‘Spellbound’ Movie Ending Explained & Summary: Did Ellian Save Her Family?

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

The 2024 animated musical adventure fantasy film on Netflix, Spellbound, promises a magical experience helmed by the director of Shrek and the creators of Toy Story. The plot is indeed quite fascinating, as it follows a teenage princess named Ellian, who has to deal with a terrible mess as her parents have been magically transformed into monsters. It is the modern touch to the classical fairytale that ultimately makes Spellbound unique, and along with the overall presentation, it is a rather entertaining film to watch.

Spoiler Alert

What is the animated film about?

Spellbound begins with breathtaking scenes of Lumbria, the picturesque land where the film is set, as a young girl flies through the skies on her winged-cat ride. The girl, named Ellian, is soon joined by a few of her friends, who are excited to spend time with her, as such occurrences have become rare in recent times. Much to their dismay, flares are suddenly fired from the royal castle in the distance, and this is a sign meant to inform Ellian that she must return to the castle immediately. Ellian is actually the princess of Lumbria, being the only child of King Solon and Queen Ellsmere, and therefore is believed to have a lot of responsibilities on her young shoulders. Although the children have to part ways with their friend for now, they are excited to visit the castle in the evening, for it is Ellian’s birthday. The occasion is usually celebrated with a grand party at her house in which everyone in Lumbria is invited. However, Ellian confirms that no such party is taking place this year, and her birthday celebrations are being kept restricted to her family members only, rather uncharacteristically.

As Ellian enters the castle, Minister Nazara informs her that her parents want to meet her as soon as possible. But as the guards seem to be prying into the conversation, Nazara does not speak her mind, and it is soon revealed that an astonishing secret is being kept from the citizens and even most of the authoritative figures in Lumbria. Around a year ago, the beloved King and Queen of the land had traveled to the forests beyond the kingdom when a dark storm appeared out of nowhere. By the time the storm was over, King Solon and Queen Ellsmere were found to have been cursed, as they were no longer humans but had turned into literal monsters. Now, almost a year later, neither Ellian nor any of the closest advisors to the throne have any idea about what can be done to turn the royal couple back into their human selves. 

Due to the lack of the rulers and their counsel, it is Ellian who has been overseeing the responsibilities of keeping the kingdom running, and she is helped by the two most-trusted ministers, Bolinar and Nazara. Apart from these three and a select few workers, nobody in Lumbria knows about the magical transformation that their rulers have undergone. In addition to the hindrance this strange incident has caused on official matters, it has also left Ellian extremely sad, for her parents can no longer recognize her or acknowledge her presence, and they just run around eating and playing like any usual animal. With General Cardona, the leader of the nation’s army, repeatedly asking to meet the king and the queen for quite some time now, and driven by her own grief, Ellian sets out to solve the mystery of her parents’ transformation and to turn them back into humans once again. 

How do the Oracles guide Ellian on her pursuit?

Over the past year, Ellian has realized that there is no normal way to cure her parents’ ailment, and so she has to resort to the powers of the supernatural. Two extremely powerful mages, known as the Oracles of the Sun and Moon, are believed to be the creators of all life in the world, and so Ellian reaches out to them, asking for help. The mages live in the Dark Forest of Eternal Darkness, a place so dangerous and brimming with negative energy that its very name has the term ‘darkness’ mentioned twice. As the place was far beyond her reach, the princess had sent a letter to the Oracles, and in their response, they had stated  that they would soon travel to the royal castle to check on her troubles. Ellian is very excited about this development, as she hopes that her parents will once again turn into humans and love her like the way they did earlier. 

The ministers, Bolinar and Nazara, prepare for the worst though and decide that they will soon have to lie to the subjects about King Solon and Queen Ellsmere having died in an accident. After a few weeks of grieving, they will then announce Ellian as the new Queen of Lumbria, so that they can return to their usual diplomatic roles instead of having to ensure that the people do not find out about the magical transformations. When Ellian is told of this plan, she agrees to it as well, only because she is excited for the arrival of the Oracles and is confident that they can cure her parents. However, as the mages arrive at the court, total chaos breaks out for the monsters. Solon and Ellsmere chase them around and scare them away from the place. Ellian is left heartbroken. She accepts her fate that she will have to take on the responsibilities of the kingdom officially now. However that night, she forgets to lock the doors of the castle’s inner chambers.

As a result, Solon and Ellsmere escape the next morning, chasing the sheep and the people in Lumbria, creating total ruckus and making the army rush in to protect the citizens. General Cardona herself arrives at the scene and oversees the capture of the two monsters. Ellian has to reveal to everyone that the monsters are actually her parents and tries to gain sympathy for them, but the citizens are very scared for their own lives. Cardona also refuses to release the monsters, stating that although they were once the beloved king and queen of the land, they are now a threat to the people of the kingdom. As the creatures are kept in cages throughout the night and Cardona decides to get them executed the next day, Ellian reaches out to the Oracles once again. This time, they tell her to use their magical fob, which they had left behind at the castle, and bring her monstrous parents to their house in the Dark Forest of Eternal Darkness.

Ellian follows suit, together with her pet rodent Flink, which is a cute mouse-like creature, and the fob magically gives Solon and Ellsmere’s cages some wheels, along with transforming a carpet into a carriage for the princess. Thus, the whole family heads towards the Oracles’ house in the forest while being chased by General Cardona and her army. Eventually, as they reach the Oracles house, the mages tell Ellian that only her parents can save each other from this situation, and nothing can be done without their own desire to become humans again. It is only if they willingly step into the Pool of Light at the top of the highest mountain in the region that Solon and Ellsmere will return to their normal selves. Princess Ellian is naturally overjoyed after learning that there is indeed a way to save her parents. 

Why had the King and Queen turned into monsters?

Eventually, on their journey towards the Pool of Light, Ellian gets into trouble with the looming darkness in the forest, and this extreme emergency situation moves Solon so much that he utters the word ‘girl’. From this point onwards, Solon and Ellsmere slowly get back their abilities to speak, with their speech completely restored by the time they reach the top of the mountain. However, the couple are unable to enter the Pool of Light to return to their human forms because the water of the pool keeps retreating whenever they approach it. This is when the king and the queen of Lumbria reveal the real reason behind them having turned into monsters.

In Spellbound, the transformation of the humans into monsters is symbolic of the arguments and disagreements in their personal lives having turned them into figurative animals with no sense of humanness about them. Despite their once healthy relationship, the love and mutual respect between Solon and Ellsmere had completely dried up, and they could no longer tolerate each other’s presence. The couple kept having nasty fights in the castle, and a similar fight ensued when they visited the Dark Forest of Eternal Darkness on that fateful day. The dangerous forest, where concepts like the darkness inside one’s heart and mind take very literal forms, ultimately caused a magical charm to transform the fighting couple into monsters. 

Following this transformation, the king and the queen acted entirely like mindless animals, either eating up everything they could find, momentarily getting distracted by toys and other silly objects, or fighting with each other for no reason at all. They had no memory of their daughter and did not even acknowledge Ellian’s presence except for when she brought them food or toys. Therefore, this transformation is just a visual representation of how parents who are too consumed by their own personal conflicts and feuds against one another often lose their human touch and also completely overlook their child’s needs. They unwillingly turn a blind eye to the effect that their fight is having on their child, leading to the latter having to face extreme loneliness, confusion, and desperation.

While Spellbound addresses how the differences between parents have a terrible impact on their child’s mental and emotional growth, it does not resort to any archaic idea of forced togetherness. In fact, the reason why Solon and Ellsmere are unable to enter the Pool of Light is because they do not sort out their differences and do something about it. There is simply no chance for them to get back together, and so the sooner they end their marriage and separate, the better it would be for everyone, including young Ellian. Thus, they must first decide to end their marriage, for the good, before being able to turn back into humans.

Did Ellian save her family in the end?

When Ellian finds out exactly why her parents had turned into monsters and then also listens to their wish of breaking up, she can no longer hold on to her positive and cheery demeanor. One characteristic thing about Ellian had been how she had never lost hope or let anger or frustration take hold of her personality, and instead she kept taking care of her parents despite them having turned into monsters. However, now when they tell her about their failing marriage and their decision to end it for the sake of themselves, Ellian grows extremely angry and bitter. Like any kid in this situation, she feels like her parents are letting her down and are not caring about her, and she has to be calmed down and comforted by their love before she understands their reasons better. Once the parents’ love heals Ellian, her love heals them in turn and breaks the curse that had turned them into monsters. 

In Spellbound’s ending, Ellian is able to save her family heroically, although she cannot do anything about her parents’ marriage. The film reminds us that it is always better to let go of and break a burdened relationship that is not working out instead of holding on to it and making the situation even more bitter. Thus, Ellian now has two homes in the kingdom of Lumbria, as her parents live in two different castles, and she is still as much loved and cared for by her parents as before, when they were together. Ultimately, Spellbound turns out to be a fantastical tale about a child coming to terms with her parents’ separation and beautifully highlights how it is not necessarily a terrible situation if the adults are honest and sincere about their feelings and responsibilities. 

