This Wendesday for our Ask an Author series, we caught up with Anne Dublin, whose book The Baby Experiment just realeased this week.

CS: Tell us about your book.

AD: The Baby Experiment: Johanna is a 14-year-old Jewish girl who lives in Hamburg, Germany in the early 18^th century. She feels stifled by the daily drudgery of her life and dreams of seeing what lies outside the confines of the Jewish quarter. Johanna lies about her identity and gets a job as a caregiver at an orphanage. She discovers a secret experiment is taking place that results in the deaths of babies.

Deciding to kidnap one of the orphans, Johanna sets off for Amsterdam. She faces many dangers on her journey, including plague, bandits, storms, and not least of all, anti-Semitism. Johanna has a lot of courage and determination, but will it be enough to save the baby and reach her destination? Will she finally find a place where she can be free?

CS: How did you come up with the idea for this work?

AD: I read a newspaper article about a scientist who sought to determine if babies would speak if they had not been exposed to language. I’ve always been interested in the acquisition of language, and I thought this might be an interesting premise for a book.

CS: Tell us a little about the overarching theme of your work, and why you felt compelled to explore it.

AD: How does a person overcome obstacles in life? How can a person make a difference? I want my readers to be inspired by the characters’ actions and to feel that they, too, can make a difference in the world.

CS: How did you research your book?

AD: There were three main areas of research:

• The acquisition of language, and especially about “wild children”—those children who, for one reason or another, weren’t exposed to language during their formative years.
• Life in the early eighteenth century—food, clothing, transportation, politics, and religious attitudes.
• Because the main character, Johanna, is Jewish, I also researched the cultural and religious life of Jewish people at that time in Europe.

CS: What was the hardest part of writing your book?

AD: My challenge was to create speech patterns for people from different levels of society. For example, Daniel the wagon driver’s speech was rougher than Johanna’s or the doctor’s.

CS: What is your new project?

I’m working on a novel about the Toronto dressmakers’ strike of 1931—44 Hours or Strike! I’m halfway through and my characters are leading the way. The process is nerve wracking, but exciting, too.

Anne Dublin is an award-winning author of historical fiction and biographies for young people. Her books include Bobbie Rosenfeld: The Olympian Who Could Do Everything, winner of the IODE Violet Downey Book Award and the Canadian Jewish Book Award, and The Orphan Rescue, finalist for the U.S. National Jewish Book Award. She lives in Toronto.

It makes me nostaglic for my childhood when my father and I would go to the Marine Musuem every year, likely contributing to my love of boat books.

We also used to visit Mackenzie House annually — the house of Toronto’s first mayor William Lyon Mackenzie, who was also an early Canadian publisher. It’s so close to our office, we really should take a field trip over lunch one day!

These days I read as much as I can manage. But as a teen, circumstances conspired to make me a huge bookworm: I lived in a small town where nothing happened; my parents both worked and didn’t force me into after school programs or summer camps, and I was pretty much a loner. Not to mention that there wasn’t anything else on earth that I would rather be doing.

As I grow older it seems my relationship with what I read has become less profound: I don’t get as wrapped up in what I’m reading as often. I think the obvious reason is that I’m a lot more distracted with work, big-city life, and not being a total loner anymore. But more than that, I think that I’m just a lot more skeptical and less receptive than I was. I am also pickier about the people that I let in, and that includes fictional characters. That may be a protective mechanism, but it comes at the expense of entire literary worlds.

There are a handful of books each year that enchant me, which I think is pretty normal for an adult. That’s why there’s something really special about the words “teen fiction”. They’re loaded, for me, with that nostalgic feeling of being a 12-year-old mind still open enough to walk through the looking glass again and again.

Dundurn has some great new and forthcoming teen titles that I wish I could send to my younger self.  I would probably have gotten sucked into Second Chances, by Brenda Chapman, and The Baby Experiment, by Anne Dublin, and The Oak Island Family, by Lee Lamb. I would also send a note to my younger self not to ruin my eyes reading in such poor light! But my younger self probably wouldn’t listen.

What books would you send to your teenage self?

Click on the link below to see it!

Chasing the White Witch Book Trailer

It’s over a month since my book came off the press, but my “to do” list shows no sign of getting any shorter. My desk is piled with letters, lists and stick-it notes with phone numbers to call and websites to check. Each call or email leads to three more, and I’m still discovering new leads.

