who initially bond over their shared classical names, quickly become inseparable. Set in Texas in 1987, this is a wonderful coming of age novel exploring themes of friendship, sexuality and the Mexican-American identity. The story is told through Aristotle (Ari), who comes from a family of Mexican immigrants who very much keep their feelings to themselves. Ari’s older brother in prison is treated as if he is dead and nobody talks about him. His father, a veteran of the war in Vietnam suffers from PTSD but refuses to discuss his feelings.  By contrast, Dante’s family are very open about their feelings and happily share affection for one another. So it’s no great leap for Dante to express his love for his friend, but Ari finds Dante’s openness unsettling. He knows his feelings for Dante are more than those of friendship, but his emotions confuse and frighten him. 1987 was a time before ready access to the internet and when the boys are separated for a summer, communication becomes dependent on letters, but there are also long periods of no contact. Ari and Dante’s story is told with both gentleness and sensitivity by the author, and Saenz explores the relationships between the boys and their parents with equal thoughtfulness. The book is available as a traditional hard copy, as an e-book, and audio book through the Stratford Public Library. An added bonus is that the audio version is narrated by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the hugely popular Broadway hit, Hamilton.  Aristotle and Dante is a tender look at love, both in the romantic and familial sense and it deserves every award it has received since its first release in 2014. In the Fall of 2021 Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World, a sequel to this book, was published, so Aristotle and Dante’s adventures will continue. 

 Heather Lister, Public Service Librarian, Stratford Public Library. 

Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human, by Erika Moen & Matthew Nolan @SPL: eBook - 2021 

Let’s Talk About It is a new kind of sex-ed book for teens. Yes, it describes contraceptive methods that weren’t on my radar when I was a teen in the early 2000s, but it’s a lot more exciting than that! First, the book is in graphic novel form. Each chapter is framed as a conversation between two or more characters, one of whom is often a knowledgeable friend, partner, or older sibling. The tone of the text is playful, kind, and informative (if a little corny). The muted pink and brown tones and crisp black lines of the illustrations are pleasing to the eye and complement the variety of bodies depicted, whether naked or clothed. Yes, there are illustrations of naked people. Rather a lot of them! The comic panels show teens hanging out and talking, as well as naked bodies, anatomical diagrams, and even illustrations of people having sex. To be clear, these illustrations are intended to inform rather than titillate. Some readers will find the illustrations helpful and affirming, but others may find them too graphic. This title is available through SPL as an eBook, which might be appealing to those who want to read discretely.  Let’s Talk About It covers a variety of timely topics such as gender, consent, and sexting. No matter the topic, the text and imagery is always sex positive, body positive and inclusive of all gender expressions and sexual identities. For example, the authors do away with gender binary and refer to “generally testosterone-rich” and “generally estrogen-rich” bodies in the anatomy discussions. Accompanying these discussions, and all throughout the book, are illustrations of characters representing a vast array of body shapes, sizes, colours, abilities, and gender expressions. It is so refreshing to see trans and intersex folks represented often in these pages. We’ve come a long way since the puberty book labelled “mostly for girls” that I owned as a teen!  Alida Lemieux Public Service Librarian Stratford Public Library 

Finding the Mother Tree, by Suzanne Simard
@SPL: 333.75 Sim

Over the past few years, there’s been an explosion of science supporting the theory that forests are a kind of superorganism. Books like The Hidden Life of Trees have been immensely popular, as people marvel at the networks that connect trees.

Suzanne Simard is one of the researchers at the forefront of this science, and her memoir, Finding the Mother Tree, details her professional evolution from forester, to forest ecologist. This is fascinating: how does one get to seeing a forest organism for the cash-crop trees? But there’s so much more to this book that makes it a treasure. 

The memoir is frank about the challenges of being passionate about one’s work, when one is also a wife and mother. Reading about how her marriage dissolves just as her work takes flight is heartbreaking, but she approaches it with kindness for everyone involved. She’s honest but never dramatic about the terror of being diagnosed with cancer, and working through treatment.

And, happily, she finds love again. This was perhaps the biggest smile of the book for me; Suzanne falls head-over-heels in love with one of her women friends, and the relationship is warm, supportive, and joyful. Best of all, it’s presented with no fanfare at all. No angst about coming out, no crisis about what this means for her identity. She just is, she’s in love, her family’s there for her, and it’s a beautiful thing. After years of reading memoirs of the trauma of queer living, it’s good for the soul to read about a queer lady scientist just being her happy self in the woods. 

In the end, this book is a testament to the power of curiosity and love. Nature nerds will love it for the accessible ecology, but anyone who loves a well-told memoir will be charmed by Finding the Mother Tree.

Shauna Costache
Public Service Supervisor
Stratford Public Library 

The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour by Dawn Dumont
@SPL: FIC Dumon

A ragtag group of Indigenous dancers heads from Saskatchewan to Europe in this novel set in the 70s. When the real Prairie Chicken Dance Troupe comes down with food poisoning the day before their tour, a group of former dancers is quickly assembled to take their place.

John Greyeyes, retired cowboy and brother of the band chief, is arm-twisted into running this makeshift tour. His dancers are Edna, a middle aged woman with arthritis, her niece Desiree and a young American, Lucas Pretends Eagle.

Dumont takes on many serious issues in this novel -- from misogyny, racism, the fetishization of "Indians" by Europeans, religion, sexual orientation, and the effects of residential schools, to the way society turns Indigenous people against themselves. But the book is also hilarious.

The tone is light and snappy, with shenanigans right from the start. In one unexpected turn after another, something outrageous is happening. Beyond the plot devices, there are also sly digs at every stereotype you can think of. Even while the action is zany, the characters are engaging -- despite being embroiled in slightly ridiculous events. There are serious moments too, times when you can really feel for the characters with their secret struggles. Edna grapples with the legacy of her time in residential school, while John struggles to acknowledge his identity as a gay man after he makes an instant connection with their charming guide to the Indigenous World Gathering in Kiruna, Sweden.

This is definitely one to draw out lots of discussion and opinion, which both seriously engages the reader and zips by with its farcical action. If you enjoy Thomas King or Drew Hayden Taylor's sharply humorous novels, you might really like this one too.

Melanie Kindrachuk
Public Service Librarian
Stratford Public Library

Reprieve, by James Han Mattson
@SPL: FIC Matts

Reprieve, by James Han Mattson, is a haunted house book with several twists and the perfect amount of gore. The book centres around a full-contact haunted house attraction called Quigley House, in which a young man is murdered during a tour. I’m not giving anything away; the murder is revealed in the first pages. 

From there, the novel follows a cast of characters, as the reader races to piece together how the murder happened, and who was responsible. The plot itself is full of suspense, but the novel brings an extra twist, in that it offers a scathing critique of mid-west American culture. 

Characters include Kendra, a young, goth Black girl who moves to Nebraska following the death of her father and winds up working at Quigley House, her lovelorn sports-star cousin Bryan, his roommate, Jaidee, a gay student from Thailand trying his best to fit into Nebraska, and Leonard, a middle-aged hotel manager drawn into an incel mindset by his friend John, the narcissistic, sadistic owner of Quigley House.

Many of the novel’s hairpin twists and turns come from characters navigating the ways their own identities intersect with Midwest American culture; Mattson is sharpest when picking apart the layers of racism and homophobia his characters experience, including the internalized varieties. 

In the end, what happens inside the house is a chilling microcosm of the power dynamics at play in society. In many ways, it feels like Jordan Peele’s hit movie Get Out. Reprieve is a fast-paced, terrifying read that shows the monster lives in all of us and feeds on power.