Book review: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Little Fires Everywhere

Everything I've Never Told You
Celeste Ng
Penguin
I’ve discovered a new author to love, something that always makes me smile.
Her name is Celeste Ng and I’ve just power-read her two novels over Christmas.
The first, published in 2014, is Everything I’ve Never Told You. It’s about a mixed-race family – the father is Chinese, the mother is white – whose teenage daughter goes missing.
The second is Little Fires Everywhere, which is about the upper middle class Richardson family living in the utopian suburban American community of Shaker Heights. A single mother and her teenage daughter move to town, serving as the catalyst for all kinds of shenanigans in the life of the four Richardson teenagers. A sub-plot deals with a wealthy white family who is trying to adopt an Asian baby who was abandoned by her mother, but who now wants her back.
Both novels are excellent. They are pitch perfect stories about today’s American families – the secrets they keep, the tensions they feel and the pressures that abound.
Ng is a talented writer, with on-the-mark pace, taut suspense, unforgettable characters and realistic situations that will get under readers’ skins.
She is adept a keeping the present-day story going, while filling the reader in on the back stories which are full of historical and modern contexts ripped from the headlines.
Ng grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a planned community, so she’s familiar with her setting. She graduated from Harvard University and studied writing at the University of Michigan. Both books have been lauded as best books of the year by many publications and have received other awards, all well deserved.
I’m looking forward to Ng’s next novel, and expect readers will be too.
Tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Book review: The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

The Rules of Magic
by Alice Hoffman
Simon and Schuster
Alice Hoffman is an amazing author – if you haven’t read her, you should. She is a lovely writer, whose books balance magic and reality and the special mix of the two that is real life.
The Rules of Magic is a prequel to her 1995 book Practical Magic, which was made into a 1998 movie of the same name starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock. Practical Magic is perhaps Alice Hoffman’s best-known book, but she has written more than 30 others. It’s a testament to her longevity and persistence as an author that she has now written a prequel more than 20 years after the original book.
The books in between are nearly all stunners. I’ve read most of them and loved them all. My favourites are The Red Garden – a sweeping family saga that spans more than 300 years written in 2011 – and Blue Diary – another family story about lies and hidden pasts that was written in 2001. The Dovekeepers, also written in 2011, gets honorable mention for its treatment of the siege of Masada 2000 years ago, as told from the women’s perspective.
The Rules of Magic is the backstory to Practical Magic – it tells the story one generation earlier. In Practical Magic, Jet and Frances are elderly aunties; in The Rules of Magic, they are children.
Their family – the Owens family – has been cursed since 1620, when an ancestor was charged with being a witch. Jet and Frances (and their brother Vincent) are children of the 1960s and their story mostly takes place in New York city.
All three children have special talents. Frances can draw birds to her hands with her mind, Jet reads people’s thoughts and Vincent has all sorts of hidden skills. When Frances turns 17, all three children spend the summer with their Aunt Isabelle, who lives in the same Massachusetts small-town house where Practical Magic is set. Isabelle teaches them “the rules of magic.”
I can’t give away much more without spoiling the story. Suffice it to say, if you trust Alice Hoffman to take you away with her words to a brilliant world where anything is possible, you will enjoy the ride.
Tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Book review: Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

Manhattan Beach
By Jennifer Egan
Scribner

This latest from Jennifer Egan is an entirely different kettle of fish from her last novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
That’s not to say Manhattan Beach isn’t good – it is – but only to say don’t expect more like the Goon Squad with its time shifting and groovy alternative story forms.
Manhattan Beach is a more straightforward novel; time is quite firmly rooted here.
It is the story of Anna Kerrigan, who grows up in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. The novel begins when she is 12 years old and carries readers through her young adult years during the Second World War.
In the beginning, Anna lives in a workaday apartment with her mother, father and disabled sister Lydia. She often accompanies her dad when he goes to work – his work appears to be as some sort of messenger for a union. They visit the homes of other men, who often invite him in for a drink while Anna plays with their children. On one memorable evening, they visit the home of Dexter Styles, a mysterious man Anna learns more about as the story progresses.
Insights into the lives of New York gangsters, showgirls and nightclubs play a starring role in this novel, as does the research Egan did about the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the pursuit of diving.
The Second World War opened up opportunities for women to work in jobs previously occupied only by men and deep sea diving to repair ships in the navy yard was one of them. Anna, who finds work sorting through bits and pieces of ship hardware, longs to be a diver herself.
The story and the setting are interesting, but it’s Egan’s thought processes and turns of phrase that make Manhattan Beach a standout.
Here’s a passage told from Dexter’s perspective, about how his respectable father-in-law convinced Dexter to marry his pregnant daughter, and managed to get Dexter to make concessions.
“And later … Dexter could only marvel at the sleight of hand whereby his father-in-law had jimmied himself out of a straitjacket with enough leverage to extract promises. Houdini couldn’t have topped it: his daughter was knocked up and refused to have it taken care of. Had Arthur withheld his consent, she’d have run away with Dexter: a disgrace. The old man hadn’t had enough room to scratch his nose, yet he’d bargained as if the advantage were all his – intuiting with eerie perspicacity that, although criminal, Dexter was a man of his word.”
The details, the visuals, the emotions and the intensity is Egan’s calling card.
Egan, as well as writing A Visit From the Goon Squad, has written four other books, including The Keep, Emerald City, Look at Me and The Invisible Circus.
This is a beautifully written novel, with a solid plot to back it up.
Jennifer Egan will be appearing at the Vancouver Writers Fest in a special event on October 25.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Vancouver school trustee candidates get a chance to speak out Oct. 3

Candidates vying for one of nine spots on the Vancouver School Board will be able to speak out on Oct. 3.
I'm going to be hosting a candidates' forum on Tuesday evening from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at John Oliver secondary school, 530 E. 41st Ave.
Candidates will be answering questions posed by parents, who want to know trustees' views on everything from school closures to support for students with special needs. There will be short answers, yes/no questions, multiple choice questions and longer form questions, and every candidate will get a chance to speak out.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Metro’s 2017 Homeless Count shows many homeless people grew up in foster care

Metro Vancouver’s 2017 Homeless Count asked homeless people whether they had been in ministry care in their childhood. It is the first time this question has been asked and the results are astounding.
One-fifth of all of the homeless people said they had either previously been in ministry care or were in care when the survey was held. Of the people surveyed who were younger than 19, nearly one-quarter said they were currently in care, while one-fifth said they had previously been in care. Fully 38 per cent of the people aged 19 to 24 said they had been in ministry care.
In British Columbia, foster children and other young people in government “age out” when they are 19 and their supports are cut off.
As the Vancouver Sun found in its 2014 series, From Care to Where, when children in care are cut off at 19, they face high rates of homelessness, unemployment, poverty, substance abuse and incarceration.
The B.C. government has pledged to create a “comprehensive program” of supports for children aging out of foster care. To date, it has created a program to ensure all young people who have been in the care of the government for more than two years will be able to attend one of B.C.’s 25 public colleges and universities tuition-free.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Education minister speaks out on funding, staffing, school space

B.C.'s new education minister Rob Fleming was the education critic for several years before taking over the portfolio in July. With just over a month on the job, he talked about funding to meet the new contract requirements, challenges hiring new teachers and space concerns.

