Happy Canada Day everyone! In honour of this holiday celebrating our nation, I thought I would post a list of my top 5 favourite Canadian authors. When I set out to make the list, I was thinking I would try and make it inclusive - include Canadians from all across the country and all ethnicities. Then I thought - hey, I'm not the government! This is my list and reflects my thoughts.
#5 Gordon Korman
Who in elementary school did not have to read a Gordon Korman book? And then immediately read the rest of them too, just because they were so funny. He is best known, and best loved, for his Bruno and Boots/Macdonald Hall series. Mr. Korman wrote the first of those books as a Grade 7 English project and his career blossomed from there. I read and enjoyed the Bruno and Boots series and several other of Mr. Korman's books, including I Want to go Home, but my favourite has to be Losing Joe's Place. In this book, Jason and his friends move into Jason's brother's apartment for the summer and hilarity ensues - including something about a chocolate dessert with uncooked eggs in it.... This book is my favourite for purely sentimental reasons. It was read to the class by my Grade 6 teacher. The next year I would be moving on to Junior High, where teachers didn't necessarily read to their students. There was nothing better than a Friday afternoon when the teacher would pull out the book and read to us until the end of the day; the essence of childhood right there. Thank you, Mr. Korman, for your entertaining and enjoyable books.
#4 Pauline Gedge
Pauline Gedge is a Canadian writer who doesn't write about Canada at all. Instead, Ms. Gedge transports to the reader to that most unique and interesting of places, Ancient Egypt. Her books are well-written and meticulously detailed. She brings you to Ancient Egypt so that you feel you are there among the Pharaohs and pyramids. And she does this all from small-town Alberta. Ms. Gedge also has dabbled in Gothic (The Covenant), Ancient Celts (The Eagle and the Raven), and Sci-fi (Stargate), but my favourites from her will always be her Egyptian novels. My two favourite are Child of the Morning and Twelfth Transforming.
#3 Sandra Gulland
Sandra Gulland is yet another Canadian writer who doesn't write about Canada either. Instead, Ms. Gulland brings Empress Josephine (wife of Napoleon Bonaparte) brilliantly to life in her Josephine trilogy. These books are written as the diary of Josephine and cover her life from a young girl growing up in the sugar plantations of the West Indies, through to her marriage to a nobleman and experiences during the French Revolution where her husband was guillotined and she was imprisoned, to her life as wife to Napoleon and Empress of the French. Josephine was an interesting and complex woman, and Ms. Gulland really captures what she must have been like. Of the trilogy, my favourite is the first: The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. Ms. Gulland has also written about Louise de la Valliere, a mistress of Louis XIV. For me, it is not as strong as her Josephine work, but still enjoyable.
#2 Monica Hughes
I was introduced to science fiction by Monica Hughes, and since then I have never looked back. And while her books may be more suited for a young adult audience, they still hold up today. She will always be one of my favourite sci-fi authors. She wrote many books, but I have two particular favourites. The first is The Tomorrow City, about the city of the future and what happens when something goes wrong, and Invitation to the Game, about young people trying to survive in a crowded and overpopulated world struggling with mass unemployment, when they receive an invitation to a mysterious game. Both books are inventive and have strong storylines and intriguing characters. Good books for readers of all ages.
#1 Lucy Maud Montgomery
Many of the other authors on this list have special memories for me relating to my childhood. Lucy Maud Montgomery was my childhood. I have read every book of hers (and own almost all of them) from Anne of Green Gables to Jane of Lantern Hill. Her dreamy, romantic tales were the building blocks for my childhood imaginings. I wanted to be like Anne, like Emily. I too had a bosom friend and kept a journal of poems. I adored all of her books and spent a whole day in Prince Edward Island going to everything Montgomery related, from her birthplace in New London, to the Lake of Shining Waters, Green Gables and her grave outside Cavendish. I read Ms. Montgomery's journals when I was a little older and was surprised to find out how little happiness she had in her own personal life. Her stories reflect the happy endings she was denied. That is not to say her stories are devoid of any depth: there are dark themes in her work. But overall her characters receive the happy endings they deserve. As for a favourite - I can't pick just one! Whatever mood I'm in, there's a Montgomery book for it. I love Anne, Emily, Marigold, Pat, Valancy, Jane and all the other residents of her fictional universe. Ms. Montgomery was a complex and passionate individual with an amazing talent for writing beautiful stories. She is my favourite Canadian author.
Those are my top 5 Canadian authors. Now go read them! Happy Canada Day Everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment