The Inuk Mountie Adventure by Eric WilsonA Tom Austen Mystery
Nunavut book for the Canadian Book Challenge
I was picking out some library books for my son and saw this one and knew it would be a nice easy read, perfect for my percocet induced haze following my wisdom teeth extraction. And it was perfect. This isn't a mystery like an Agatha Christie mystery, but for the under twelve group, it is a great book. Wilson has a whole series of books starring Tom and his sister Liz, solving mysteries across Canada.
The mystery here was a little far fetched, with Tom overhearing the Prime Minister and his aide, and then gets caught up in a plot involving murder and the possible joining of Canada and the United States. Then Tom and his class head from Winnipeg to Nunavut for an exchange trip, where the mystery continues.
The mystery was well done once you get past a how perfectly Tom continually overhears important information. But the description of the locations and the students experience in Nunavut were very nicely done, and expose kids to a part of Canada few of us get to experience. This is also a nice way to introduce young readers to a mystery series, and if these had been around when I was young, I would have gobbled them up, like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, for Canadians.
The book was written before Nunavut officially became a territory in 1999, so the map at the front of the book isn't quite accurate.
I really should read at least one of these. I'm very deficient in my Canadian children's fiction. There's too much good American and British YA, I get behind... (Not that we don't have good YA authors, they're getting better all the time, but I order the foreign ones for the library so know more about them.)
ReplyDeleteI haven't read this one personally, but I remember my wife reading and having thoughts similar to yours: far fetched at times but otherwise good. A man named Robert Billard self-published From Within about political intrigue in the North last year to some quite nasty local reviews (but again, I haven't personally read it either). It seems that far-fetchedness is easier to tolerate in the YA sect.
ReplyDeletetinylittlelibrarian - There is a Wilson book called The Green Gables Mystery, set in PEI. Try that one!
ReplyDeletejohn - it's true that YA is easier to take far-fetchedness. Maybe they are so close to leaving fairy tales, that this is just the next step
As I was reading the first few paragraphs, I was thinking, "a Canadian Nancy Drew." I may have to quit reading American and British because I want to read about Nunavut now and other Canadian lit.
ReplyDeleteI think Nunavut is such a funny name.
Hello there.
ReplyDeleteInteresting site. I am the author of "From Within", the novel that was mentioned above. Yes it did get ONE bad review so far... but several good ones from other presses... It should be noted that I would not consider it a YA category novel... In terms of "far-fetchedness" I personally think that what happens in the novel could happen and that is part of the point of the book. I lived in Iqaluit, Nnavut, for 6 years while writing the book.
Glad to see the conversation going on.
Robert Billard
no problem
ReplyDelete