Q. When schools let out in June, some districts said they didn’t have adequate funding to hire the teachers needed to implement the restored contracts. What has been done to address this?
A. We have worked out arrangements where we now have a common understanding of what the language means in terms of a monetary commitment. There were a couple of districts that were reluctant to hire because they had not had confirmation during the time we had the Liberal government and then no government for a period of time.
I can’t make a funding announcement today, but I can tell you that additional money will be included in the budget we table in September. That budget has enhancements in it that will fully fund the memorandum of agreement and that has made a commitment on new enrolment, which was a grey area under the previous government.
Q. So there will definitely be new money for education in this budget?
A. Yes. There will be the resources to properly fund all the commitments, whether they’re by court order or because it’s the right thing to do. We take the Supreme Court decision very seriously and we also see it as a great opportunity to fund some of the priorities we have around more one-on-one time for kids and for making classes smaller in the early grades.
Q. Some districts are struggling to hire enough teachers. What will happen if they can’t get people in place for September?
A. We are hoping districts will have the teaching staff they need. Some of them are going to be depleting their teacher on call list to do that. It’s really uneven out there. Some districts have expressed a high degree of confidence that they have met their hiring requirements and that what has been quite a Herculean task has been made manageable, but there are other districts that are struggling to meet that.
Q. What happens if they can’t get teachers in place?
A. Where hiring cannot happen, there is a process where a teacher and the teachers’ association can reach an agreement with the school board to apply a remedy. They will find local solutions that work for the student and the teacher.
Q. Will the remedies all be funded?
A. Yes. We realize there is a funding risk attached to grievances and remedies that need to be provided. We think we have arrived at some additional funding that will cover those contingencies.
Q. Were any childcare centres in B.C. displaced by the new smaller class sizes?
A. Yes, there are four districts reporting space pressures on childcare facilities based in their schools – Vancouver, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Coquitlam and Greater Victoria. The restored contract requires 550 more classrooms across the province and perhaps up to one-third of those will be in portables. Not all of those are new portables, some will be renovated.
School districts are aware of how valuable childcare centres are, but where they face extreme space pressures, they have had to pursue relocation. I think this happened to 14 centres in the entire province.
There are two of the 14 in Maple Ridge- Pitt Meadows that are still looking for space at this time, but they are working with the school district or they may have been sold or amalgamated.
Q. The planned $10-a-day childcare program will require many more spaces, correct?
A. We’re going to have to create a whole bunch of new spaces, some maybe on school district property or municipal property. We will look for free land from all levels of government.
When new schools are constructed, we will be looking at neighbourhood learning centres with childcare spaces in them. It makes sense, when you’re building a new school – and there are a number of them that have already been approved – that we make sure where there is a demonstrated need for childcare spaces that (we capitalize on the) opportunity.
Q. How do you like your new role so far?
A. It’s way better than being in opposition, I can tell you that. We get to do a lot more. They left us some crazy messes, there is no doubt about that. I thought I was quite reasonably aware of the broken commitments they made on seismic upgrades, but really the new school construction and the poor facility asset conditions in so many districts are going to require a lot more of my attention on the capital side.
Obviously, any minister of education wants to keep their attention on student outcomes and how students are doing and sharing the successes of districts that are doing innovative things. But overcrowded schools are really up close and personal. I visited Surrey last Friday and saw a couple of schools I hadn’t seen before. It’s hard to catch up when very little has been done over a 15-year period. We can do it, if everybody is going to be prepared to move a lot quicker.
Q. So I guess we can expect lots of capital funding announcements?
A. Yes, you can. A big part of it is just the ministry following through. They’ve often approved things and then pulled them back. They’ve underspent their capital budgets, meagre as they were compared to previous decades, in some cases by 30 to 40 per cent per year. As lots of experienced people who have worked in the civil service or at the political level have told me, it’s not so much the budget, but getting things out the door. So that’s got a lot of my attention.

This interview has been edited and condensed.
Tracy Sherlock writes about education and social issues. She can be reached at tracy.sherlock@gmail.com.

Book Review: Someone You Love is Gone

Someone You Love is Gone
By Gurjinder Basran
Penguin Random House

Gurjinder Basran grew up in North Delta, British Columbia. Her first novel, Everything was Good-bye, was the winner of both the Great BC Novel Search, in 2010, and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Award, in 2011.
Everything Was Good-bye was the story of a young woman raised in Metro Vancouver in a family that immigrated to Canada from India. Her rebellion from her family’s traditional ways was the heart of the novel, which was in many ways a classic coming-of-age story.
In Someone You Love is Gone, Basran goes deeper. This time around, the main character is Simran, the mother of a grown daughter whose own mother has just died. Simran is struggling to cope with the loss of her mother, particularly because there are family secrets. And Simran may be the only person left who remembers those secrets.
The secret concerns her brother, who is estranged from her family, and who may or may not remember a past life.
Simran’s marriage is in trouble, perhaps only because of the death of her mother, but perhaps for deeper reasons.
Basran has done a really nice job with this novel – she has captured a culture and a tone that Canadians will recognize, but that they would also do well to learn more about. But that’s just an added bonus in a story that would resonate if it were about any culture.
The story is split into three timelines – the present, Simran’s childhood, and her mother’s early adulthood — and set in both Canada and India, This heartbreaking and haunting story includes love, loss, family honour and family rejection; it will make you both laugh and cry.
Someone You Love is Gone is a quick read – I read it in a single afternoon, but it stayed with me much longer.
Basran is going to be talking about her book at the Vancouver Writers Festival this fall, in two events, one about marriages the other about ghosts.
Tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Book review: Sycamore by Bryn Chancellor

Sycamore
By Bryn Chancellor
HarperCollins Canada

Sycamore is an instant classic. It's a whodunnit/coming-of-age/rural Americana novel that breaks your heart and keeps you turning pages.

