• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Atlantic Books and Authors

Atlantic Books

Atlantic Books

Locate me to show me local book sellers and libraries

Locate me
Locate me
  • 0
FR
  • Home
  • Collections
    • Winter Reading
      • Winter Brain Ticklers
      • Winter Heartwarmers
      • Winter Snuggles
    • Holiday Gift Guide
      • The Gift Of Art Stories
      • The Gift Of Historical Stories
      • The Gift Of Human Stories
      • The Gift Of Literary Stories
      • The Gift Of True Stories
      • The Gift of Youthful Stories
    • VOICES
      • Black Atlantic Canadian Authors and Stories
    • Time to
      • Time To Be Inspired
      • Time To Create
      • Discover
      • Time to DIY
      • Time to Escape
      • Time to Indulge
      • Time to Laugh
      • Time to Learn
      • Time to Lire en Français
      • Time to Meet
      • Time to Read Alone
      • Time to Read Together
  • Stories
  • Shop
  • About
  • Contact Us

animals

January 12, 2018 by Donald Calabrese

Drawing from a deep well of momentum, David Huebert lands his first collection of short stories Peninsula Sinking and solidifies his reputation as one of Canada’s most promising literary talents. Launched by the success of his poetry collection We Are No Longer the Smart Kids in Class, David Huebert’s first full-length prose effort undulates between the fierce, ubiquitous magnetism of Nova Scotian home life and the surprisingly moving power of the mundane. In Peninsula Sinking, Huebert’s characters walk into disjointed moments of memory and solitude finding ephemeral but meaningful clarity.

In these stories, Huebert, as deftly as any writer ever has, cuts the thinnest slivers of consciousness. His finest moments are quick snatches of a personal archive coalescing into single contemporaneous thoughts. Huebert experiments with how the loudest part of our interiority–the part that sounds like words and voice–is a crust on the yawning and often disturbing bog of memory. These explorations are not Proust’s madeleines. They come at us jarringly and unwanted in the form of dog erections, botched self-botoxing and Perrier rings on the coffee table. Huebert skewers cross sections of grief, shame and desire, puts focus on disconnection and threads together the ineffable moments in a singular patchwork.

Each of the eight stories in Peninsula Sinking proposes a familiar animal to accompany epiphany. In “Maxi,” a prison guard commits suicide by boa constrictor in a silent intimacy reserved for the best French New Wave. The 2016 CBC Short Story Prize winning “Enigma” descends into the mutual oblivion of a woman and her euthanized horse. “Drift,” the collection’s simplest and most gripping achievement, is an unadorned picture of one story from the 1992 Westray Mine disaster that begins with a pork tenderloin as its “recently growing, twitching” analogue. Elsewhere, dreams of neutered dogs and distant whale songs reverberate in the understated everyday of parents, siblings and lovers. Huebert’s animals work well: not just clever mirrors held up to his characters’ raging animality, but as new and sparklingly clear lenses with which to sketch their souls. With a tendency toward language that cascades rather than propels, Peninsula Sinking is a wonderful high point in a new and bright career.

Peninsula Sinking
David Huebert
Biblioasis

Filed Under: Fiction, Reviews, Web exclusives Tagged With: animals, Biblioasis, CBC Short Story Contest, contest winners, David Huebert, environment, fiction, Nova Scotia, short fiction

November 17, 2017 by Lindsay Raining Bird

What could be more exasperating for a little girl than a pet goat that refuses to do average goat things (like help with her chores) because he has a taste for the finer things in life? In the children’s book Fancy Goat co-written by Jeremy Holmes and Justin Gregg and illustrated by Holmes with beautiful watercolour by Ranke de Vries, one little girl’s imagination sets the stage for a dozen astonishing feats of high-class hijinks and fancy fun.

Dressing her goat in everything from a well-polished monocle, to a top hat and pearls, the animal is admonished repeatedly for his extravagant and lavish lifestyle. Partial to private massages, theatre tickets, plane rides and trips to Paris–it’s clear that the personality she bestows on her favourite pet is a wonderful and much needed creative outlet for her on a rural farm.

