Annette Gershon’s odyssey from depression-era Winnipeg to Stalinist Russia and back to Canada in the 1950s is both the seldom-told story of those who actually made that hopeful, doomed, journey, and a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit. Ten-year old Annette Gershon is content enough growing up in her father’s delicatessen on Main Street Winnipeg, but for immigrant families scratching out a living in the Dirty Thirties, even subsistence is a delicate balance, easily upset. Everything changes when her parents decide to take the family "home" to the Soviet Union to escape the devastation of the collapsing capitalist economy. Annette struggles to maintain her sense of who she is, first adapting to her life in Stalinist Odessa, then fleeing to Moscow, ahead of the Nazi occupation. But it is in the post-war years that her identity, and her very life, are threatened by the anti-Semitism of Stalinism’s final years. The Knife Sharpener's Bell is the story of a girl who tried to stop a train, but finds herself on the runaway train of historical events. It is a story about loyalty and betrayal, heroism and fear. What is most memorable about it is the empathy we feel for these characters, who must make their way through some of the twentieth century's most tumultuous events. The writing is infused with a poet's sensitivities to rhythm, image, and linguistic energy, yet it is also beautifully restrained – each image and each gorgeous observation is there for a very particular reason; the entire story hums with the tension that arises from the taut, athletic language.
Jeanette and her cat, Kitty Doyle, have a special relationship -- Kitty Doyle walks Jeanette to and from school every day. But one snowy afternoon, Jeanette forgets that Kitty Doyle is waiting for her and goes to a friend's to play. When Jeanette remembers, the snowstorm is raging. Where is Kitty Doyle? A story of faith and friendship.
quot;(Tregebov) touches the universal desire for completeness, lending her understanding to how women hurt themselves... the poet, ‘remembering history,’ must not repeat it, but balanced perfectly, must create it anew."— Poetry Canada Review
The illustrator of one of the bestselling releases of the year, The Girl Who Hated Books brings her evocative images to a lovely story by acclaimed children's author, Rhea Tregebov.
Annette Gershon’s odyssey from depression-era Winnipeg to Stalinist Russia and back to Canada in the 1950s is both the seldom-told story of those who actually made that hopeful, doomed, journey, and a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit. Ten-year old Annette Gershon is content enough growing up in her father’s delicatessen on Main Street Winnipeg, but for immigrant families scratching out a living in the Dirty Thirties, even subsistence is a delicate balance, easily upset. Everything changes when her parents decide to take the family "home" to the Soviet Union to escape the devastation of the collapsing capitalist economy. Annette struggles to maintain her sense of who she is, first adapting to her life in Stalinist Odessa, then fleeing to Moscow, ahead of the Nazi occupation. But it is in the post-war years that her identity, and her very life, are threatened by the anti-Semitism of Stalinism’s final years. The Knife Sharpener's Bell is the story of a girl who tried to stop a train, but finds herself on the runaway train of historical events. It is a story about loyalty and betrayal, heroism and fear. What is most memorable about it is the empathy we feel for these characters, who must make their way through some of the twentieth century's most tumultuous events. The writing is infused with a poet's sensitivities to rhythm, image, and linguistic energy, yet it is also beautifully restrained – each image and each gorgeous observation is there for a very particular reason; the entire story hums with the tension that arises from the taut, athletic language.
Sarah is the youngest of the three Levine sisters. At twenty-five, she is rudderless, caught in a paralysis which keeps her from seizing her own life. When Sarah is fired from her Toronto job, a chance stay in Paris opens her up to new direction and purpose. But when she reads the writing on the wall above her local Métro subway station, “death to the Jews”, shadows from childhood rise again. And as her path crosses that of Laila, a young woman living in an exile remote from the luxuries of 1980s Paris, Sarah stumbles towards to an act of terrorism that may realize her childhood fears. In this new novel by the author of The Knife Sharpener’s Bell, writing that is both sensual and taut creates a tightly woven, compelling narrative.
The illustrator of one of the bestselling releases of the year, The Girl Who Hated Books brings her evocative images to a lovely story by acclaimed children's author, Rhea Tregebov.
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