A child's experience of war is strangely pure and slanted. The impact is wholly dramatic at times. Its inconsequence just as overwhelming at other times. Sharing his experiences growing up in a French-Vietnamese family in Saigon, between 1961 and 1963, Marcelino Truong's graphic memoir is vibrant and informative. Some
Rereading the Saga comics is definitely worthwhile. On first-reading, I was a little off-kilter, so engrossed in some panels that I missed others completely, only occasionally remembering to retrace my steps. Discovering wings or horns on characters who appeared humanoid at first glance was delightfully but consistently distracting. Readers are aware
The Canadian Opera Company is now presenting a new 50th-anniversary production of "Louis Riel", originally written for the celebration of the Canadian centenary in 1967, with an attempt to shift that oh-so-colonial gaze, now including indigenous artists and languages with more nuanced representations of the historical figures. These are powerfully important
Because I forgot my key one day, I had to wait in the neighbourhood library for Mister BIP to finish work, before I could go home. I suppose I could have waited in the subway station. But it was only a 20-minute walk. Of course I walked: wouldn't you? One
My reading year began with Marina Endicott's New Year's Eve (2011), written with literacy front-of-mind; its vocabulary, structure and tone are meant to ease the passage for readers with varying degrees of ease reading in English. It begins simply: "The snow started before we left home." Despite its brevity ,