Reaching the whole range of potential readers for Eugene Forsey, Canada’s Maverick Sage is an exciting challenge for me and for Dundurn. Neither the book nor its subject fit into any of the usual pigeonholes. “Watchdog for the body politic” isn’t an easy category to find on Google or in a bookstore.

But it does describe my Dad. Trade unionist, academic, parliamentarian, humourist, critic and gadfly – those terms only hint at the breadth of his involvement in the life of this country and his ongoing legacy.

If the book were just a biography, things might be simpler. But Eugene Forsey, Canada’s Maverick Sage is destined to be, itself, a tool for change – a source of information and inspiration on matters of continuing relevance today. Writing it meant exploring issues of social justice, nationalism, faith, education, language, partisanship and democracy itself.

So it’s not just political junkies or history buffs who will want this book. I’m hoping it will also provoke and delight others – especially new Canadians and young people – who may never have heard of my father. Much has changed in the two decades since he died, but the need for his wit and wisdom has never been greater. As The Hill Times put it in a recent headline, “Where’s Eugene Forsey when you need him?”

Well, a lot of him is in the book. That’s why I’m working through my “to do” list, so that people from sea to sea to sea will get to read and use it.

Helen Forsey, like her father, Eugene, is a social activist and writer who worked overseas with CUSO and other international voluntary organizations. An ardent feminist and environmentalist, she winters in Ompah, Ontario, and summers at Pouch Cove, Newfoundland.

It seems the real reason for not attending the World Expo is the result of our nation’s wounded pride. In a report commissioned by Heritage Canada following the 2010 expo in Shanghai, it was found that the Canadian pavilion is not viewed as a priority stop for most Expo visitors. The report concluded that:  “The shallow understanding of Canada, of Canadians and what is unique about Canada hinders top-of-mind interest in visiting the Canadian pavilion”. So… not representing ourselves is a better solution to this age-old Canadian dilemma?

Canadians seem to spend a lot of time trying to figure out why our culture is misunderstood and so often overlooked. It’s a circular thought process that betrays our youth and self-consciousness as a nation. That time would be better spent creating culture, participating in global conversations and defining ourselves by something other that our awkward eagerness.

The fact is that we don’t need to explain to others why we’re here or why they should care. Our existence and cultural success isn’t determined by how many people plan to hit us up at the World Expo. So the dialogue shouldn’t be about why people aren’t talking about us; why aren’t we talking about ourselves? A microcosm of this appears in Canadian publishing. Independent Canadian bookstores and publishers are closing or being bought by American chains. Their closures reflect a lack of Canadian self-interest.  The consequence of their (apparent) extinction would be a dwindling of available vehicles for Canadian expression and thought.

The Defining Canada blog’s aim is to promote the discussion surrounding publishing in Canada. Let’s not waste time establishing that we exist, or trying to counter unwarranted ideas about the importance of Canadian stories.

Sometimes as a teacher I felt that if nothing blew up, or no one was murdered, then there was just no point because no one in the class would be interested. I mean To Kill A Mockingbird, 1984, heck, Shakespeare? Yeah right, I might as well be talking to a wall. I countered these ideas with the hope that if my students could put themselves through Jersey Shore each week surely their brains are going to be dying for some sort of stimulus like Harper Lee, George Orwell and Shakespeare! Right? Right?

The point I’m trying to make is English teachers: I understand your struggle.

I always wonder if teachers, before the invention of iphones, videgames and television, had the same sort of problem that teachers today have. Meaning, is the lack of enthusiam for reading because technology is killing any desire for kids to use their imaginations or is it because books don’t provide the stimulus that videogames and television can? Or is it simply because parents don’t have the time to read to their children when they’re small and therefore don’t foster a love of reading from the get go? So many questions but still the same problem. How do we get students interested in reading so that the traditional “20 minutes of silent reading” at the beginning of each English class doesn’t feel like Chinese water torture?

I think that part of the answer is to ask students what they’re interested in reading, and picking books that are relevant. There is nothing wrong with the classic books and they should definitely be taught, but I think there needs to be a better balance between the classics and newer books.

There is also an advantage to newer books. being that publishers know how challenging it is to get students to read, and how demanding teacher’s jobs are and so they create Teacher Resource Guides (or as I like to call them the teacher time savers).