The story opens with the discovery of human bones in a dry desert ravine in rural Arizona in a town called Sycamore.

Everyone realizes immediately that the bones must belong to Jess Winters, a 17-year-old girl who disappeared 18 years before.

The story bounces back and forth between the time surrounding Winters' disappearance and the present day as her long-suffering mother waits for confirmation that the bones belong to her daughter.

Readers are taken on a journey that includes themes like teenage friendship, forbidden love, broken families and more.

This is a first novel for Bryn Chancellor, who is a teacher at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She previously wrote a story collection called When Are You Coming Home.

Throughout Sycamore, the characters are relatable and accurate -- the relationships ring true in both their joy and their despair. Readers will keep hoping for a different ending for Winters, even as they can see the tragedy about to unfold.

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Book review: Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan

Saints for All Occasions
By J. Courtney Sullivan
Alfred A. Knopf

I read Saints for All Occasions in a single day.

It's 335 pages and I was shocked and saddened to find I had reached the end.

That says something about the story -- it captured me and I couldn't put it down.

The story starts with a mother getting a phone call in 2009 that her 50-year-old son has died in a car accident.

Next, it backtracks to 1957, when two young girls, Nora and Theresa Flynn, are leaving Ireland to emigrate to the United States. They've grown up on a farm in the west of Ireland, where people are poor and there isn't a lot of hope for the future. They're leaving to find a better life in America; Nora is also to be married to Charlie, her Irish neighbour, who moved to Boston before her.

From there on, the book alternates timelines and switches perspective, from Nora to Theresa and between all four of Nora's grown children.
There are subplots about adoption, homosexuality and Catholicism, but at its heart this is a book about secrets and the love between a mother and her children.

J. Courtney Sullivan also wrote the bestselling novels Commencement, Maine and The Engagements. The Engagements is soon to be made into a movie and was named a Best Book of the Year by Time Magazine and a Washington Post Notable Book for 2011. Sullivan lives in Brooklyn.
This is a beautiful novel that captures late 20th-century Ireland and Boston and reveals how much life has changed in the past 50 years. Sullivan captures perfectly the dynamics of the family and how what we don't know can affect reality.

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

VSB brings in new capital plan, bullying policy

As schools shut down for the summer, the Vancouver School Board passed a few new policies that I thought were worth commenting on.
The first is a new policy and regulation and bullying and workplace harassment. They are updates on previous policies, with new clarifications after there were findings of bullying of staff by trustees last year. Those trustees were fired by the provincial government for failing to pass a balanced budget, not for bullying, but the bullying allegations and findings happened around the same time.
I wrote about the findings of bullying here.
So now the official trustee, Dianne Turner, appointed by the provincial government to replace the fired trustees, has approved updated policies to try to prevent anything similar happening again.
The policy defines personal harassment, which includes bullying, as “any inappropriate conduct, comment, display, action, or gesture directed at another that a reasonable person knows or ought to know would have the effect of creating an intimidating, humiliating, hostile, or offensive work environment. To constitute Personal Harassment there must be: a. repeated conduct, comments, displays, actions or gestures; or b. a single serious occurrence that has a lasting, harmful effect on a person.”
What I like about the policy is that it calls for a person who thinks they have been bullied or harassed to first talk to the person who they think bullied them.
“The trustee who believes a violation has occurred will engage in an individual private conversation with the trustee affected,” the policy reads. “Failing resolution through the private conversation the parties will engage the Board Chair, Vice-Chair or designate to gain resolution. If the concern is with the Board Chairperson, the concern should be raised with the Vice-Chairperson.”
While the policy recognizes that conciliatory measures may not be appropriate, at least the policy starts with that.
I like this because it is always more empowering and a better solution when two people in conflict can work it out amongst themselves, particularly for the person who feels like they are being bullied.
The second item of interest is the district’s new capital plan, which recognizes that more than half of VSB schools still need seismic upgrading and that in order to get that done, there will have to be five to seven schools completed each year to meet the 2030 deadline.
Three schools have been closed: Henderson Annex, Laurier Annex and Maquinna Annex. But even with those, capacity utilization fell slightly last year, due to declining enrolment, the report says.
The new capital plan does not mention school closures and instead focuses on building smaller, new schools to replace schools that need seismic upgrades. To me, that sounds very much like what the elected trustees wanted before the government imposed a 95-per-cent capacity utilization requirement on them, which they later removed.
Building smaller schools will save money in maintenance and energy costs and will also “allow the district to build better business cases for new schools required in growth areas.” The capital plan calls for one new school to be built each year in areas like downtown or south False Creek, where the numbers of kids are growing.
It’s an ambitious plan and whether it gets implemented or not will likely depend on what happens with the provincial government.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Three historical novels that bring the past vividly to life

I've just come from interviewing three authors -- Janie Chang, Kate Quinn and Jennifer Robson -- at Book Warehouse on Main Street.
All three have written historical novels featuring strong, resilient women and all three were pleasures to interview and extremely well informed on their subjects.

Robson is the author of Goodnight from London. It’s the story of an American journalist, Ruby Sutton, who travels to London during the Second World War to report from England. She soon finds herself in the middle of the London Blitz. Robson said tonight that she was inspired to write about a female journalist in the 1940s by her grandmother, who was a journalist in Vancouver. Robson also had fascinating first-person accounts of the London Blitz because of research she did for her doctoral thesis many years ago. She was able to use the transcripts from those interviews for her descriptions of London during the war. Robson also described her storytelling process, specifically in how Ruby's secrets make her vulnerable so that her character is deeper and more interesting. Robson is the author of three other novels and she lives in Toronto.

Kate Quinn is the author of The Alice Network, a book about a female spy during the First World War and an American socialite searching for a cousin lost in the Second World War. She has done an incredible amount of research about female spies during the First and Second World Wars, and her book is based on an actual spy ring called the Alice Network. She said she likes to write "badass" female characters and she's definitely done that in Eve, the hardened woman who was once a spy in the Great War. The book also includes one scene that has a real massacre as its inspiration -- the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane in France, where one village's entire population of 600 people was wiped out by German soldiers. One woman who survived and testifies in a trial of the perpetrators became a minor character in the book. Quinn is the author of more than 10 other historical novels and is from California.

