12 Days of CanLit: 2 Mini Minstrels

With just one day to go on our 12 Days of CanLit binge of book recommendations, we’re sure you’re wondering: who’s on the top of that tree? (Though, if you’ve seen our poster, it’s not all that hard to figure out). Today, we’re highlighting the eyes that see this season at its brightest: two child narrators of decidedly grown-up situations.Phineas Walsh, or Phin, aged nine, loves the environment. He spends his allowed television time watching the Green Channel and surfs the internet for news on climate change, endangered species, and the negative effects of palm oil. His love of the planet is the only constant in his life: his mother is overworked and tasked with raising him alone after separating from his father, he’s bullied at school by his teacher and students alike, his grandfather passed away. His best friend, Bird, is a willing – if unwitting – ally. Only his grandmother seems to understand.Phin can’t grasp why the people surrounding him don’t see the problem: whether its his mother upset that he’s thrown out all of their palm-oil additive food and bath products, or his teacher adopting a White’s Tree Frog for a class pet, he feels increasingly anxious and isolated in a world that just doesn’t seem to care about what’s really important. Phin’s honest, often hilarious, voice will ring true to anyone who took up a cause in their youth, and remind the reader why it’s still important to look beyond yourself – though not always in the way that Phin might think.

Eight-year-old Egg Murakami is determined to piece her family back together. After the accidental death of her brother, Egg’s older sister Kathy is left holding the reins as her mother spirals into alcohol abuse and her father refuses to leave the family’s ostrich barn. Kathy, too, has troubles: her romantic feelings for her best friend Stacey are trumped by the small-town, 1970s mores of Bittercreek, Alberta. They are a family resembling the ostriches they foster: gawky, flailing, but capable of so much more than anyone thinks. Egg’s own worldview, informed by popular culture, dictionary entries, her sister’s bedtime stories, and her observations of ostriches at home and other children at school, are testament to that.Egg keeps meticulous notes in her notebook, scrambling for a key to fix her family, and makes miniature pyres of her Evel Knieval toy and other action figures: designated sacrifices, small offerings made to rectify what she perceives she and her family lacks. Her sincerity and yearning for normalcy are heartbreaking: you will root with your whole self for things to be right in Egg’s small world.*****Just one post left to go! Feeling nostalgic? All of our past posts are corralled here for easy review.