Holmes, who is the founder of the ECMA-winning children’s songwriting group The Little Ditties, hosts music therapy and song writing workshops that help children unleash their creativity with confidence in a world that continues to devalue the arts as a whole. In Fancy Goat the little girl is allowed to spin yarns without the criticism of unimaginative adults–instead her equally fancy grandfather appears at the end of the story just as willing to indulge her with a feather boa and tiara for high tea. Imagination in this story is paramount.

Fancy Goat is a silly, fun-filled story with vibrantly coloured comedic pictures that emphasize both the goat’s actual mischievous nature and, in response to it, the eye-popping magic of life and friends through a child’s wondrous eyes.

Even though we all know this particular goat really isn’t that fancy, it’s not a stretch page-by-page to imagine under the right circumstances and with the right kind of kid, he could be.

Fancy Goat
Jeremy Holmes and Justin Gregg
Outside the Lines Press

Filed Under: Reviews, Web exclusives, Young Readers Reviews Tagged With: animals, country living, creativity, Fancy Goat, Jeremy Holmes, Justin Gregg, Nova Scotia, Outside the Lines Press, picture book, play, Ranke de Vries, rural life, young readers

November 13, 2017 by Margaret Patricia Eaton

Blank bookcover with clipping path

Disclaimer: This book is not about outhouses and does not contain bathroom humour. Instead the 70 short (very short) stories are filled with wry observations, self-deprecating humour and homely wisdom told by a natural-born, down-East storyteller.

And Grandpa Pike is not a grandfather (at least not at time of writing) but got the nickname when his hair turned grey in his twenties and which he accepted as a preferable alternative to Fish Face, his childhood moniker.

Not only did he accept it, he took it and ran with it, once branding the rural store he bought in Albert County, New Brunswick as Grandpa Pike’s. He’s continued to use it for his charity work with the Newfoundland & Labrador chapter of the Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada and as his stage name as he’s also a performer and recording artist.

All of which provides material for his stories, along with his tales growing up in a dysfunctional family in Nova Scotia. He quit school at age 16 and made his way to Ontario where he worked at a series of retail jobs and where, while living in a boarding house, finally experienced a happy family life.

The stories are amusing as he explains why cats are better than dogs, why he’s hopeless and even dangerous in the kitchen and what’s wrong with golf: “Not much I s’pose. If you’re single and have a high-income job.”

They’re also reflective and poignant. When he made the choice to move back to Atlantic Canada he had to find a new home for his beloved rescue cat, who he’d named Dawn in recognition of her pale gray fur. Recalling his first lonely night without her sleeping under his beard, he writes, “A quiet night has a way to focus your mind on seemingly little things that are important to you. It is indeed a long night that has no dawn.”

Grandpa Pike’s Outhouse Reader
By Laurie Blackwood Pike
Flanker Press

Filed Under: Humour, Memoir, Reviews, Web exclusives Tagged With: animals, Cooking, Flanker Press, Golf, Grandpa Pike's Outhouse Reader, humour, Laurie Blackwood Pike, memoir, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Pets, Recreation, short stories

October 25, 2017 by Lisa Doucet

On a cool, damp late summer night, two young friends are nearly bursting with excitement as they prepare to embark on a very special quest, one that will hopefully result in the rescue of numerous baby birds that have lost their way.

Susan and Ryan have been invited to join Ryan’s older sister and other members of The Puffin Patrol as they comb the shores of Newfoundland’s Witless Bay in search of pufflings, baby puffins that have gotten confused by the lights and landed on shore instead of in the ocean. Each year, dedicated volunteers carefully search backyards, gardens and roadsides for any waylaid pufflings. The tiny creatures are then released back to the ocean.

After a night of searching for pufflings, Susan and Ryan go on a tour boat and help with the release of all the rescued birds. Many months later, when the two friends return to Witless Bay, they vividly recall how good it felt to be a part of such an important rescue mission. The wonder of it all still brings smiles to their faces.