Janie Chang is the author most recently of Dragon Springs Road, a novel about a little girl who loses her mother in Shanghai in the early days of the 20th century. It's a heartbreaking and fascinating story about what it's like to grow up abandoned and to live as a Eurasian -- half white and half Chinese -- at that time in China. Chang is also the author of Three Souls, and like that novel, Dragon Springs Road weaves in some magical realism in the form of a fox spirit, something Chang said is common mythology in Chinese culture. I reviewed her two novels for the Vancouver Sun and the review of Dragon Springs Road can be found here.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Education and social issues in the throne speech

The Liberal throne speech made some spectacular promises for all levels of education in B.C. and for helping society's most vulnerable.
Even though the Liberals and their throne speech will likely get voted down on Thursday, it's worth noting what was promised, even if just to compare it with what is said in the future or what the NDP-Greens promise, should they gain power.
First, the Liberals promised a royal commission on education. What is a royal commission? It's a major public inquiry into any given issue. The last one for education was in 1988 in B.C., so it has been a while. None of the parties ran on a platform calling for a royal commission in the last election.
Questions that might be asked, according to the throne speech, include: "How do we train teachers? What do we teach? How do we fund schools? How do we engage the community? How do we make sure testing and standards remain rigorous? How do we reduce conflict in the system and ensure student needs are always put first?"
The Liberals also promised a review of the per-pupil funding formula, something now promised by all three major parties in B.C.
The Liberals also pledged to invest $1 billion in childcare and early childhood education, something they said wasn't necessary during the election. The NDP campaigned on a $1.5-billion $10-a-day childcare program, while the Greens said they would expand the education system to cover three and four year olds. The plan outlined in the throne speech would expand subsidies and create 60,000 new spaces. The throne speech also promised that partnerships would be explored with school districts, so that childcare spaces could be in elementary schools. So on childcare, the Liberals made promises somewhere in between the NDP and the Greens.
The Liberals promised a poverty reduction strategy, something they said wasn't necessary just weeks before the election campaign. When Vancouver Sun reporter Lori Culbert and I wrote about working poverty this past March, the Liberals said they were focused on getting everyone a job and a poverty strategy wasn't necessary. The federal government is also working on a national poverty reduction strategy.
They've promised to fully fund adult basic education and English as a Second Language programs, both promises the NDP and Greens also made during the election campaign. Many of the people featured in the recent series about working poverty said it is nearly impossible to afford an education without those supports and without an education, it's impossible to get a better job.
The Liberals also promised to raise welfare rates by $100 a month and annual increases in the future and to increase disability assistance as well. They're going to expand the Single Parent Employment Initiative and provide a basic income to all kids aging out of government care.
These are all wonderful promises, even if they will likely not see the light of day under a Liberal government. Simply the fact the Liberals are talking about these issues is a significant move forward.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Liberals promise basic income, free tuition for youth from care

Even though last week's Liberal throne speech is unlikely to be worth the paper it was written on, it did contain some amazing proposals that merit further discussion.
Most surprising was the promise to introduce a basic income support for youth aged 18 to 24 who have left government care. The B.C. Liberal government has refused to recognize that these young people need more support past 19 and has insisted that the programs that are in place are adequate.
In 2014, Vancouver Sun reporter Lori Culbert and myself wrote a series of articles about what happens when foster children turn 19 and lose their supports. We also did a cost-benefit analysis that found that for every dollar spent supporting foster children to age 24, the benefits to society would amount to $1.11.
Since then, several young people, including Alex Gervais and Paige Gauchier, have died either shortly before or shortly after aging out of care.
But the Liberals steadfastly stuck to their story that the programs B.C. already had were good enough.
Interestingly, it was the Green Party's platform that said they would introduce a basic income for former foster children. Their platform also said the party would introduce a pilot project for a basic income for everyone, something that is already underway in Ontario.
The NDP promised to increase funding to support youth aging out of care by $10 million a year, to increase educational supports in K-12 education for children in care and to work with universities and colleges to expand an existing tuition waiver program.
The tuition waiver program was started by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, who got Vancouver Island University and the University of British Columbia to agree to allow former foster children to attend those schools tuition-free. Since then 10 universities and colleges have come on board.
The Liberal throne speech took that one a step further too — they pledged to provide free post-secondary tuition for all children in care.
Yesterday, the NDP-Green MLAs voted down two bills the Liberals tried to pass, even though both bills were proposals made by the two parties to begin with. It looks like on Thursday the Liberals will lose the confidence of the Leglislature and with that, their government will be over. It remains to be seen whether the Lieutentant-Governor will call a new election or allow the NDP-Greens a chance.
But either way, the Liberals must now stick with their promise to support a basic income for kids aging out of care. They've promised it -- and many other things -- in their throne speech and there's no backing down now.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Education in B.C. is a political hot potato

Here are links to two recent stories I've written. The first is in the Globe and Mail and is about the provincial uncertainty and how it is affecting the implementation of the teachers' Supreme Court win.
Read it here.
The second is a column in the Courier newspaper, which is about the political situation at the Vancouver School Board that has come to light after the departure of Superintendent Scott Robinson.
Read that one here.

Comments and story ideas accepted to tracy.sherlock@gmail.com.

Book Review: Hunger by Roxane Gay

Hunger:
A Memoir of My Body
By Roxane Gay
HarperCollinsCanada
Release date: June 13, 2017

Roxane Gay is a bestselling author, but she also happens to be obese. At her heaviest she weighed 577 pounds.
Hunger: A Memoir of My Body is Gay’s story of how and why she became so overweight.
“I don’t know how things got so out of control, or I do. This is my refrain. Losing control of my body was a matter of accretion. I began eating to change my body. I was willful in this,” Gay writes.
At 12, Gay was gang raped by a boy she thought she was in love with and a group of his friends. It’s a shocking story, one that Gay tells with heartbreaking honesty and straightforward truth.
“When it was all over, I pushed my bike home and I pretended to be the good daughter my parents knew, the good girl, the straight-A student,” she writes.
Gay told no one what had happened. Instead, she started eating.
“With every day that went by, I hated myself more. I disgusted myself more. I couldn’t get away from him. I couldn’t get away from what those boys did. … Hating myself became as natural as breathing,” she writes.
She ate for comfort and she ate to build a protective armour for her body.
“I was swallowing my secrets and making my body expand and explode. I found ways to hid in plain sight, to keep feeling a hunger that could never be satisfied — the hunger to stop hurting,” she writes.
Gay, who lives in Lafayette, Indiana, is the bestselling author of Bad Feminist, a collection of essays that made the New York Times bestseller list. She also wrote the novel Untamed State and the short story collections Difficult Women and Ayiti. She’s also an English professor at Purdue University.
She stoically tells her devastating story, not looking for pity or outrage, but expressing a deep need for others to understand her life.
Gay has dug deep into her own psyche and shared the results with readers in this unflinching, revelatory memoir. She speaks of things that aren’t often talked about – what it’s like to use a seatbelt expander, how humiliating it is to worry about whether a chair will hold you, or what it’s like to visit a doctor for anything other than your weight when you are morbidly obese.
She talks about a lifelong aversion to anyone touching her and an inability of letting anyone treat her with love and affection. She tells how when a friend offers her a bag of chips to eat on a long plane ride, she replies, “People like me don’t get to eat food like that in public.” She writes about how hard it is to go the gym, because people tend to stare and give her constant encouragement when she just wants to be left alone.
“There are days when I am feeling braver. There are days when I am feeling, finally, like I can shed some of this protection I have amassed and be okay,” she writes.
Hunger is not an easy read, but that’s due to the painfully traumatic subject matter, not the writing. Gay is a flawless, smooth writer, whose story is harrowing and all too familiar.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Book Review: The Party by Vancouver author Robyn Harding