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‘Rita’ Movie Ending Explained & True Story: What Happens To The Angels? 

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Jayro Bustamante’s creative choice to tell a very real, utterly horrifying story by infusing magic realism into it may seem odd at first. But Rita’s subject matter would’ve been too disturbing to translate on screen had it not been enveloped by that fairytale factor. Hell, it might even have proved way too much for the young girls who star in Bustamante’s film about a Guatemalan tragedy, especially considering that most of these girls were debuting with this film. Rita is a harrowing reminder of what happened to the children in Virgen de la Asuncion, a state-run safe house that was supposed to be a sanctuary for kids who had no one outside.

Spoiler Alert

What happens in the film?

Growing up in a household with a father who molested her and a mother who turned a blind eye didn’t leave much space for Rita to still believe in happy endings. But that didn’t mean that all fairytales lost meaning to Rita. Perceiving the terrible truths of her life as the trials of a fairytale perhaps helped her cope. She was only thirteen when she ran away from home with her little sister. Things would’ve turned out much better for Rita if she’d been allowed to stay with the kind woman who found her and gave her a job and a safe place to stay. But then Rita was brought to Hell. There’s no other way to describe the orphanage the state dumped her in. Everything that Rita experiences in this uninhabitable place takes a mystical form, because that’s the only way these kids can get through a day. The hazing Rita goes through leaves her bruised and bleeding. It was the work of the angels, the girls she’s sharing a dingy room with. Rita’s terrified of being perceived as a rebel. She puts up with the inedible food, the unpaid labor, and the abuse in the fear that things will get much worse if she revolts. But as she befriends Sulmy and Bebe, two of the angels working alongside Terca, seemingly the leader of the angels, Rita absorbs their rage against the institution’s abuse.

How did Rita end up in the orphanage? 

Rita’s got devastating clarity about the true nature of the orphanage when she saw one of the girls get sexually assaulted by guards in the middle of the night. She also figured out who to trust when she saw the angels and the younger fairies taking care of the girl the day after. When she’s brought to the social service worker, someone Rita sees as the evil witch, she still has hope that maybe she’ll get to leave this place. She hopes that the social worker will sympathize with her pain when she tells her the truth. Rita’s been sexually abused by her father ever since she was seven. Though her mother was pained by it when she told her, she chose to keep her husband over protecting her kids. Rita endured that abuse. But when her father’s disgusting gaze fell on her baby sister, she had to take her and run. Celia saved her, or at least she tried to. But the government got in the mix when Rita ended up in the hospital after a botched abortion. The moment Rita feels that first spark of rage inside her is when the witch accuses her of having been jealous that her father touched her sister. That nauseating insinuation pushes Rita to do the brave thing for the first time. She spits on the witch and marks her first act of rebellion in this supremely abusive place. At this point, she knows that she can’t trust the people who run the place. But she realizes the full extent of just how predatory the orphanage is when they try to get suggestive poses out of her under the pretense that the pictures are for her case. She knows enough about the horrors of the world to realize how terribly the orphanage exploits the girls. The hazing was a helpful act on the angels’ part after all. They bruised Rita so she could avoid being trafficked for the time being.

Who are the stars?

The ghostly children in black veils first reveal themselves to Rita when she arrives at the orphanage. Ever since then, she’s seen them everywhere, appearing with whispers and vanishing into thin air. When one of the predatory guards, William, corners Rita in the bathroom, the ghostly kids crowd the place to save Rita. They’re the stars, the dead and dying kids who’ll guide the rebellion that’s brewing in the orphanage. The first girl who hanged herself with Christmas lights and became a star was Terca’s girlfriend. She didn’t want to abort the baby in her womb, but the orphanage wasn’t run by people who cared about these girls’ wishes. When she died wearing the twinkly lights around her neck, she created this limbo where all the kids who died at the hands of the management went. That limbo is where the stars stay, under the veil of gloom and death, sparkling with the same lights that marked the passing of the first one. To the kids, both dead and alive, hope is synonymous with the prophesied coming of a warrior angel. They believe that angel is Rita. And while it took her some time to adjust to the idea of fighting against the abusers, Rita acknowledged her role in opening up a door to freedom for all those who are tortured. The angels are planning an escape. But the stars’ plan is a lot more radical. When their purposes blend together into a singular urge for revenge and freedom, Rita rises up as the key to achieving their shared goal. They do plan to break free and run, but not before they get justice for all the pain. They don’t want this hellish place to stay up and running. And the only way to truly put an end to these monsters’ racket of abuse and exploitation is to unmask them in front of the world. Rita’s to lure William and get the catalog of all the girls they have sold into prostitution or are planning to, and when they get free, they’ll hand it to the media. 

What happens to Rita and the angels? 

In one of the early scenes in Rita, the titular character was too naive to understand the necessity of the sporadic protests Terca leads. She thought that their rebellious actions only caused them more pain. But since then, she’s come to know the true face of the place they’re in. They’re in a forgotten corner of society where the government has dumped them. There’s no one coming to save them. And since they’re being hurt anyway, it makes sense to risk being punished some more if the end goal is freedom. William’s easy to fool. But even though Rita fully intends to kill him with the dagger that the stars gave her, she doesn’t stand a chance against the big guy. Thankfully, the angels were there to take care of him with a brick. Rita plans to bust the orphanage’s entire operation with the incriminating evidence that’s on William’s phone. And once she gets out of here, she plans to hand that phone to the media and reunite with her little sister and Celia. Rita’s a lot more comfortable with her rage in the same ruckus that scared her the first time she saw it. The angels and the fairies have strength in their numbers and their desperation to get out of this hell. When they break free and run, there’s hope for them for a moment. But they couldn’t run far enough before the police caught them and dragged them back to the hellhole. Rita could’ve gotten free if she’d only thought of herself and didn’t stay back to help an injured Sulmy. Sulmy had to practically push her away to force her to save herself. A bus full of people wanted to protect Rita, but the cops found her and brought her back. 

They knew that the punishment for pulling such a stunt would be graver than the pain that they’d gone through so far. But when the angels are brought back, they’re met with the kind of sadistic treatment that they couldn’t have imagined. The authorities cram them in a tiny room. They’re made to suffer from hunger and dehydration for almost two days. Help doesn’t come, but that doesn’t kill the angels’ fury. To get them to open the door, they light a mattress on fire. The girls underestimated the kind of insane savagery the authorities were capable of. The higher ups gave strict orders to the management against opening the door. They watched as the room filled up with smoke and didn’t lift a finger to help the children. Even as the smell of burning flesh filled up the place, the monsters outside the door turned a deaf ear to the shrieks. The kids were given excruciating deaths for the courage to protest against the brutality of the management and inhumane living conditions. 

In Rita’s ending, as their enraged souls walk out of the room, they’re made eternal with their never ending ache for justice. They were hurt by the world, hurt by the people who were meant to protect them, and abandoned in a place where they were held prisoner. The prison claimed their life and any hope they had of a better future. The state has turned a blind eye, as if they were never there. They’re forsaken as if they were never people deserving of the bare minimum kindness. 

What’s the true story behind the film?

In Rita, the titular character told you at the very start that things you were about to watch might not have happened the way she would tell you, but they very much did happen. Bustamante handpicked the actors who’d represent their Guatemalan sisters who fell victim to the government’s systematic negligence when it comes to girls, especially those who come from a poor background. Virgen de la Asuncion, the Guatemalan safe house for children, was created with the supposed intention of saving and protecting the children who were failed by their parents and the world. But what it really proved to be was a prison of sorts. The place which was supposed to house about 500 kids stuffed close to 800 in that dingy, dark, disgusting place. The food would make them sick, there were hardly any medical help available at the premises, and the people who ran the place were extremely violent and exploitative towards the kids they’d detained. No one cared to look into what went down at that hellish place. Even though there were countless reports of sexual abuse and human trafficking made against the orphanage, the human rights commission shoved it all under the rug and forgot about it. A rebellion brewed within, much like we saw in Rita. There were no angels and fairies, but the tormented kids decided to protest against the insurmountable amount of abuse they were subjected to on a daily basis. When they ran, looking for a better life out there because anything would’ve been better than living in a hole where they were sexually abused, sold off, and tortured, the police captured them and brought them back. They were severely beaten for daring to act against the institution and locked inside a tiny, suffocating room. The kids were held there without food and medical assistance for days before they had no other option but to revolt again. 