While teaching is demanding of both time and energy, there is no doubt in my mind that English teachers are up for the fight of rescuing students imaginations from the grips of television and videogames. So stock your bookshelves and don’t ever hesitate to ask publishers for a hand because we’re up for the fight to rescue imaginations too.

CS: Tell us about your book.

Bill: My new book “KEEP UP IF YOU CAN: Confessions of a high school teacher” (April 2012) looks back on my 31 years of teaching history to high school students in Toronto.

CS: How did you come up with the idea for this work?

Bill: My editor at Dundurn Press (Shannon Whibbs) is a former student of mine at North Toronto Collegiate.  After she helped me with my latest book on old cars (published April 2011), we both felt that my “creative and dynamic and sometimes unorthodox” teaching style could form the basis for a new book and would be of interest to anyone who has ever gone to school.

CS: How did you come up with the title?

Bill: Shannon suggested the KEEP UP IF YOU CAN title because that is the challenge I gave to every class while standing on top of my desk at the front of the room just before leading my students through an aerobic workout to a lively rock ‘n’ roll beat.  The title also means that I will gladly help any student who has trouble keeping up with the course work.

CS: Describe the most memorable response you’ve received from a reader.

Bill: Most memorable response from a student:  Two of my ancient history students travelled through the Middle East in the summer after they took my course.  They sent me a postcard describing what they had seen and ended their message with these words:  “Being here reminded us of you.”

CS: What is your new project?

Bill: I’m over half-way along in writing my first novel, an action-packed adventure that befalls a teenage boy in the summer of 1957.  Here are the first four sentences:    “Seventeen-year-old Dean Armstrong slammed into the back of a parked car at 30 miles an hour.  He was riding a bicycle.  He somersaulted over the handlebars and landed in the driver’s seat of a convertible, right beside a voluptuous young blonde.  The trouble that followed is still talked about today…”

Bill Sherk taught high school history in Toronto for over 30 years. Currently he is a feature writer for Old Autos and also writes a weekly syndicated column, “Old Car Detective,” for thirty Canadian newspapers. He is also the author of I’ll Never Forget My First Car and Old Car Detective. Sherk lives in Leamington, Ontario.

But his ideas will likely never be adopted by the public school system, not only because of the difficulty of testing their effectiveness above standard rinse and repeat methods, but because they require an enormous commitment on the part of teacher. By this I do not want to infer that public school teachers are not committed – some of my high school teachers stand among the most influential people in my life.

I mean that to me it seems like it would take an iron will to face each moment with each student as a singular experience that requires its own deliberate reaction. With overcrowded classrooms and the slew of unforeseeable variables that teachers deal with, how could one not allow habitual, pre-established teaching methods to take over?

But every once in a while a teacher like Bill Sherk comes along, with the stamina and charisma to captivate a class full of teens and to stick with them for the rest of their lives. Sherk’s new book, Keep Up If You Can; Confessions of a High School Teacher, recalls the experience of a teacher whose passion and unorthodox methods made him one of those shining stars of his profession. Sherk, like Gattegno, met the challenge of teaching with creativity, ultimately breaking down the barriers between student and teacher. When teachers take it upon themselves to discover their students’ individual capabilities, they encourage them to be “producers of their own knowledge”; that’s what they are remembered for.

Think about your favourite teachers. Did they stick to their lesson plans, or did they set you free? Ideally, we go on learning after leaving academic institutions, and when we no longer have homework and mandatory attendance this is done by our own volition. Teachers like Bill Sherk are crucial because they confirm that learning is not completely dependent on textbooks, that it can be drawn from experience, and that it can even happen while you’re having fun.

The books main characters are the Whiteoak family, and the novels follow the family for the span of 100 years. The great thing about the books is that they’re not in sequential order so you can just pick any of them up and start reading.

I realize that most people have not really heard of the Jalna series, however, the National Film Board of Canada has and has made a documentary entitled The Mystery of Mazo de la Roche, which is appearing in this years Hot Docs film festival.

Click on the  following links to see two different clips from the documenatry:

Clip 1

Clip 2

So if you’re a diehard Downton Abbey fan, or a diehard Canadian lit fan, or really just looking for a new good series to read, Jalna has everything that you could possibility need.