The Party
By Robyn Harding
Scout Press
Release date: June 6, 2017


As a parent of teenagers, I sometimes thought about all of the things that could go wrong. I’m like that – a little neurotic, a bit of a worrier.
I considered car crashes, bullying, sexual assault. I did the dance between wanting to be the cool parent and wanting to keep my children safe.
While I can breathe a little sigh of relief that my children are both adults now, a parent’s worry is never truly done. As they say, little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems.
In The Party, author Robyn Harding explores the idea of a teenage sweet-16 sleepover gone very wrong. Very, very wrong. In fact, someone even loses an eye.
Whose fault is it? That’s the central question in The Party. Is it the hosts’ fault – the parents of the girl whose birthday it was? The dad bought a bottle of champagne for the teens, the mom took a sleeping pill and drank wine to get a good sleep with the party going on. Were they negligent? Should they pay up for the lost eye?
The Party explores those questions while it exposes the secrets in the lives of everyone involved in the story. The Sanders family lives in San Francisco and appears to lead an idyllic life – key word: appears. Not everything is as it seems. Kim, the mom, is thinking of having an affair. Jeff, the dad, works too hard and even took a micro dose of LSD to ease his stress. Hannah, the daughter who is about to turn 16, is looking to leave her safe group of friends and link up with the cool kids, who are decidedly unsafe.
Bullying, sexting, threats and more are commonplace for the teens in this story, at least one of whom is either a budding psychopath or a badly neglected young girl.
One tragic incident destroys many lives in this fun, but devastating, story of a family falling apart. The narrative shifts perspective with each chapter, a technique that allows the reader to know more than any individual character in the story.
Vancouver author Robyn Harding says on her website that she has written four chick-lit novels, a young adult novel and a comedic memoir with an environmental focus. She’s also a screenwriter and executive producer of an independent film called the Steps.
The Party should catapult her work into the fiction mainstream – it’s well written, fast paced and topical.
Tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

It's complicated ... what the election means for education

I have a new column at The Courier newspaper and here is a link to the first one.
In it, I take a look at what the election could mean for education. It was written before the NDP-Green deal was announced this week. My next column is about the cuts to French immersion at the Vancouver School Board.
Ongoing, the column will be about education and social issues. Send column ideas and suggestions to tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Book Review: The Clean Money Revolution by Joel Solomon

The Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power, Purpose and Capitalism
By Joel Solomon, with Tyee Bridge
New Society Publishers

Earlier this year, journalist Jane Mayer released her book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. It’s billed by publisher Penguin Random House as a look at how elite plutocrats have bankrolled a systematic plan to alter American democracy. Mayer writes in the preface that Donald Trump’s election as president was a huge victory for these billionaires.
The Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power, Purpose and Capitalism, by Joel Solomon with Tyee Bridge, is the antidote to Dark Money and the powers behind it.
Solomon, a Vancouver-based philanthropist who tries to use his money to create positive social and environmental change, appeals to others who, like him, stand to inherit money over the coming decades. He wants the $40 trillion that he says will change hands as the Boomers pass on their money to their children in North America by 2050 to go to good use, rather than investing in companies that contribute to climate change or exploit the poor.
Here’s how he defines clean money: “Clean money is money aligned with a purpose beyond self-interest. Money for the commons. Money that makes the world better. Money regenerating ecosystems and engendering a healthy balance between people and planet. Money that builds true security: long-term, safe, fair resilience.”
He comes at the idea of clean money from a position of privilege and he recognizes that. “I believe I am one of the luckiest people in the world,” he writes. Solomon grew up in Tennessee, the son of a man who got wealthy building shopping malls. He writes of the prejudice he experienced as a Jewish person and of finding out he inherited polycystic kidney disease. He also inherited enough money build his dreams of a better world.
Today, Solomon is involved in several ventures, all aimed at creating social change. He is chairman of Renewal Funds, a $98-million venture capital company. He is a founding member of the Social Venture Network, a group of business leaders that invest in social enterprises, Business for Social Responsibility, a non-profit organization that works with business to build a just and sustainable world, Tides Canada, a foundation that funds non-profit organizations, and is the board chairman of Hollyhock, a non-profit learning centre on Cortez Island.
In The Clean Money Revolution, he tells readers how he got there and explains his vision for a positive future. The book is an interesting mix of memoir and manifesto that also includes several profiles of and interviews with other socially aware entrepreneurs, which Solomon says are signs the clean money movement is catching on.
He calls money, “the sly foil, the crass seducer” and says “an obsession with growing and clinging to money can damage us and those we love. We need self-awareness and spiritual grounding for safe, healthy engagement with that kryptonite-like substance called money.”
His vision is to create a new world for seven generations into the future. “I hope that five hundred years from now, people will be highly advanced, living in a better world where poverty, disparity, lifestyle diseases, slavery, climate chaos, and refugees are stories form history. One where our infrastructural systems — food, housing, buildings, travel, good and services — work intelligently within natural limits and thriving ecosystems for an appropriately sized human population.” He says logic tells him it can’t be done, but nonetheless he has chosen to believe in a positive future.
Those who are either about to leave a large sum of money to their children or those who are about to receive such a sum would do well to read Solomon’s book — it may change your ideas about investing, endowments and how to make the world a better place.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Book Review: Our Short History by Lauren Goldstein