Like we saw in Rita, the 56 detained children lit a mattress on fire, hoping that the people outside the door would do something about it. But they silently watched them suffocate and burn. Even when the firefighters arrived and insisted that they be allowed to do their job, the management held them back. No one did anything to protect the kids, 41 of whom died in that horrifying tragedy. The Guatemalan government was silent and unapologetic in the aftermath of such a terrible crime committed against children who had no one to turn to. The tragedy happened in 2017, and even now, the fallen haven’t received justice. The handful of kids who survived the fire are still silenced with threats. The people who call the shots don’t want the truth about their incompetence to come out. The families of the dead have been threatened, harassed, and even murdered. It’s this disturbing failure of the government and the justice system that Rita protests against. The dead, their kin, and the survivors still await what the state owes them. But the state’s busy quieting the voice of protest, falsifying reports, and neglecting the thorough investigation that needs to be done, clearly to protect the big-league names that’d come up if an investigation is ever actually conducted. 

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‘Wicked’ Movie Ending Explained & Summary: What To Expect In Part 2?

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

If you’re like me and never got to see the Wicked musical, I’d urge you to watch the movie because it will leave you completely and utterly “Wickedified.” Okay, I’m not going to try and make up any more words of my own, but I suppose my dream of enjoying “Defying Gravity” in a theater has finally come true, and I’m more than overjoyed. While on the surface Wicked might appear to be a musical simply about friendship, it’s a story about much more than just that. Sure, there are talking animals and a green witch, but the plot is rooted in the dark side of humanity and really strikes the right chords in representing it in a humorous yet emotional story led by not one but two fantastical women. The film begins with the death of the “Wicked Witch of the West” and everybody in Oz rejoicing her defeat. “Glinda the Good” makes her way down in her big bubble, and after some song and dance, a child in the crowd asks her how a person becomes wicked, or if wickedness is a birthright. It is a great question, one she answers simply. The Wicked Witch of the West did have a childhood after all, so she couldn’t have been bad from the start. Before Glinda takes a leave, somebody asks her if she was friends with the Wicked Witch. Glinda gives a confusing reply here, but she implies that they used to be “acquaintances” at university. This is where the story truly begins. 

Spoiler Alert

Why is Elphaba Green? 

No, she didn’t eat grass as a kid, and yes, she was born that way, and I’m not going to give you spoilers for part 2, but let’s get into Elphaba’s childhood instead. Elphaba’s mom cheated on her dad before she was born, so she’s not the governor’s daughter. Of course, he doesn’t know this, but he hates her anyway because she’s an abomination born with green skin. When Elphaba’s mom was pregnant with her sister Nessa, she had to eat dozens of milk flowers every day so that the kid wouldn’t be born green. While Nessa wasn’t born green, she was born with “imperfect” legs, and her mom died in the premature birthing process. Elphaba blames herself, because if she wasn’t green, her mom and her sister would’ve never had to suffer. It is possible you’ve already figured out who Elphaba’s mysterious biological father is, but if you haven’t, let me give you the hint: it’s green. 

Why Does Elphaba Stay Back At Shiz University? 

Elphaba was always bullied as a kid, so she’s always got her guard up. When she brings Nessa to university, her father tells her to look after her sister just until she’s settled in, and she agrees despite the disdain with which everybody looks at her. Then, when the “shizmist” tries to take Nessa to her room, “helping” her, Elphaba tries to stop her, but she doesn’t listen. This makes her slightly mad, and she ends up showing the whole school her magical powers. This of course leaves Nessa brokenhearted, because this was her chance to have a new beginning, but it also gets Elphaba enrolled in the school because Madame Morrible, the sorcery professor, is impressed by her powers. 

How Do Galinda and Elphaba Become Besties? 

Well, at first, Galinda hates Elphaba’s guts because she’s asked to make room in her “suite” for her. She also knows that Elphaba has powers and is going to be Morrible’s student, which is her dream, so she’s green with envy (you know I had to). However, when the handsome prince Fiyero invites everybody to the Ozdust Ballroom for a party, Galinda gives Elphaba a hideous black hat (well, I’d like to say it’s actually wonderful) that her grandma made her just out of spite. In return, out of the kindness of her heart, Elphaba tells Morrible to take Galinda in as a student too, and she agrees. This makes Galinda realize that she’s been horrible, and when Elphaba is mocked at the party for the hat, she really feels terrible for her. But Elphaba is strong-willed, and she puts on a performance for everyone by herself. Despite everyone laughing, Galinda joins her, and this is what makes Elphaba “popular” and the two girls best friends. I suppose in a way Elphaba does get “glindafied” because she becomes more confident in herself. They are in a way mirrors of each other’s insecurities, one with a golden heart and “wicked” exterior, and one with a golden exterior but not so golden heart. 

How Does Elphaba Become The Wicked Witch?

Elphaba gets invited to the Emerald City to see the Wizard of Oz thanks to Morrible, who writes a letter to the man himself. On the day, she decides to take Glinda with her, because they’re best friends and it’s her dream too. The city is exactly what they dreamed of, and they’re ready to be unlimited together until something terrible happens. See, Elphaba has essentially been recruited by the Wizard, who has no powers of his own. He’s a fake fraud, and Morrible is his secretary, who helped bring Elphaba to him. It was all a big trap. Anyway, Elphaba doesn’t know this when they get her to read from the Grimmerie, an ancient book of spells that only people with true great powers can read. They say the wizard will grant you your greatest wish, and Elphaba’s wish is for the animals to be free. Over the course of the movie, we learn that the animals are losing their voice and being trapped in cages because the Wizard wants everybody to be afraid of them. Elphaba on the other hand is desperate to help them because she knows what it’s like to be oppressed. Also, Galinda changed her name to Glinda in honor of the history professor Dr. Dillamond, who is a goat who couldn’t pronounce Galinda. 

The Wizard asks her to give the monkey, Chiestry, who leads his army, the ability to fly, because it’s apparently always been his dream, but in truth, it’s because he wants his army to be able to fly and spy for him. Once Elphaba notices how painful the process is for Chiestry, she realizes what a grave mistake she’s made, but the spells are irreversible. What’s worse is that the entire army now has wings. 

In Wicked Part 1’s ending Morrible horribly announces to the citizens of Oz that a witch who has a green exterior, i.e., a wicked exterior, has stolen the Grimmerie and run off. She gives Elphaba the name “Wicked Witch,” and the whole of Oz now fears her, except for, of course, a handful of people, including Glinda. This is when something changes within her; something isn’t the same anymore. Elphaba decides to take matters into her own hands and become the confident young witch everyone is making her out to be. She tells everybody that they can find her in the West, hence “The Wicked Witch of the West,” finally free to fly high. 

What Can We Expect From Part 2?

Well, for one, Glinda doesn’t go with Elphaba because she has her own ambitions and she wants to be seen as good by the people of Oz. She chooses to stay back, and Morrible uses this to her advantage, taking her under her wing, i.e., giving her exactly what she always wanted. This is where the “fight” begins, I suppose, “good vs. evil.” At the same time, Elphaba’s father seems to have gotten a hearsay from the news of his daughter being a wicked witch, and so Nessa might be left all alone now, which means she could end up hating her sister. Additionally, she knows Boq has feelings for Glinda, so I wonder what will change in their relationship. Additionally, Fiyero now has feelings for Elphaba; after they saved a lion cub together, will he choose to stay with Glinda or will he find Elphaba and choose her? I wonder if Elphaba will save the animals or if they will all lose their voices forever like the Wizard hopes.

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As fight over Alabama library book complaints continues, board reinstates grant program

