White Pine 2009

hehe that rhymes! lol so...now that that's over with, I want to talk a little about White Pine. I don't know if the U.S does anything similar but it's a reading program for high school students (there are ones for elementary school students as well). Every year in October, there are 10 books written by Canadian authors chosen to be read but the program doesn't start until January. This year it started January 13th. The idea is you read at least 5 of the 10 books by mid April so you can vote for your favorite. Then mid May, everyone that's part of the group goes to Harbourfront, Toronto for a celebration where you can meet the authors, go to writting seminars, by the books and see who was the winner. It's a program run by the school's librarians and stuff and it's really cool. It opens out eyes to some local talent.

So now that you know what it is, I'd like to draw your attention to the list below. These are this year's books and there's a link attatched so you can see what they're about. From what I've heard about them they're all REALLY good but I'm looking forward to Gotcha, After River and Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane the most.

• After River by Donna Milner
• Chanda's Wars by Allan Stratton
• Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane by Poly Horvath
• Daughter of War by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
• Dooley Takes the Fall by Norah McClintock
• Gotcha by Shelley Hrdlitschka
• Gravity Journal by Gail Sidonie Sobat
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
• Tweaked by Katherine Holubitsky
• Mountain Girl/River Girl by Ting-Zing Ye

If you live in Canada and woulld like to by any of these books online you can go to this Chapters/Indigo link to see the whole White Pine 2009 list and how much each book cost. They're actually relatively cheap.

So to close this post I would like to finish by saying that I am going to be reading these as well as the FIRST Wildcard Tour books so look forward to more reviews and a little of Canadian writing. Honestly, I think last year's books were more interesting off the bat; no offense to this year's books. So here's a list of last year's books.

• Another Kind Of Cowboy by Susan Juby
• The Blue Helmet by William Bell
• The Droughtlanders by Carrie Mac
• The End of the World As We Know It by Lesley Choyce
• Grist by Heather Waldorf***
• Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt***
• The Song of Kahunsha by Anosh Irani
• The Space Between by Don Aker***
• The Warrior's Daughter by Holly Bennett
• Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay***

*Keturah and Lord Death was the winner for 2008.
*The books with stars are the REALLY AMAZING books...at least in my opinion.
*Keep checking back, I'll keep updating the stars on the 2009 books as I read them