Our Short History
By Lauren Goldstein
Algonquin Books
March 21, 2017

Our Short History is a heartbreaker of a book.
It’s premise: a single mom is dying of ovarian cancer, leaving behind a six-year-old son. The son has never known his dad, who, upon being told of the pregnancy said he never wanted to have kids. The mom, Karen Neulander, agrees to let her son, Jake, meet his dad, Dave, when Jake insists. Dave is thrilled to meet Jake and says he assumed Karen had had an abortion. He’s more than a little upset he missed the first six years of his son’s life, while Karen is upset Dave might swoop in and take Jake away. Jake and Dave bond instantly and Karen is even more threatened.
Our Short History is written as a memoir of those months from mother to son, with the intent that Jake read it when he’s an adult. It takes place in real time, so events unfold for readers as they unfold for Karen.
Here’s an excerpt that shows the technique: “Jake, I do realize at this point in the book that I’m not giving you as much advice as I meant to – in fact, when I originally started planning this project, I was thinking I terms of something that would intertwine autobiography and advice, so not only would you learn all about me, but you’d also learn whatever wisdom I have to pass on to you. I suppose, when I started this, I thought I’d have more wisdom. But here it is now, six in the evening, a long day, dinner almost ready in the house across the lawn, and I’m right where I was two weeks ago.”
It’s a cool writer’s technique and very enjoyable for readers, who of course feel like yelling at Karen throughout that Dave is Jake’s dad and only has his best interests at heart.
Lauren Grodstein has written several other novels, including The Explanation for Everything, which was a Washington Post book of the year and A Friend of the Family, which was a New York Times bestseller. She lives in New Jersey and Our Short History takes place both in New York and on the West Coast in Seattle. Vancouver even plays a bit part – at one point Karen fantasizes about running away to Vancouver to die alone.
Our Short History includes sub-plots about politics (Karen is a political campaign consultant), family dynamics and Hungarian Jews who immigrate to the United States. It’s a page-turner: I read the entire 342 pages in one day while on vacation.
Neulander is clearly an accomplished writer of fiction. Readers will devour this story, despite the universal tragedy – mother leaves child too soon – at its heart.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Will new government be deja vu of last VSB?

The B.C. provincial election looks like a toss up, with a split vote and the Green party holding the balance of power.
That’s exactly what happened in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election for school trustees, which saw the right-of-centre NPA win four seats, the left-of-centre Vision party win four seats and the Green party left holding the ninth and deciding vote.
That didn’t end so well.
The entire board was fired last fall by the education minister for refusing to pass a balanced budget.
Before being fired, the lone Green trustee, Janet Fraser, sometimes voted with Vision, sometimes with NPA. There were lots of unanimous votes, but on any contentious issue, Fraser had to decide which way the board as a whole would go. She also held the deciding vote on who would be chairperson of the board, and she decided to alternate between the two other parties.
But that’s not how it works in provincial politics. A premier is a premier until their government falls. A government falls when it tries to pass a vote in the house but doesn’t get a majority of votes in its favour.
That’s why coalition governments are formed. As long as two parties agree to work together, they can ensure that a government doesn’t fall. When a government falls, an election is called.
So, if the Green party agrees to work with either the Liberals or the NDP, they will be kingmaker. The numbers make it possible that either the NDP or the Liberals could get a majority by teaming up with the Greens.
However, under a coalition government, anytime the ruling party wants to pass legislation, they need the support of the second party. That could mean major changes in B.C., regardless of which party gets the Greens’ support.
So which party will it be? So far, the Greens haven’t said. But I bet there's some wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes today. B.C. may be at a political stalemate for the next two weeks while recounts and absentee ballot counts are underway May 22 to 24. The Liberals could still pull off a majority if they keep all the seats they have and gain one more.
If the Greens do end up holding the balance of power, they’ve already said changes to political donations and the voting system are imperative. The Green platform also called for significant new funding for education, an expansion of the education system to pre-schoolers, the exploration of a guaranteed minimum income and support for youth aging out of care. Obviously, the Greens are not keen on pipelines, LNG and the like.
Weaver said during the campaign that he supported a byelection for the fired Vancouver school trustees. The NDP said they would either reinstate them or hold a byelection. Former Liberal Education Minister Mike Bernier, who was reelected with a strong majority, said the official trustee he appointed to take over would be in place for at least a year. We will have to wait until the dust settles on this election to see whose voice will win out the VSB.
Stay tuned. There’s never a dull moment in B.C. politics and this election is far from over.

Other education notes:

• The NDP’s Morgane Oger, an openly transgender candidate, came close to beating the Liberals’ Sam Sullivan in Vancouver-False Creek, where the results went back and forth all night and the final count saw Sullivan just 560 ahead. Oger was the head of Vancouver’s District Parent Advisory Council before deciding to run for the NDP.
• Former Liberal education minister Peter Fassbender lost his seat in Surrey-Fleetwood. One has to wonder whether being the government’s face through the 2014 teachers’ strike hurt his re-election chances. Several Surrey seats went to the NDP, which perhaps indicates anger over the 6,000 students there who go to school in portables. Bridge tolls probably didn’t help.

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Number of kids falling in Vancouver, census shows

The 2016 census numbers show clearly that the number of children living in Vancouver is falling.
The number of kids younger than age 14 dropped by 815 children from 2011 to 2016, even as the city’s population grew by about 28,000 people, or nearly five per cent. The drop in the number of children amounts to a one per cent decrease.
If the number of children had kept pace with the Metro area's overall population growth, there would be about 5,000 new kids on the block in Vancouver alone. But anyone who lives in Metro Vancouver knows those 5,000 kids have all packed up, with their parents, and moved out to Surrey, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge and Langley.
Last year, I wrote about Vancouver becoming a childless city, but the evidence was only anecdotal. Now it’s confirmed: kids are leaving Vancouver. And it could get worse. A recent City of Vancouver survey found that 58 per cent of families are considering leaving the city in the next three years.
Statistics Canada has laid it out nicely in a map, where people can clearly see the dark green areas in the outer suburbs where all the children are moving. West Vancouver, Vancouver and Richmond are all paler shades of green, which indicates fewer young people.
Children make up just 11 per cent of Vancouver’s population, whereas in Surrey kids account for nearly 18 per cent. In Coquitlam, it’s 16 per cent, a number that is nearly identical to the overall Canadian percentage of kids, which is 16.6 per cent.
Experts told me last year that a city without a robust population of youngsters will suffer both economic and social consequences, including increased isolation.
Abigail Bond, the City of Vancouver’s director of Housing Policy, told me in December that “it’s very important that we have children because their parents are often the people driving the economy of the city and the region.”
The price of housing is obviously linked to the lack of children in the city. Clearly, those who are staying are living in very specific areas of the city, like Olympic Village and Yaletown, where young parents can afford to live in a condo. Elementary schools in those areas are so full they turned neighbourhood kindergarten students away.
This demographic shift of children and their parents out of the single family neighbourhoods of the city and into downtown or the farther flung suburbs where they can afford homes is creating havoc with Metro Vancouver's schools. It’s no coincidence that Surrey schools are so full that 6,000 kids attend school in portables or that daycares housed in Coquitlam schools are being forced to close because the schools no longer have space.
Cities like Vancouver and Richmond, which kids are rapidly deserting, are left with tough decisions like closing schools. It remains to be seen what will happen in Vancouver and Richmond schools – both cities have many schools with plenty of excess space. They also have many schools that need seismic upgrades. Although both districts put school closures on hold last fall, the contentious issue is all but guaranteed to resurface after the election.
Meanwhile, what can Vancouver and Richmond do to attract more families? The answer seems clear: there is a pressing need to create more housing that is family-friendly and affordable.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Why adults should watch 13 Reasons Why