Arts & Culture, Books

The executive board of the Alabama Public Library Service on Thursday heard complaints from several parents about books they considered inappropriate for children, part of an ongoing public debate how libraries should control access to books with sexual and LGBTQ themes.The Alabama Legislature and APLS Board has required local libraries to update their policies in what they say is an effort to protect young readers from sexually explicit material or risk losing their state funding.Several of the speakers during the public comment period of Thursday’s meeting said they believe some libraries are not following the new policies.APLS Board Chair John Wahl said parents should first raise concerns with local library boards and come to the APLS Board if they believe the library is not following new guidelines.Also, in a move supported by local library directors, the APLS Board reversed an earlier decision and reinstated a federal grant program for local libraries. In September, the board had voted in favor of a statewide plan to allocate services with the federal funds, rather than awarding the competitive Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grants, an annual program for many years.Thursday’s meeting drew a standing-room only crowd in the board room and others watched remotely from an overflow room.Wahl, who is chairman of the Alabama Republican Party and represents the 5th congressional district on the APLS Board, served as chair at a meeting for the first time on Thursday.Wahl met with local library directors for a question and answer session before Thursday morning’s board meeting.“I think the board as a whole and our local library directors should have a good working relationship and I think the best way to accomplish that is open communication, transparency, and making sure that they have a chance to talk with me as chairman and share their concerns, ideas, or how things will impact them,” Wahl said.Dozens of directors attended the session and others participated remotely. When Wahl asked for a show of hands on reinstatement of the LSTA grants. the support appeared to be close to unanimous.Later, at the board meeting, Gadsden Public Library Director Craig Scott, who is president of the Alabama Library Association, urged to board to reinstate the grants.“Over 100 library directors are eagerly awaiting your reconsideration today,” Scott told the board. “LSTA funding is a vital resource that empowers libraries across Alabama to offer transformative programs, services, and resources for their communities.”Jessica Ross, director of the Washington County Public Library, said LSTA grants had helped fund a career readiness and small business development center and community college satellite campus.“Our library may be small and rural, but it is thriving and dynamic and serves as the anchor institution and community center for our county,” Ross said.APLS Director Nancy Pack urged the board to stick with its decision in September to use the federal funds to allocate services through a statewide plan, rather than the LSTA grants. Pack said that would better serve all libraries, including small ones that are unable to effectively compete for grants.Wahl supported the reinstatement of the grants after hearing the local directors’ concerns. The board voted for the reinstatement.“In the end, we agreed with them that the best policy was making sure that those libraries have the resources they need directly through a sub-grant program,” Wahl said.Earlier this year, the APLS Board approved a new legislative code to require libraries to move “inappropriate” material for children, mandate library cards specifically for minors, and make other changes.APLS Director Pack said about 132 of the roughly 210 public libraries have successfully updated their policies. She said 36 have not submitted their new policies and 42 have submitted new policies but still need to make revisions.During the public comment period, Melissa Gates of Mobile showed the board a book entitled “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health.” The illustrations include depictions of sexual intercourse, including gay and lesbian images. Gates said it was checked out from the Moorer/Spring Hill branch of the library and was on a shelf that a small child could reach.“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to have to explain that to my 4-year-old if he happened to just say, ‘Ooh, look at the colors on that book. I like it. I’m going to grab it. And I’m going to look through it,‘“ Gates said. ”This shouldn’t happen.”Gates said she asked to have the library to move the book but that it did not.“They said the book has been in the library 15 years and it’s been checked out numerous times,” Gates said.Rebecca Watson of Baldwin County showed the board the book “Parts & Hearts: A Kids (& Grown-Ups) Guide to Transgender Transition.” Watson said the book was in the juvenile section Fairhope Public Library for ages 3-12.Watson said her request to move the book from the juvenile section was denied by the library director because the book was classified as an educational and instructional book. She said the Fairhope Library Board upheld the director’s decision.Read more: Library war in Fairhope: Group calls for board chair’s resignationDistrict 3 APLS Board member Amy Minton said “Parts & Hearts,” should not be classified as educational and noted that the Alabama Legislature passed a bill prohibiting the use of hormones, puberty blockers, and surgeries as transgender therapies for minors.Watson, who is chair of the Baldwin County Chapter of Moms for Liberty, said she wanted to know whether the Fairhope Library was following the regulations on the placement of books.“This isn’t me personally trying to distort or manipulate anything,” Watson said. “I just want to make sure that all libraries are complying with the law. Whatever the law is, I want to make sure they’re complying. And our public library is not in compliance.”Amber Frey of Prattville, executive organization administrator for Read Freely Alabama, said “Parts & Hearts” is an important book for transgender children and their families.“There are transgender children out there, whether people like it or not,” Frey said. “They’re there. And to have a book that shows people like them and shows them how they can be themselves is so important because they are the biggest targets right now.”Read Freely Alabama’s mission is to defend libraries and librarians, Frey said.“We’re here to defend the freedom to read whatever you’d like,” Frey said. “The library is a place where everybody should be able to be seen. And it shouldn’t be a partisan, political issue because libraries are apolitical. Reed Freely Alabama is apolitical. And there are people across the political spectrum who are with Read Freely Alabama who agree that the government shouldn’t be involving themselves in what the public library offers its patrons.”As for the sex education book that Gates showed the board, “It’s Perfectly Normal,” Frey said it’s not a book that parents should hand their child to read but one that they would read with them.“I don’t think it should be placed with younger children’s books, no,” Frey said. “I think it’s appropriate in the juvenile section, which generally is higher shelves. If it’s on a low shelf, maybe consider moving it up. I don’t think that that would be a problem.“But the librarians know more about that than I do. I trust the librarians to shelf books more than I would trust myself or anybody challenging the books.”RECOMMENDED•al

Book Talk: A Town Built by Ski Bums

Arts & Culture, Books

A book talk and forum on A Town Built by Ski Bums, The Story of Carrabassett Valley will take place Dec. 6 at Carrabassett Valley Public Library. Submitted photo
CARRABASSETT VALLEY — A book talk and community share will be held Friday, Dec. 6, at 4 p.m. in the Begin Family Community Room of Carrabassett Valley Public Library.
The public is invited to come listen to a reading of A Town Built by Ski Bums, The Story of Carrabassett Valley by its author Virginia M. Wright. After that the forum is open to comments, questions, and stories. Hear stories from those who have experiences to share, historical information or just plan memories for all to enjoy.
Books are widely available online, at the Sugarloafer Shop, Shermans and other venues. Copies will also be available for purchase at the event as well, provided by Devaney, Doak & Garrett book store in Farmington. Total cost including tax $31.60. Cash or check only.
This event is free and open to the public for all ages.
For more information contact Andie DeBiase, library director at [email protected] or 207-237-3535.

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Seoul no longer a ‘passive actor’ between Washington and Beijing, but active player, argues report

Technology

The cover of the Seoul National University Institute for Future Strategy’s US-China relations task force report. 

In preparation for a second Trump administration, a team dedicated to researching US-China relations under Seoul National University’s Institute for Future Strategy (Director Kim Jun-ki) published its report, “Towards Co-Resilience: What the United States and South Korea Can Do Together in an Era of US-China Rivalry.”To prepare for a new US administration following the presidential election, the task force engaged in thorough debate and discussion with current and former bureaucrats, businesspeople, and experts who hail from both Seoul and Washington regarding China policy. The task force then drafted new perspectives and nine concrete measures for South Korea-US cooperation as they pertain to China policy. Sohn In-joo, a professor of political science and international relations at Seoul National University, acted as project manager for the task force. Sohn emphasized that the report was significant in that it preemptively offers a strategy and analyzes South Korea’s interests when it comes to the policies expected from the incoming Trump administration. Instead of passively responding to the Trump administration’s unpredictable policies, the report aims to help South Korea proactively influence the US policy discussion with South Korea’s interests in mind.

Sohn In-joo, professor of politics and international relations at SNU. 

Written in English, the report communicates to US policy elites that South Korea is no longer the subject of unilateral influence amid the US-China rivalry, emphasizing that South Korea now has the power and the responsibility to influence the trajectory and results of that rivalry. On Dec. 25, at 10 pm (9 am Eastern Time Zone), Seoul National University’s Institute for Future Strategy will host a webinar to announce the results of its report to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and facilitate a discussion of its content. The report presents the incoming US administration with a “co-resilience” strategy. It also contains nine concrete policy proposals, including bolstering the US-ROK “shipbuilding alliance” to enhance the strategic capabilities of war vessels and while reducing cost. It also proposes the establishment of a multilateral AI research institute (MARI). Additionally, it argues that the new US administration needs to resume denuclearization negotiations with North Korea while simultaneously conducting nuclear arms control talks with China and Russia. The report prioritizes the resumption of the US’ negotiations with North Korea alongside four-party talks that include South Korea and China. Since North Korea’s denuclearization is a complex issue that involves US-China competition and rivalry, the report argues that it provides ways for Washington and Beijing to cooperate on this matter. Under the principles of the peaceful use of nuclear technology and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the report proposes allowing South Korea to process spent nuclear fuel, which would reduce reliance on Russian nuclear fuel. It also proposes bolstering South Korea-US cooperation on the export of nuclear energy technology. The entire report is available on the Institute for Future Strategy website (https://ifs.snu.ac.kr/en/news/publication?mode=view&pubidx=43), where you can also apply to partake in the institute’s webinar with the CSIS. By Park Min-hee, senior staff writerPlease direct questions or comments to [[email protected]]

The Globe 100: The best books of 2024

Arts & Culture, Books

After months spent buried in books, The Globe and Mail’s editors, writers and critics present our annual guide to the best in fiction, non-fiction, thrillers, graphic novels, kid-lit and cookbooks.CANADIAN FICTION

A Way to Be Happy, Caroline Adderson (Biblioasis) One of Canada’s finest short-story writers considers what it means to find happiness. The characters veer from thieving addicts to a Russian hitman, and offer a multifaceted investigation into the influence of gender on perception, particularly in moments of fear and loneliness.BuyDeath by a Thousand Cuts, Shashi Bhat (McClelland & Stewart) Longlisted for the Giller Prize, this collection of short stories follows several women as they struggle to live in a world that’s constantly thwarting them.Buy

What I Know About You, Éric Chacour (Coach House) In this epic tale of forbidden love between two men in 1960s Cairo, a star-crossed doctor goes into exile in Montreal. The book was a bona fide sensation in Quebec and France, where it won several high-profile prizes, including France’s Prix des Libraires – making it the first Quebec novel to do so since Anne Hébert’s Kamouraska in 1971.BuyParade, Rachel Cusk (HarperCollins Canada) Cusk has always been fascinated by the relationship between art and life. Here, she explores the lives of half a dozen artists, all called G, most of whom are fictionalized versions of real creators.Buy

