Book Review Archives - Nova Scotia Advocate

Book review: Through the elephant ears, by MJ Dominey

September 11, 2021

Anne Bishop reviews Through the elephant ears, by MJ Dominey, and she likes it a lot. “If you grew up in a small town, anywhere, but particularly in Cape Breton, and particularly on the wrong side of the tracks, Through the Elephant Ears will go straight to your heart. If you grew up elsewhere, it will open your heart to the scary and complicated path young women living in poverty must travel on the way to adulthood and how it sticks to them for life.”

Book review: Fight on! Cape Breton coal miners, 1900-1925 – A great book for your favourite niece or nephew

June 11, 2021

There’s a very nice little book out about the coal miners’ (and steel workers’) fight against greedy and heartless corporations in early twentieth century Cape Breton. What’s especially great about it is that author Joanne Schwartz wrote it for kids, not the really young ones I guess, but say the 10 to 15 year olds. Nimbus, the publisher, suggests children as young as 7 may go for it.

Amazing Atlantic Black Canadians – “I want people reading this book to say if they can do it, so can I”

February 19, 2021 2 Comments

Elissa Barnard in conversation with Lindsay Ruck, author of Amazing Atlantic Black Canadians. “The Atlantic provinces are bursting with amazing Black Atlantic Canadians. This could be multiple volumes.”

Chris Benjamin: “The challenge becomes to put myself in another person’s shoes and see the world through their eyes”

November 15, 2020

“”Not all these characters are nice people, but they’re all going through interesting things, and so I just want to see the world through their eyes. It often leaves me with a different point of view on things, or a different way of thinking.” An interview with Chris Benjamin about his excellent short stories collection A Boy With a Problem.

Review: The True Cost of Coal, a beautiful little book for kids of all ages

November 5, 2020

Book review; The True Cost of Coal is a beautiful little book that helps children of all ages explore the devastation of the Appalachian landscape by exploitative coal mining practices.

Review: Jim Crow also lived here – Growing up Black in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia

October 12, 2020

Reading the book you get the feeling that Paris did not set out to write about racism as such. It just so happens that you cannot write about growing up Black in Nova Scotia, no matter when, no matter where, without writing about racism.

Book review: Before the Parade is a must-read on gay, lesbian and bisexual resistance in Halifax

January 10, 2020

Documenting the histories of local activism is of vital importance, and Before the Parade, a wonderful new book by Rebecca Rose on the history of Halifax’s gay, lesbian and bisexual communities in the seventies and early eighties is a very welcome addition.

Book review: R is for reparations – Young activists speaking their truth

February 20, 2019

A powerful little book, written in a day by some 30 children from in and around Halifax, speaks to to the enduring legacy of slavery in Canada and the need for all of us to engage in a serious conversation about reparations.

Book review: North to Bondage: Loyalist slavery in the Maritimes

February 6, 2019 1 Comment

A book about slavery in Nova Scotia, North to Bondage: Loyalist slavery in the Maritimes, by professor Harvey Amani Whitfield, shows how ownership of enslaved Blacks was widespread in the Maritime provinces, and a major contributor to its economic viability. In a way it’s an invitation for white Nova Scotians to start a serious conversation about reparations.

Book review: A wholesome horror. Poor houses in Nova Scotia.

May 22, 2018 6 Comments

There’s a wonderful new book on the history or poor houses and poor farms in Nova Scotia, written by poverty activist and frequent NS Advocate contributor Brenda Thompson. Things are better now, of course, but in a way not much has changed for people who are very poor.