Parents and teachers would do well to watch a new Netflix series called 13 Reasons Why.
It’s about suicide and it includes quite graphic content, including the main character’s suicide and scenes of rape. It has generated a lot of controversy – talking about it has been banned in one school in Edmonton and another district in Ontario has warned teachers against using the series as a teaching aid. The Vancouver School Board sent out a notice to parents offering guidance about the show.
13 Reasons Why does not paint a pretty picture of life in high school. However, banning people from talking about it is probably going to do more harm than good.
The series, based on a novel by Jay Asher, focuses on Hannah Baker, who kills herself, and Clay Jensen, her friend. Jensen finds a package of cassette tapes on his porch. They are from Hannah, who tells the 13 reasons she killed herself on the cassettes. Each cassette focuses on a person and how they contributed to her despair.
The reasons range from the mundane – friendships that end with no apparent reason – to the profound – watching someone you know get raped or being raped yourself. In between, there are various shades of grey, such as having lewd photographs of yourself shared on social media or having a friend drop you because they’re outed as homosexual.
I hope this show is exaggerated. But it might not be. In B.C., 15-year-old Amanda Todd committed suicide in 2012, and cyberbullying played a role.
Certainly, private photographs are shared on social media all the time. Kids drop kids off their friendship lists on a daily basis. Parents fail to notice what’s happening when they’re all wrapped up in their own survival every day. Car accidents, questions about sexuality, drinking, drugs and cyber bullying are all prevalent in teenagers’ lives.
A school counselor is portrayed as somewhat uncaring and oblivious in the show. This is unfortunate and certainly a stereotype, one that is probably completely wrong. However, it’s also an opportunity for counselors and teachers to watch the show and use it as an opportunity to talk with each other and students who may be vulnerable.
In the U.S., the National Association of School Psychologists produced “guidelines for educators” specifically about the series. It urges adults to talk to kids about the show.
“While many youth are resilient and capable of differentiating between a TV drama and real life, engaging in thoughtful conversations with them about the show is vital,” the guidelines say. “Doing so presents an opportunity to help them process the issues addressed, consider the consequences of certain choices, and reinforce the message that suicide is not a solution to problems and that help is available. This is particularly important for adolescents who are isolated, struggling, or vulnerable to suggestive images and storylines.”
Clearly, this show isn’t for everyone. The school psychologists’ association also says exposure to another person’s suicide or sensationalized accounts of death can be a risk factor for suicide. It makes it clear that most people who commit suicide have a mental illness.
But some young people are going to watch the show. When they do, it’s going to be better if they have someone to talk to about it, especially if they are struggling themselves.
Isolation and loneliness do not help when a person is depressed or mentally ill. Hannah Baker becomes more and more isolated with each episode of 13 Reasons Why. In the end, even with everything awful that happened to her, if she had had someone – just anyone – to talk to about it all, viewers know she would not have killed herself.
If we refuse to talk about suicide and this show, as upsetting as it may be, we contribute to further isolation. People need people to talk to. Let’s not push this series underground for fear of upsetting someone – let’s get it out in the open and start conversations with our kids. One of them might really need a friend.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Novel about remote Aboriginal community wins B.C. fiction prize

A tragic but inspiring story about a remote First Nations reserve in British Columbia has won the Ethel Wilson prize, B.C.'s top prize for fiction.
The Heaviness of Things That Float, by Jennifer Manuel, published by Douglas & McIntyre, is the story of Bernadette, a nurse who worked in a remote indigenous community for 40 years. She's on the verge of retirement when Chase Charlie, a young man she is close to, disappears. Here's a review of the book I wrote for the Vancouver Sun.
Manuel, although not an indigenous person herself, has worked in remote areas of B.C. with Aboriginal people for many years.
At its heart, the novel is about privilege, as expressed in this quote from Manuel. “It hasn’t occurred to (Bernadette) that she may still hold assumptions rooted in her own dominant culture, and when you are in a position of privilege, the worst thing you can do assume. It’s the novel’s central message: try to know the other, but never assume to know the other.”
The fiction prize was handed out Saturday night in Vancouver, along with seven others awarded at the 33rd annual BC Book Prizes gala.
The recently deceased Aboriginal author Richard Wagamese won the Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice award for his book Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations (Douglas and McIntyre). That prize is given to the best book in terms of public appeal, initiative, design, production, and content. Embers is a book of meditations that Wagamese created and used in his own life as an author of many books, including Indian Horse, Medicine Walk and Keeper 'N' Me.
Author and artist Douglas Coupland, who coined the term Generation X with his book of the same name, won the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. That award comes with a $5,000 prize, while the other winners each receive $2,000.

The other winners were:

• Neil J. Sterritt, Mapping My Way Home: A Gitxsan History (Creekstone Press), which won the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize for the author(s) of the book that contributes most to the enjoyment and understanding of British Columbia;

• Deborah Campbell, A Disappearance in Damascus: A Story of Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War
(Knopf Canada), which won the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize for the best original non-fiction literary work:;

• Adèle Barclay, If I Were in a Cage I’d Reach Out for You (Nightwood Editions), which won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry prize;

• Monique Gray Smith, illustrated by Julie Flett, My Heart Fills With Happiness (Orca Book Publishers), which won the Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize;

and

• Iain Lawrence, The Skeleton Tree (Tundra Books), which won the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize awarded to the best non-illustrated book written for children.

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

B.C. election: Where's the fire over education?

Despite a decade-long court case settled against the government, a heated strike that closed schools for weeks and a fired board of education in the province's biggest city, education has yet to emerge as a defining issue of this election.