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, Heather Fawcett (Del Rey) The second instalment in the British Columbia author’s series is as rollicking as the first. The English dryadologist – which, in Fawcett’s alternate Europe, is a perfectly acceptable line of scholarship – finds mysterious faeries from other realms appearing at her university and must discover their secrets before it’s too late.BuyCuriosities, Anne Fleming (Knopf) A researcher stumbles on a series of 17th-century manuscripts with clashing accounts of events that took place in and around the lives of two girls, Joan and Thomasina, who first met as child survivors of the Plague that hit their English village. They later reunite as adult lovers, Thomasina having transformed into the cross-dressing Tom.Buy

This Summer Will Be Different, Carley Fortune (Viking) Canada now has a Queen of Summer Romance, and in her third book, the bestselling author moves from Ontario’s cottage country to the land of Anne of Green Gables. The love story between Lucy and Felix is certainly steamier than Anne and Gilbert’s, but their journey to discover whether they’re meant for each other is equally sweet and heartbreaking.BuyThe Pages of the Sea, Anne Hawk (Biblioasis) Hawk’s coming-of-age story follows a young girl who’s left with her sisters on an unnamed Caribbean island in the 1960s under the care of their aunts and cousins, after their mother sails to England in search of work as part of the so-called Windrush generation.Buy

Burn Man, Mark Anthony Jarman (Biblioasis) This country has a cornucopia of brilliant short-story writers, and Jarman is one of them. This anthology features 21 tales culled from more than four decades of exquisite writing that stretches both vocabulary and language.BuyPrairie Edge, Conor Kerr (McClelland & Stewart) This Giller shortlisted novel imagines two slightly adrift Métis twentysomethings – Isidore (Ezzy) Desjarlais and Grey Ginther – trying to claw back some purpose by releasing a herd of Elk Island National Park bison into Edmonton’s river valley.Buy

May Our Joy Endure, Kevin Lambert (Biblioasis) Lambert’s three books to date have won or been nominated for multiple major awards in Quebec, France and English Canada (the latter for the translation of Querelle de Roberval). His latest novel – a finalist for the Prix Goncourt – is a social satire about an architect who faces extreme blowback for her plans for a major Montreal public works project.BuyCamp Zero, Michelle Min Sterling (Knopf Canada) It’s 2049. Rising temperatures are driving people away from deadly conditions in the South, with the U.S. threatening Canadian sovereignty. Oil has been banned but is still traded on the black market. Is it dystopian literature if it’s so easy to imagine the same scenario playing out today?Buy

Code Noir, Canisia Lubrin (Knopf) The 59 illustrated fragments that make up the Griffin Prize-winning poet’s genre-bending first work of fiction are based on the 1685 decrees set out by Louis XIV, collectively known as the Code Noir, that governed the treatment of slaves in French colonies for almost 200 years.BuyThis Strange Eventful History, Claire Messud (W.W. Norton) Longlisted for both the Booker and the Giller prizes, Messud’s eighth novel is a multigenerational chronicle of an Algerian-French family (based on her own) set against the backdrop of the Second World War and Algerian Revolution.Buy

Hi, It’s Me, Fawn Parker (McClelland & Stewart) The incoming City of Fredericton poet laureate and finalist for the Atwood-Gibson Fiction Prize examines events immediately after the medically assisted death of her cancer-stricken mother.BuyThe Cure for Drowning, Loghan Paylor (Random House Canada) Longlisted for the Giller, this captivating historical-fiction debut follows Kit (born Kathleen) in 1930s Southern Ontario as she chafes against the rules governing her life. When Rebekah comes to town, Kit and her brother, Landon, are drawn into a love triangle that will tear them and their families apart, and send each of them off on a separate path to war.Buy

Batshit Seven, Sheung-King (Penguin Canada) A millennial living in Hong Kong confronts his apathy and anxiety as protests and brutal police crackdowns rock the city. The book, the winner for the Atwood-Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, has QR codes woven throughout that serve as a visual metaphor for the protagonist’s disaffection.BuySongs for the Brokenhearted, Ayelet Tsabari (HarperCollins Canada) In her debut novel, the Israeli-Canadian memoirist and short-story writer weaves a sweeping tale about Yemeni Jews from three perspectives: Zohara, a Yemeni woman who returns to Israel in 1995 after a death in the family; her nephew Yoni, who in his grief becomes a target for radicalization by the Israeli far right; and, in 1950, Yaqub, a Yemeni immigrant who falls in love with a married woman.Buy

In Winter I Get Up at Night, Jane Urquhart (McClelland & Stewart) Longlisted for the Giller, Urquhart’s first novel in nearly a decade is narrated by a woman reflecting back on her unusual life, one strongly affected by the time she spent in a children’s ward after being injured in an accident at the age of 11 and by a series of powerful male figures she met during her early-morning commutes to her job as a music teacher in rural Saskatchewan.BuyThe Leap Year Gene, Shelley Wood (HarperCollins Canada) Kit McKinley’s gestation period was unusually long, and when she’s finally born on Feb. 29, 1916, it becomes clear there’s something different about her aging process – it’s unusually slow. Journalists, doctors, pharma companies and Nazi scientists all want to study her unique DNA, forcing her family to be perpetually on the move. As an adult, Kit is forced to confront her genetic oddities and decide what is “normal.”Buy

Hair for Men, Michelle Winters (House of Anansi) Giller Award winner Michelle Winter’s sophomore effort is a distinctly third-wave feminist piece of Canadiana. The story is of Louise, a teenage punk who finds herself working at the most unconventional barbershop in suburban Toronto. With its Maritime-centric second act and Tragically Hip subplot, Winters’s book is a solid entry into the 21st-century Canadian literary canon.BuyDayspring, Anthony Oliveira (Strange Light) Oliviera’s massive debut defies description. One part experimental gay fiction, one part smut (don’t say we didn’t warn you), all gospel, Dayspring is the year’s most remarkable queer reimagining of the story of Christ – and you can quote us on that.BuyINTERNATIONAL FICTION

All Fours, Miranda July (Riverhead Books) In the filmmaker and performance artist’s second novel – a finalist for the National Book Award – a 45-year-old artist announces to her family that she’s embarking on a cross-country, L.A.-to-New York road trip, only to bed down in a nearby motel and immerse herself in an entirely different journey.BuyJames, Percival Everett (Knopf Doubleday) A retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the escaped slave, Jim, has been racking up nominations since it made its debut – including the National Book Award, which it won, and the Booker – and rightfully so. Everett is a master storyteller whose lush sentences reveal James’s inner life and keep readers on edge over the dangers facing a Black man on the run.Buy

Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner (Scribner) One of Kushner’s best books to date follows an American undercover operative – alias Sadie Smith – who must penetrate a radical farming co-operative in rural France. The novel brims with emotional intelligence, even if Sadie herself is devoid of emotion and unconcerned with the isolation, violence and danger that come with the job.BuyThe Safekeep, Yael van der Wouden (Simon & Schuster) This remarkable debut novel, set in post-Nazi-era Netherlands, was shortlisted for the Booker. The trauma of the war years is ever-present as Isabel meets her brother’s girlfriend, Eva. At first, Isabel seems cold – a closed woman obsessed with the safety of her house. What follows is a love story that opens not just Isabel, but our understanding of history and truth.Buy

Long Island, Colm Tóibín (McClelland and Stewart) This sequel to Tóibín’s most successful novel, Brooklyn, is set 20 years later, when Eilis Lacey, Brooklyn’s Irish-immigrant heroine, opts to raise a child born of her Italian-American plumber husband’s infidelity.BuyIntermezzo, Sally Rooney (Knopf) The Normal People phenom moves from love triangles to sibling strife, with a revamped, more clipped style, and a tale of two Irish brothers – one a chess champ losing his edge, the other a progressive lawyer – whose relationship strains after their father’s death from cancer.Buy

Playground, Richard Powers (Random House) Powers re-engages with the themes that have infused his fiction and helped win him a Pulitzer with The Overstory – art, memory, humanity’s interconnectedness with nature, technology and ethics. This complex, ocean-spanning novel is about two men – one wealthy and white, one poor and Black – who bonded in private school over their love of the game Go, but who fall out while designing an ambitious computer game called Playground.BuyHeadshot, Rita Bullwinkel (Viking) A stunning debut that was longlisted for the Booker features eight young female boxers at a tournament. Each tautly told chapter features a bout in Reno, Nev., with each face-off revealing what drives these girls to fight.Buy

Enlightenment, Sarah Perry (HarperCollins) The bestselling author of The Essex Serpent is back with a work about faith, hopeless love, science and English village life. Longlisted for the Booker, the book follows two unlikely friends – secretly gay Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay, the pastor’s daughter – over two decades.BuyClear, Carys Davies (Scribner) During the traumatic Scottish Clearances of the mid-19th century, a Presbyterian minister, newly unemployed, is dropped off on a remote island in the North Sea with instructions to expel its sole resident. Instead, the pair end up forming a deep connection after a near-fatal accident.Buy

Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar (Knopf Doubleday) The Iranian-American poet’s debut novel centres around Cyrus Shams, whose father brings him to the U.S. after his mother’s plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf. As an adult, he struggles with addiction, fixated on death and martyrdom. Akbar has created a fearless and beautifully written novel – there’s a reason it’s a finalist for the National Book Award – that tackles, well, everything.BuyThe God of the Woods, Liz Moore (Riverhead Books) This eerie thriller follows the disappearance of two siblings 14 years apart. In August, 1975, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the summer camp owned by her wealthy family, her brother having disappeared in uncannily similar circumstances. What follows is not only a fantastic mystery but also a fine exploration of class.Buy

Colored Television, Danzy Senna (Riverhead Books) In this satire about a middle-aged mixed-race couple – Lenny’s a painter, Jane’s a writer – the dialogue is tight, tart and swift, with delicious comic flicks. The struggling pair land a gig house-sitting for Brett, a wealthy TV writer. Soon, Jane wants Brett’s life – which can only be achieved by selling out.BuyMy Friends, Hisham Matar (Vintage Canada) Matar has been examining themes of exile and family for years, including in his 2016 Pulitzer-winning memoir, The Return, which chronicled his activist father’s disappearance in Libya. In this novel – a winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and a finalist for the National Book Award – he once again tackles the friendships formed between exiles, and the ways in which those bonds can be tested and frayed.Buy

The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley (Simon & Schuster) This inventive, slightly wacky debut novel – part thriller, part sci-fi, part romance – imagines a world where people about to perish from wars and other disasters are plucked from history and resettled in 21st-century London. A British civil servant is charged with working as a “bridge” to help Commander Graham Gore, an officer snatched from the Franklin expedition just before his crew dies, adjust to life.BuyGlorious Exploits, Ferdia Lennon (Henry Holt) “Let’s put on a show!” takes on a darkly funny meaning in this debut novel, set circa 400 BC, about two male friends – one a hard-core Euripides fan – who concoct the brilliant idea of staging Medea in a local quarry using defeated, starved Athenian prisoners as their cast. (According to Thucydides, it’s been done.) Outlandishly anachronistic Irish-inflected dialogue (the author is from Dublin) provides a deep comedic well.Buy

In Ascension, Martin MacInnis (Grove Atlantic) This sprawling work is a slow build. Dr. Leigh Hasenboch is a marine microbiologist who’s part of an expedition exploring an undersea vent in the Earth’s crust that’s three times deeper than the Mariana Trench and is somehow connected to several other phenomena occurring across the planet and even in space. This is a rich exploration of our world and how we’re connected.BuyPraiseworthy, Alexis Wright (New Directions Publishing) The small town of Praiseworthy, in Australia’s Northern Territory, is threatened by a haze cloud and ecological disaster. To help, Cause Man Steel goes on a trek to replace Qantas, the national air carrier, with the power of Australia’s five million feral donkeys. Wright, a Waanyi author, has produced an epic tale that tackles climate change and the struggle of Australia’s Indigenous population to stave off assimilation and achieve sovereignty.Buy

Entitlement, Rumaan Alam (Riverhead Books) An aging American billionaire wants to give away his fortune, and he hires Brooke Orr, a young Black former teacher, to help him do it. But when Brooke decides she wants in on the windfall, things go sideways in this compulsively readable tale of class, privilege, race and, yes, entitlement.BuyOrbital, Samantha Harvey (Grove Atlantic) This year’s Booker winner provides a deeply meditative look at big questions as it follows a day in the life of four astronauts from the U.S., Japan, Britain and Italy, plus two Russian cosmonauts, as the space station speeds around the Earth 16 times.Buy

The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami (Knopf Doubleday) Murakami’s first new novel in six years started life as a novella published in 1980 in a Japanese literary magazine. It’s “a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for these strange post-pandemic times.”BuyCANADIAN NON-FICTION

In Exile, Sadiya Ansari (House of Anansi Press) The award-winning journalist takes us across three continents and back a century as she seeks the truth behind a family secret. Why did her grandmother, Tahira, abandon her seven children to follow a man from Karachi to a tiny village in Punjab?BuyCrosses in the Sky, Mark Bourrie (Biblioasis) Like the author’s Charles Taylor Prize-winning predecessor, Bush Runner, this work focuses on the clash between European and Indigenous cultures in 17th-century colonial North America. This time, it’s the events leading to the violent ruin of Huronia, traditional home of the Huron-Wendat people, as they were experienced by the French Jesuit missionary and mystic Jean de Brébeuf, co-founder of Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons near present-day Midland, Ont.Buy

The Knowing, Tanya Talaga (HarperCollins Canada) The Seven Fallen Feathers author uses a personal lens to examine the still-raw history of colonialism’s impact on Indigenous people – namely, her search to find out how her maternal great-great-grandmother, Annie Carpenter, ended up buried in an unmarked grave on the grounds of a “lunatic asylum” by the side of Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway, thousands of kilometres from her home in Sioux Lookout, Ont.BuyWhat She Said, Elizabeth Renzetti (McClelland & Stewart) The award-winning journalist and former Globe and Mail columnist chronicled with humour and candour some of the most pressing issues facing women in Canada. Drawing from those columns and her own life, Renzetti shows that the fight for equality still has a long way to go.Buy

The Traitor’s Daughter, Roxana Spicer (Viking) The documentary filmmaker and CBC journalist gives an account of her decades-long effort to string together her mother’s past as a Red Army combat soldier, and as a prisoner in a Nazi POW camp before marrying Spicer’s father, a Canadian soldier.BuyShepherd’s Sight: A Farming Life, Barbara McLean (ECW) McLean became a sheep farmer in Ontario’s Grey County in the early 1970s. Fifty years later, she reflects on what it is to live a life tied to the rhythms of nature – a rhythm now increasingly drawing her, a woman in her 70s, into its inevitable end game.Buy

Here After, Amy Lin (Zibby Books) On a sweltering August morning, only a few months shy of the newlyweds’ move to Vancouver, Lin’s 32-year-old husband dies. This debut memoir, a Writers’ Trust finalist, is a visceral, keen exploration of young widowhood.BuyInvisible Prisons, Lisa Moore and Jack Whalen (Knopf) Moore was introduced to Whalen through a friend, who told her he had a story to tell. That story concerned the extreme physical and sexual abuse he and many other children suffered at the Whitbourne Training School for Boys in Newfoundland in the early 1970s. Whalen is now suing the government of Newfoundland and Labrador while battling cancer, and he wanted the world to bear witness.Buy

Everything and Nothing At All, Jenny Heijun Wills (Knopf) Her 2022 memoir won the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Award for Nonfiction. Heijun Wills is a finalist for the same award this year, for a work that combines memoir and cultural analysis in searing essays that rethink notions of kinship, community and family.BuyRogers v. Rogers, Alexandra Posadzki (McClelland & Stewart) Based on reporting originally done in The Globe and Mail, Posadzki’s book takes readers behind the scenes of the boardroom-cum-family drama that saw Rogers chair Edward Rogers pitted not just against his management team, but against his mother and two sisters over the telecom’s $20-billion acquisition of Shaw Communications.Buy

The War We Won Apart, Nahlah Ayed (Viking) Sonia Butt, an adventurous young British woman, and Guy d’Artois, a French-Canadian soldier, met during clandestine training to become agents with Winston Churchill’s secret army, the Special Operations Executive. They married, carried out dangerous assignments, and then went on to live in Canada and become parents to six children.BuyMontreal Standard Time, Mavis Gallant (Véhicule) For six years, starting in 1944, before she moved to Paris to fulfill her destiny as one of the greatest short-story writers in the English language, Gallant was the most widely read columnist at the Montreal Standard newspaper. Eight decades after they first saw the light of day, her columns remain as fresh as ever.Buy

Sing Like Fish, Amorina Kingdon (Crown) Fish, apparently, don’t just sing; they chorus like birds (though as one marine biologist informs the author, the simile should be inverted, since fish preceded birds by millions of years, evolutionarily speaking). In this account, the Victoria-based science writer shows how technology is revealing such underwater acoustical marvels and how we humans are blithely drowning it all out.BuyThe Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards, Jessica Waite (Simon & Schuster) This debut memoir is difficult and riveting. What happens if the person you loved turns out not to be who you thought he was? After her husband dies unexpectedly, Waite finds out that he had affairs, a pornography addiction and a drug habit, and she has to reconcile all this while being a single parent to their child.Buy

