All week I've been watching the news and social media and thinking about what to say and do. It's horrifying to hear of the violence enacted against an unarmed man in the way that George Floyd suffered and died. It's even more horrifying that this is far from an isolated incident, in the United States… Continue reading TBR Additions (vol. 3): Listening to the Voices of Others
Category: Uncategorized
Easter 2020
As it did for so many, Easter looked very different for our family this year. For us, Easter is centred around gathering with our church - a Good Friday service, sometimes an early morning beach service on Sunday morning, followed by the main service at church, full of excitement. For the past four years we've… Continue reading Easter 2020
Life: One Month
It's been one month since the night Peter and I learned there were confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our town. We live in a small community, located a forty minute ferry ride from Vancouver. So although we aren't far from the Big City, it can feel very separate. Yet that night we knew what people… Continue reading Life: One Month
Reading with Pearl & Rose: Laura Ingalls Wilder
One of the most fun things for me as a parent is introducing my girls to the books I loved when I was a kid. I hadn't read anything by Laura Ingalls Wilder in years but when Pearl turned four last year and we started reading chapter books with her at bedtime, I thought we'd… Continue reading Reading with Pearl & Rose: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Life: Spring Break in a Pandemic
It is a strange, strange time in our world right now. While we remain largely unaffected in our community, we know that we are not immune to what's happening in the world and we know we can't quite continue life as normal. Spring Break for our family began this week, as planned, but it is… Continue reading Life: Spring Break in a Pandemic
Book Review: The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant – Michel Tremblay
The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant - Michel Tremblay (Talonbooks, 2008) This Quebecois classic takes place in a single day - 2 May 1942 - and mostly on one street. Working class Montreal, three years into World War Two. This is a Francophone neighbourhood where it just so happens that seven women are pregnant… Continue reading Book Review: The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant – Michel Tremblay
Writers Fest 2020 Challenge
Every year (since 1982) my small town has played host to the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts. It's the longest-running writers festival featuring solely Canadian writers. It's a wonderful weekend in August that celebrates Canadian writers and brings readers together. It's an intimate and thought-provoking few days and one of the highlights of… Continue reading Writers Fest 2020 Challenge
Reading with Pearl & Rose: A Trip to the Library
When I was a kid, going to the library was a great event. My brother and I would spend what felt like hours poring over the shelves, reaching for our favourites, and finding new books. We knew which sections had the best books and we knew just how many Asterix comics we were each allowed… Continue reading Reading with Pearl & Rose: A Trip to the Library
What I Read – 2019
Over the month of December I shared some of favourite reads of 2019 in my Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards, so feel free to glance back over those posts if you're curious about what I enjoyed reading this year. This post will focus on my overall reading statistics and at the end I'll share a… Continue reading What I Read – 2019
Best Non-Fiction
If you follow along here, you might notice that most of my reading is fictional. That said, 2019 has seen me reading more non-fiction than I ever have before. In fact, looking at the numbers, I've almost doubled the amount of non-fiction compared to 2018. Part of this is because of my Writers' Fest Challenge,… Continue reading Best Non-Fiction