Baker’s latest children’s book will surely tug at the heartstrings of young readers and their parents. It provides a wonderful introduction to the work of The Puffin Patrol, and contains fascinating and helpful information on puffins and some of the perils they face. The “Did You Know?” and “How Can You Help?” sections at the back of the book will give readers the opportunity to think about ways in which we can all do our part to help other creatures. Hopefully the joy and satisfaction that Susan and Ryan experience will serve as an inspiration to this book’s audience.

While the illlustrations do not fully capture the energy or excitement of the search for the pufflings itself, the delightful renditions of the puffins and pufflings are striking. This book is most successful as a source of information and may have worked better as a non-fiction book. But children who find it will nonetheless be intrigued by the true story of the work that this organization does.

The Puffin Patrol
Written and illustrated by Dawn Baker
Pennywell Books

Filed Under: #84 Fall 2017, Editions, Reviews, Young Readers Reviews Tagged With: animals, Conservation, Dawn Baker, environment, Flanker Press, Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Pennywell Books, picture book, Puffins, Wildlife, young readers

December 1, 2014 by Laurie Glenn Norris

Creatures of the RockIn his new book Creatures of the Rock: A Veterinarian’s Adventures in Newfoundland, Andrew Peacock introduces us to the people who make their living dealing with animals on an in-depth level, as their veterinarian. He relocated from Ontario to Newfoundland in the 1980s to take over a farm animal practice on the Avalon Peninsula, and is still working there today.

Reminiscent of the iconic James Herriot series of vet adventures, Peacock’s “unquenchable curiosity about animals” shines through in these stories of pig and bull castrations, moose relocation, calf birthing, injured pets, spectacular ocean views and funny place names.

While Peacock deftly balances his stories of animal distress with humour, as an insightful onlooker of Newfoundland culture, there is little continuity among the stories. A greater attention to chronology would be helpful and would add to the sense of his growth – both as a vet and a husband and father – over the decades. It would also be interesting, and enlightening, to read of some of his failures, along with his successes, as an animal doctor. This aside, Creatures of the Rock is an informative romp through rural Newfoundland, especially for those of us who mistakenly associate Newfoundland with few animals beyond the moose and the codfish.

Creatures of the Rock
A Veterinarian’s Adventures in Newfoundland
by Andrew Peacock
$32.95, paperback, 304 pp.
Doubleday Canada, November 2014          

 

Filed Under: Non-fiction, People, Reviews, Web exclusives Tagged With: Andrew Peacock, animals, Avalon Peninsula, Creatures of the Rock: A Veterinarian's Adventures in Newfoundland, Doubleday Canada, veterinarian

Primary Sidebar

Our Latest Edition

Fall 2020

DISCOVER

Get Our Newsletters

Sign up to the Read Atlantic newsletters

Subscribe to one or all three of our carefully curated newsletters: Atlantic Books, Fiction and Poetry.

SUBSCRIBE

Footer

Atlantic Books

AtlanticBooks.ca is your source for Atlantic Canadian books. Stay up to date with the latest books news, feature stories, and reviews, and browse our catalogue of local books where you can download samples, borrow digital books from your local library, or purchase them through local book sellers or publishers.

Facebook
Twitter

#ReadAtlantic

Atlantic Books is part of the #ReadAtlantic community, which brings together Atlantic Canadian authors, bookstores, publishers, libraries, readers, literary festivals, and more. We encourage you to use this hashtag to promote all the ways we can support the local literary landscape in Atlantic Canada.

 

Useful Links

  • Subscribe to Atlantic Books newsletters
  • Find Your Atlantic Book Seller
  • Find Your Atlantic Public Library
  • Terms of Service
  • Return Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • About us
  • Contact Us
  • My Account
  • My wishlist

With Thanks

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for this project, as well as the Province of Nova Scotia’s Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage.

Copyright © 2021 · Atlantic Books All Rights Reserved

  • Subscribe to Atlantic Books newsletters
  • Find Your Atlantic Book Seller
  • Find Your Atlantic Public Library
  • Terms of Service
  • Return Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • About us
  • Contact Us
  • My Account
  • My wishlist