Rush Home Road

By Lori Lansens

'There were some days when there was no peace to be had and what you thought might happen didn't and what you never dreamed of did. Addy knew this would be one of those days. She shook a cigarette from her package and lit it while she wondered what to do.'

This is a beautifully written novel about a little girl who helps a grown woman find her way back home. It is a wonderful story about friendship and forgiveness.

The novel's main character is 70-year-old Adelaide 'Addy' Shadd, a woman of colour, who lives on the mud lane of the Lakeview trailer park. One summer she agrees to look after the 5-year-old mixed race girl Sharla Cody, thinking it will bring her much needed company. However, it seems like Sharla has come to stay when Sharla's mother, the trashy white woman Collette Depuis, empties her trailer and leaves Lakeview with her boyfriend in the middle of the night.

Addy lovingly looks after Sharla, who also reminds her of her own daughter, Chick. Sharla starts school and Addy helps her deal with a teacher who judges Sharla for being a product of an interracial relationship. On the other hand, Sharla brings back memories of Addy's past, which takes Addy down memory lane back to her childhood growing up in Rusholme, a small town where mostly coloured families had settled. She and her brother Leam were two very happy children, never fighting like other brothers and sisters. Life in Rusholme was very straight forward until the events of Strawberry Sunday. What happened that day forced 15-year-old Addy to leave her family home and the town she had grown up in.

However, the story ends warmly as she returns to her hometown of Rusholme. A town that provides a warm reception on her return.

A Child Called 'It'

By Dave Pelzer

This is the first part of an autobiographical trilogy series. Dave grows up beaten and starved by his alcoholic mother. He has to sleep in an old army cot in the basement and is only given very small amounts of food, barely enough to keep him alive. Often he has to eat leftovers from the dog's bowl. His two brothers are not allowed to acknowledge his presence and his father does not seem to know what to do with the situation.

He soon has to learn to play his mother's games. She considers him more like a slave, more an 'it' than a boy. One time she even pulls his arm out of its socket and does not take him to the hospital for 18 hours.

The most disturbing part is that the outside world knows nothing of his living nightmare. There is no one to turn to, only his dreams of someone taking care of him, loving him and calling him their son keeps Dave alive, until one day he finally finds salvation when his teachers call the authorities.

In one word; shocking!

Girl With a Pearl Earring

By Tracey Chevalier

The story springs out from the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's painting 'Girl With a Pearl Earring'. It is an attempt by the author to tell the story behind this painting, trying to find the answer to why the girl looked the way she did.

Griet is the Protestant daughter of a Delft tile painter who has lost his sight in an accident. In order to bring income to her struggling family, Griet starts to work as a maid for Vermeer and his wife, Catharina, in their growing Catholic household. The Vermeer household, with its five children, grandmother and long-time servant, is ready to make Griet's working life difficult.

Vermeer himself is a moody person, who spends long hours locked away in his vast studio. His pregnant wife is resentful and jealous of Griet's youth and beauty. Griet quickly becomes fascinatied with her master's paintings. Vermeer senses that Griet has an appreciation of his work no one else in the family shows. He secretly makes her his assistant, teaching her to buy and mix his paints. Their relationship is concealed from the family much due to the fact that Catharina is not allowed into Vermeer's studio because of her clumsiness and lack of appreciation for his artwork.

However, their relationship cannot go on unnoticed forever. One day the wealthy Master van Ruijven, Vermeer's most prominent patron, demands that Vermeer is to paint Griet for his next commissioned work - and it is then that Vermeer paints her wearing his wife's pearl earrings.

A novel that is a beautifully written pearl of its own.