Sunday, March 06, 2005

International Women's Week-Canada-2005

To celebrate International Women's Day, or Week, as we're celebrating it here in Canada, I thought I'd pick 2 or 3 favourite Canadian women's books each week in March to re-read. That was just too hard, so I have picked six instead. (I read quickly!)

The Concubine's Children, by Denise Chong, (Penguin Books, Toronto, Ontario, Canada :1994) .
As a girl, Chong knew almost nothing of her grandmother's life. Years later, an opportunity for Chong & her mother to travel to China brought both of them an understanding of their past, and allowed her mother to meet a sister and half brother for the first time.

Try the Goose Grease! written & illustrated by Mary Isabel (Dolly) MacDonald Tuplin in the 1950's?, (published by her daughter, Ann Nunes & the Aldergrove Publishing Company, Aldergrove, B.C., Canada: 1990) . Tuplin wrote of her nursing experiences, sometimes sad, sometimes amusing, in Prince Edward Island & other places from 1917 on.

Raisins & Almonds, by Fredelle Bruser Maynard, Penguin Books, Markham, Ontario, Canada: 1985 ) . In this 1964 memoir, Maynard describes her childhood in Saskatchewan & Manitoba.
Writing a preface for the 1985 edition, Maynard said that "This book changed my life...I recovered my past. And, I realized, after long confusion, who I was and wanted to be." p.ix

Your Mouth is Lovely, a novel, by Nancy Richler, (HarperCollins Publishers, Toronto, Ontario, Canada: 2002). So painful & so hopeful at the same time.

Mamie's Children: Three Generations of Prairie Women, by Judy Schultz (Red Deer College Press, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada: 1997). This is a lovingly told family history.

The River Midnight, a novel, by Lilian Nattel, (Alfred A. Knopf Canada. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: 1999)
Magical; you have to read it.

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