Our Crumbling Foundation, Gregor Craigie (Random House Canada) To figure out whether this country can fix our housing crisis, the CBC journalist examined what’s happening in several other countries. This illuminating investigation is a finalist for the Balsillie Prize for Public Policy.BuyAn Open-Ended Run, Layne Coleman (University of Regina Press) Coleman was raised in the west before leaving for Ontario to embrace the theatre as an actor and director. There, he met the love of his life, who tragically died too early from cancer. This is a beautifully written memoir about love, loss and life in Canadian theatre.Buy

Sir John A. Macdonald and the Apocalyptic Year 1885, Patrice Dutil (Sutherland House Books) This splendid biography by one of Canada’s most respected political scientists shows how Macdonald navigated persistent threats to public order, anchored the stability of his government and ensured the future of this still fragile nation.BuyThe Impossible Man, Patchen Barss (Basic Books) While not quite a household name like his one-time collaborator Stephen Hawking, the mathematical physicist and Nobel Prize winner Roger Penrose is arguably more deserving of the term “genius.” Now 93, Penrose’s wide-ranging intellect has left its mark on multiple fields, from cosmology to consciousness. In this deeply researched and engagingly written biography, science journalist Barss expertly unpacks both the mind and the man.BuyINTERNATIONAL NON-FICTION

Cue the Sun!, Emily Nussbaum (Random House) The Pulitzer-winning New Yorker writer has produced a deeply reported account of the rise of the “dirty documentary” – from its contentious roots in radio to the ascent of Donald Trump.BuyKnife, Salman Rushdie (Knopf) It’s unlikely Rushdie anticipated writing another memoir after his meaty Joseph Anton of 2013, but then, as the title lays out, the thinkable happened: In 2022, he was stabbed while on stage. This account of the aftermath of the assassination attempt has been nominated for the Baillie Gifford Prize and the National Book Award.Buy

The Wide Wide Sea, Hampton Sides (Doubleday) Captain James Cook has been dubbed “the Columbus of the Pacific,” despite the fact that he was not, like the latter, a conqueror or colonizer. Sides, an American historian, lays out the map maker’s complex legacy through the prism of his wildest, and final, journey, which began in 1776 and took him to Tasmania, Tahiti, Alaska and points in between.BuyThe Light Eaters, Zoë Schlanger (HarperCollins) The Montreal- and Brooklyn-based staff writer at The Atlantic offers uncanny examples of plant intelligence, while exploring the possible ramifications for humans – and plants themselves.Buy

Patriot, Alexei Navalny (Knopf Doubleday) Navalny began writing Patriot shortly after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020. Witty, wry and bittersweet (we now know that he was close to possibly being released), the memoir includes never-before-seen correspondence from prison recounting his political career, his marriage and the many attempts to kill him.BuyTraveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell, Ann Powers (Dey Street Books) The NPR music critic interviewed Mitchell’s peers and takes readers to rural Canada as she charts the course of the celebrated songwriter’s evolution.Buy

The Garden Against Time, Olivia Laing (W.W. Norton) The author of The Lonely City uses the beguilingly unkempt garden of a house she bought in Suffolk, England, during the pandemic as the starting point for a rumination on, among other topics, how utopian ideals and class inequality have intersected historically with the seemingly innocuous practice of gardening.BuyUndue Burden, Shefali Luthra (Knopf Doubleday) This examination into post-Roe America is rigorously researched, deeply compelling and heart-wrenching. Through months talking to experts, patients, doctors and others, Luthra shines a light on the consequences of restricting reproductive rights.Buy

On Freedom, Timothy Snyder (Crown) In a bookend to his 2017 On Tyranny, the Yale historian (who wrote much of it while in Ukraine, where freedom is far from an abstract concept) attempts to define the term, and in doing so suggests that Americans reframe freedom from a negative (freedom from) to a positive (freedom to).BuyFi, Alexandra Fuller (Grove) Fuller’s four previous memoirs, which detailed her African upbringing, contained a fair share of personal tragedy, but nothing like this fifth one, about the sudden death, in his sleep, of her 21-year-old son, Fi.Buy

Raising Hare, Chloe Dalton (Canongate) After she discovers a tiny, barely alive leveret (the very satisfying word for a baby hare) and decides to raise it to release into the wild, Dalton reassess her priorities, including her addiction to her travel-filled, adrenalin-fuelled job as a foreign-policy expert.BuyThe Notebook, Roland Allen (Biblioasis) The British publisher’s ode to notebooks is a delight for all those who love paper. For those who don’t, it’s still a worthy and enlightening read, since, as Allen explains, the notebook is a technology that has had “tangible effects on the world around us.”Buy

Still as Bright, Christopher Cokinos (Pegasus) Ever present but never ordinary, the moon is both “an archive of human feeling and material truths,” observes Cokinos, a poet and writer of natural history whose interests tend skyward. Here, the author explores our long regard for Earth’s alluring companion, ranging from prehistoric evidence of the moon being used as a calendar, to the contemporary pursuit of elusive “transient lunar phenomena.”BuyThe Showman, Simon Shuster (HarperCollins Canada) Shuster, a Time Magazine correspondent, first met Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019, during the former actor’s run for president of Ukraine, and followed his administration through its early years. He was ideally placed to chronicle Zelensky’s astonishing against-all-odds defiance of Russia’s brutal invasion. This intimate inside-the-bunker portrayal of the first year of the war adds important context and shows how Zelensky bought critical time for his nation in the face of an uncertain future.Buy

What the Wild Sea Can Be, Helen Scales (Grove Atlantic) The British marine biologist and author of The Brilliant Abyss looks at what can be done to restore the fragile ocean (she uses the singular form of the word) back to health.BuyEvery Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life, Jason Roberts (Random House) A century before Darwin, the quest to document the scope and diversity of nature was conducted by two rivals whose contrasting views echo through to the present day. While the Swedish physician and biologist Carl Linnaeus is better known for his system of classifying species – and the hierarchical viewpoint that came with it – Roberts suggests that his French counterpart, Georges-Louis de Buffon, came nearer to understanding life’s inherent dynamism and capacity for change.BuyMYSTERY

Blood Rubies, Mailan Doquang (W.W. Norton) One of the best thrillers of this or any year has Rune Sarasin, a Thai jewel thief, spinning out of control when she loses a batch of stolen rubies from what was supposed to be a routine heist. She then engages an even nastier thief in a chase through Bangkok.BuyThe Hunter, Tana French (Penguin Books) The Independent called her the First Lady of Irish Crime Fiction, and this sequel to The Searcher is one of the best of the decade. It takes us back to the hamlet of Ardnakelty, Ireland, where retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper lives in what he hopes will be peace and quiet – until his foster daughter’s feckless father enters the picture with an English millionaire in tow.Buy

The Sequel, Jean Hanff Korelitz (Celadon Books) Sequels are always hard to pull off, but in this case, Korelitz succeeds with, well, a perfect sequel to The Plot. And she does it by focusing on the wife, Anna, who takes over her late husband’s career and success, until the past returns to derail her new life.BuyDeath at the Sign of the Rook, Kate Atkinson (Bond Street Books) Jackson Brodie needs no introduction to crime fans. If Atkinson’s ex-detective is new to you, get ready for a superb crime novel by one of the best authors in the business. Brodie is called to a sleepy Yorkshire town over the tedious matter of a stolen painting. But soon, a string of unsolved art thefts leads him to Burton Makepeace, a formerly magnificent estate now partially converted to a hotel that hosts murder-mystery weekends.Buy

House of Glass, Sarah Pekkanen (St. Martin’s Publishing Group) An intriguing tale of psychological suspense with a pair of terrific central characters and a really unique premise: Can a child commit murder?BuyOnly One Survives, Hannah Mary McKinnon (Mira Books) Drummer Vienna Taylor, along with her best friend, guitarist Madison Pierce, and their female pop-rock band are off to a gig when they get stranded and have to take shelter in an abandoned cabin. McKinnon has created a great riff on the locked-room mystery, with reflections on fame and the price we pay for ambition.Buy

Guide Me Home, Attica Locke (Little, Brown and Co.) The finale to the superb Highway 59 series, one of crime fiction’s best ever. Texas Ranger Darren Mathews is retired but comes back for the case of a dead sorority girl, the only Black member of the group. This one has everything: great characters, great plot and a wonderful setting.BuyThe Grey Wolf, Louise Penny (St. Martin’s Publishing Group) Considering this is the 19th book in the Inspector Gamache series, you’d think Penny would be losing steam. Instead, she gives us her most ambitious novel yet, built around a complex, world-threatening plot and thrilling chases right down to a cliffhanger ending.Buy

One Perfect Couple, Ruth Ware (Simon & Schuster) The British mistress of malice domestique takes on the reality TV industry and then swerves into survival on an isolated island. As bodies drop, the suspense grows. Will our protagonist outwit a killer or starve waiting for help?BuyThe Return of Ellie Black, Emiko Jean (Simon & Schuster) The suspense starts with a child running through the woods: Ellie Black, who has missing for two years, and is unable or unwilling to say where she’s been or who snatched her. Buckle up for terrific psychological suspense and one heckuva plot twist.BuyKIDS