The Liberals promise to stand pat, the NDP has pledged more money, but is short on specifics, and the Green party is making big, ambitious promises, but is unlikely to form the government.

Here's a recent article I wrote about education issues and the election for the Vancouver Sun and Province.

There's a space squeeze on in schools, with Vancouver's urban schools bursting at the seams, while schools in some neighbourhoods are nearly empty. Eight schools had to turn kindergarten students away in Vancouver. In Surrey, 6,000 students study in portables. A group called Surrey Students Now says the space crunch could see all but two Surrey secondary schools move to an extended day schedule. The group is also concerned about the funding for portables and an education ministry request for a "space audit" that could see auditorium stages or libraries converted to classroom space.

Even with these significant issues, education is not getting a lot of election traction. The party platforms promise very little in the way of specifics.

All three parties promise to review the funding formula for schools, which is essential now that the teachers' won at the Supreme Court and their 2002 contracts are restored. The win means significant differences in the number of teachers needed in each district, because every district now has different rules and some districts have no class composition language at all. A one-size-fits-all per-student funding model will no longer work.

None of the parties is calling for significant change to funding for independent schools.

For post-secondary schools, all three parties promise some relief on student-loan interest and the Liberals and the NDP promise to keep a cap on tuition fee increases, although the NDP don't specify the size of the cap. Today, tuition fees can only go up two per cent each year.

On Tuesday, I moderated an education forum for election candidates, hosted by the Vancouver District Parents Advisory Council. The Liberals didn't participate, but the NDP was represented by Adrian Dix and Morgane Oger and the Greens were represented by former Vancouver School Board trustee Janet Fraser and Bradley Shende. It was an interesting evening, but there were few surprises. About 50 people showed up to hear from candidates, but other than a few digs at the missing Liberals, it was largely a friendly gathering.

In the leaders' debate Wednesday night, education was barely mentioned. Even the NDP, which is promising $10-a-day childcare, only got around to mentioning it in the closing statements. The Greens, who would extend the school system to include preschool for three and four year olds, didn't pump that during the debate.

After the election, there are all kinds of unknowns. Will school closures be back on the table in Vancouver and Richmond? Will seismic upgrades be done even if schools aren't at capacity? Will the next contract negotiations be bitter or sweet? Only time will tell.

Despite the big questions, it doesn't look likely to me that education will emerge as a defining issue before May 9.

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Various recent education stories

Below you will find links to my most recent education stories, including some about the Supreme Court case, class size and composition and other education issues.

Number of B.C. classes with more than three special needs students rises dramatically


Provincial election a motivator in getting B.C. teachers' deal done


Teachers reach deal with province on classroom conditions


Childless in Vancouver: How do cities keep families from fleeing?

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Foster care and aging out

In my time at The Vancouver Sun and Province, I wrote many stories about foster care and what happens to foster children when they "age out" of government care.
Here is a selection of links:

'Shocking' numbers of aboriginal children in care an 'embarrassment,' children's advocate says

Number of B.C. kids-in-care deaths, critical injuries jump dramatically


B.C. youth in foster care died alone, as multiple warning signs ignored


Girl who recently aged out of government care dies in Surrey tent


Teenager's death in Surrey 'a preventable tragedy,' NDP says

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Stories on VSB and bulling

Here are links to the latest stories about the VSB, bullying and the fired school board trustees.


WorkSafeBC investigation confirms VSB bullying took place at meetings


Vancouver school board unions dispute bullying report


'Bullying' at Vancouver school board peaked at public meeting, says external report


Report says bullying led to a toxic work environment at Vancouver School Board

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Books, books and more books

In this post you will find links to my most recent book reviews and book club discussions.

Book Club: Storytelling method compels mystery

B.C. Book Prizes finalists see children's story Peace Dancer score twice


New books about nature, art and the 1980s


Reviews: Novels explore mother-daughter bonds


B.C. national book award goes to Sandra Martin


National Award: From indigenous communities to death with dignity

Interview: Ian Rankin on mortality, Rebus and Scottish crime

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

Working poverty series

This year, I worked on a series of stories about people in British Columbia who work, but who barely make ends meet. It was heartbreaking to hear the stories of how these people struggle to make the bare necessities of life, despite being employed and trying their best.

Here are some links:

B.C.'s working poor: Meet the people whose jobs don't pay the bills

B.C.'s working poor: Low-wage jobs keep many living paycheque to paycheque

B.C.'s working poor: Affordable child care key to lifting families out of poverty

B.C.'s working poor: Food often comes last, after the bills are paid

B.C.'s working poor: Education essential to better opportunities


B.C.'s working poor: Affordability crisis hits low-income earners hardest

B.C.'s working poor: Reducing poverty expensive, but possible

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

VSB passes its budget

The Vancouver School Board's lone trustee, Dianne Turner, has passed the budget for next year.

The budget includes a plan to move some existing teacher positions from the current operating budget into the classroom enhancement fund, provided by the province to restore the teachers' contracts to 2002 staffing levels. That plan reduced the budget deficit by about $7.1 million.

The ministry first told me this plan was not allowed, but then was unable to answer my questions because the election writ had dropped. Other districts, such as Richmond, are also facing significant deficits, but were unsure if they could transfer funding for teaching positions in the same way.

This story I wrote earlier this month explains the funding shuffle.

Turner was appointed by the province to run the Vancouver School Board after the elected trustees were fired for failing to pass a balanced budget.

tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

VSB's kindergarten space crunch

The Vancouver School Board has turned away neighbourhood children from eight elementary schools, due to a lack of space.
In this story, I explain that the teachers' court win means smaller class sizes, which adds to a space crunch in schools that were already jam-packed.
Kids couldn't get in to Elsie Roy, Henry Hudson, False Creek, Emily Carr, Edith Cavell, General Gordon, Simon Fraser and David Livingstone elementary schools. Most of the students have been offered alternatives, but exact wait list numbers are not yet available.
Many students were also not able to get spaces in choice programs such as French or Mandarin immersion.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com

B.C. election 2017: Where the three parties stand on childcare

Here's a link to a recent story I wrote for The Vancouver Sun about where the Liberals, NDP and Green party stand on childcare.
Both the NDP and the Greens have big plans when it comes to childcare, with the NDP promising to implement $10-a-day childcare and the Greens promising to bring in free preschool for toddlers. The Liberals say those options are too expensive, but they promise to build more spaces.
Childcare is expensive in Metro Vancouver and the wait lists are long. Experts say cheaper and more accessible childcare gets more women into the workforce, therefore boosting the economy.
Voters will have their say May 9.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com