Youth and teen fiction: Top 5 picks for Christmas
The true story behind Winnie the Pooh, Kate Beaton's first children's book, and other picks
Want to get your teen or tween a book that will pull them away from their gaming consoles this holiday season?
Look no further than this list by North by Northwest books columnist and CBC Books producer Erin Balser.
- Rags, the WW I hero dog, featured in B.C. biographer's new book
- B.C. railroad stories told in new book Whistle Posts West
She joined host Sheryl MacKay to give her top picks:
1. Finding Winnie by Lindsay Mattick
"It tells the real-life story of the bear that inspired Winnie the Pooh. I love this book for a whole bunch of reason. The first is that it takes this true Canadian historical story and distills it down into a very sweet and simple picture book.
"Number two, ... if they know who Winnie the Pooh is ... it really opens up this whole other world, and this really strong Canadian connection to this beloved classic character. And then three, the illustrations are super-sweet. It's a well-designed, well-illustrated, charming book."
2. Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton
"It is about Princess Pinecone who is a very strong warrior princess, and for her birthday she wants nothing more than a strong horse fit for a warrior princess. But the pony she gets is not the strong warrior horse she imagined, but rather a fat, shy, accident-prone pony known as 'Fat Pony'."
"This book is so whimsical and so witty. It's funny, and it's charming, but it also has some really good life lessons in it."
3. The Nest by Kenneth Oppel
"A good book that is great for kids who are probably ages eight to 12 ... it has these beautiful illustrations in it. The Nest is about a very anxious boy who has a new baby brother and his new baby brother is really sick, so these angels enter his life, and he believes the angels are there to save his brother, but he quick;ly realizes that the angels aren't so good, they've got an ulterior motive, and he needs to get to the bottom of it ... before it's too late.
"So he needs to overcome his fears and his social anxiety and stand up and do what's right, and be a big brother for the first time. So it's a nice action-packed, supernatural adventure story that's along the lines of Neil Gaiman, but it's also got some really good lessons in there.
4. Masterminds by Gordon Korman
"Masterminds is about a kid, Eli Frieden, who lives in the most perfect town in the world, Serenity, New Mexico. But Eli has never left the town and he decides one day he has to, and as soon as he leaves the town he realizes that Serenity is not all that it's cracked up to be. There are secrets going on, and he becomes determined to find out what the deal is with his town ... and why his life is so 'fakely' perfect."
5. Truth Commission by Susan Juby
"Susan Juby is basically the queen of Canadian YA (Young Adult fiction). It's about a girl named Normandy who makes a pact with her friends to tell the truth, only the truth, nothing but the truth, and ask the questions that no one else was asking, to discover the truth.
"And as you can imagine this quickly goes badly. All of this is situated in the high school environment which is already rife with drama and politics and figuring out where you belong ... and it's got Juby's trademark humour, and empathy, and compassion. It's very smart, it's very warm, and it's very funny."
To hear the full interview listen to the audio labelled: Books columnist Erin Balser with the best book picks this holiday season for tweens and teens