Wildful, Kengo Kurimoto (Groundwood Books) Gran’s death has overwhelmed Poppy’s mother so Poppy spends her time exploring her neighbourhood with her dog, Pepper. When Pepper leads her through a hole in a fence, she discovers a forgotten forest and a new friend, who teaches Poppy how to look at this hidden paradise. As she becomes engrossed by everything she’s seeing, she knows sharing this wild space with her mother might help her cope with Gran’s death. A breathtaking meditation on the healing power of nature and wild spaces.BuyThe Runaway, Nancy Vo (Groundwood Books) The final book in Vo’s stunning Crow Stories trilogy is a haunting tale of a young boy’s resilience in the face of incredible loss and grief. After Jack’s mother dies of cholera, he strikes out on his own. He’s resourceful and confident, and he has faith that things will be all right. Vo’s watercolour-and-ink illustrations and acetone transfers of 19th-century posters and newspaper clippings brilliantly evoke the Old West. And Vo has plenty of tricks up her sleeve as she brings this amazing series to a close.Buy

SOS Water, Yayo (Tradewind Books, distributed by Orca Books) When a sailor disembarks from his ship and meets a talking goldfish whose bowl has been left on a teetering pile of trash, he’s determined to find her a new home in nice, clean water. Imagine his surprise when all he can find are plastic bottles clogging up the rivers, lakes and even the ocean. SOS Water is an imaginative, inventive and provocative picture book that not only tells an engaging story with simple but thoughtfully poetic text and playfully humorous illustrations, but also addresses the climate crisis in a way that’s accessible to children of all ages.BuyLet’s Go, Julie Flett (Greystone Books) This Cree-Métis author, illustrator and artist beautifully captures the excitement of learning to skateboard and, even more powerfully, the way skateboarding has become an important part of Flett’s family and community. Every day, a Cree boy is transfixed as he watches older skateboarders near his house and in a local park. When his mother offers him her old board, he can hardly contain his delight – but it’s harder than it looks. Through Flett’s lyrical text and brilliant collage illustrations, young readers will discover that perseverance pays off.Buy

Noodles on a Bicycle, Kyo Maclear, illustrated by Gracey Zhang (Tundra Books/Penguin Random House) This vibrant picture book follows bicycle food deliverers, or demae, in mid-20th-century Tokyo, with lyrically evocative rhythmic text and delightfully busy and buoyant illustrations by Zhang. A group of neighbourhood children watch how acrobatic artists masterfully balance towering trays of steaming hot noodles on their shoulders through Tokyo’s crowded streets. Inspired by what they see, the children try their hand at being demae, trying to balance wobbly bowls of water on trays.BuyYOUNG ADULT

Age 16, Rosena Fung (Annick Press) This brilliant exploration of intergenerational trauma, body image and the struggle to find out who you are is based on Fung’s own family history, focusing on three generations of women and what their lives looked like at the age of 16. Moving seamlessly from Guangdong in 1954 to Hong Kong in 1972 to Toronto in 2000, readers follow the interconnected stories of Roz, her mother and grandmother, each facing enormous, though very different, challenges.BuyLittle Moons, Jen Storm, illustrated by Ryan Howe and Alice RL (Highwater Press) It’s been a year since 13-year-old Reanna’s older sister Chelsea went missing on her way home from school, and her family is consumed with grief. Her mother has left the reserve, unable to cope with Chelsea’s disappearance, leaving Reanna and her little brother behind. This powerful and sensitive graphic novel movingly explores the way that culture, heritage and traditions can help to heal the pain of loss.Buy

Who We Are in Real Life, Victoria Koops (Groundwood Books) Moving to a small prairie town with her two moms has thrown Darcy completely off balance. It’s not just leaving her old life (including her emotionally manipulative boyfriend) behind, but the unexpected homophobic challenges her family faces. Then she meets Art, a Dungeons and Dragons aficiando who helps her find a community that challenges Unity Creek’s ultraconservative values.BuyCOOKBOOKS

Matty Matheson: Soups, Salads, Sandwiches, Matty Matheson (Ten Speed/Penguin Random House) The celebrity chef, restaurateur and executive producer and actor on The Bear brings everyone’s favourite soups, salads and sandwiches to the table, in maximum Matty style.BuyChuck’s Home Cooking, Chuck Hughes (Penguin Canada) The Montreal restaurateur and celebrity chef shares the go-to dishes he cooks for his own family, from simple weeknight dinners to more elaborate dishes for special occasions.Buy

Babette’s Bread, Babette Frances Kourelos (Touchwood) Master bread baker Kourelos has trained around the world, and she shares her stories and techniques in her first cookbook – a beautiful, accessible and comprehensive guide to mastering the art of bread.BuyI Love You, Pamela Anderson (Harper Collins) What started as a housewarming gift for Anderson’s sons has turned into the pop-culture icon’s first cookbook, full of comforting plant-based recipes and images from Anderson’s home in Ladysmith, on the east coast of Vancouver Island.Buy

Good Food, Healthy Planet, Puneeta Chhitwal-Varma (Touchwood) The writer, food advocate and climate activist focuses on feeding yourself and your family well, while considering the environmental impact of what you eat and how you prepare it. It’s modern-day comfort when you want to nourish yourself – and the planet.Buy

Five Tips To Maximize Profits On Small Business Saturday And Beyond

Business News

Consumer spending on the winter holidays is expected to reach a record $902 per person on average across gifts, food, decorations and other seasonal items, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF)’s latest consumer survey. The amount is about $25 per person more than last year’s figure and $16 higher than the previous record set in 2019. The NRF anticipates total holiday retail sales (November–December) will grow by 2.5–3.5%, reaching between $979.5 billion and $989 billion. That’s up from $955.6 billion in 2023.

Big-box retailers traditionally kick off the holiday shopping season with “price buster” promotions on “Black Friday” (the day after Thanksgiving) that lure bargain hunters to their stores. Typically, they succeeded. As eCommerce gained in popularity, online retail giants reaped rewards from Cyber Monday, another key date for the holiday season. Online shopping remains a significant driver of retail sales, with expectations of up to $297.9 billion in e-commerce sales during the 2024 holiday shopping season.

Meanwhile, small businesses struggled to compete during this critical sales period. Recognizing this gap and the vital role small businesses play in the economy, American Express launched Small Business Saturday, which encourages consumers to “shop small” and support their local merchants. The genesis of Small Business Saturday came in 2010 as a response to the negative effects the “Great Recession” had on small retail businesses.

Small Business Saturday will be November 29, 2024.getty
Born out of economic necessity and fueled by a desire to bolster local commerce, the effort is more than just a shopping holiday; it’s a movement that celebrates local entrepreneurs and the vibrancy they bring to communities across America.

The annual initiative has had a powerful impact on small businesses, local economies, and the way consumers think about shopping. American Express’s 2023 Saturday Consumer Insights Survey, found that the total spending of U.S. consumers who shopped at independent retailers and restaurants on Small Business Saturday last year reached an estimated $17 billion.

This year, Small Business Saturday falls on Nov. 30 and will promote local businesses that make tremendous impacts on our nation’s economy. Small Business Saturday’s success is due to grassroots promotion, the resilience of small businesses, and the willingness of consumers to support their communities.

The impact of small business on the U.S. economy
Small businesses accounting for about 44% of the nation’s GDP and creating two-thirds of the country’s new jobs. For many entrepreneurs, Small Business Saturday represents an opportunity to attract customers, generate sales, and build relationships. The impact of this shopping holiday goes beyond a single day of sales; it’s about cultivating customer loyalty and encouraging year-round support.
Every dollar spent at a small business stays in the local economy and can contribute to other nearby businesses through the “multiplier effect.” The American Independent Business Alliance reports that for every $100 spent at a local business, approximately $45 remains in the community, compared to $14 from national chains. This local reinvestment drives economic growth, funds essential public services, and sustains community development.
Tips to Take Advantage of Small Business Saturday
1. Prepare a Marketing Plan: Use social media, newsletters, and flyers to inform your community of any promotions, events, or specials. Share your story, spotlight products, and interact with customers using hashtags like #ShopSmall, #ShopLocal, and #SmallBusinessSaturday.
2. Offer Promotions or Bundles: Offer discounts, special bundles, or buy-one-get-one offers to encourage sales in order to create a sense of urgency for consumers to make purchases on Small Business Saturday.
3. Collaborate with Other Businesses: Partner with nearby businesses to host an event or create a special promotion that benefits multiple stores. For instance, a retailer could attract customers with Small Business Saturday promotions that encourage shoppers to show their receipts at a nearby restaurant for a special discount on their meals.
4. Enhance The Purchasing Customer Experience: Provide free gift wrapping and offer samples, or small giveaways. These little niceties can leave a lasting impression and spur repeat visits throughout the year.
5. Follow Up with Customers After Small Business Saturday: Capture emails or social media followers during Small Business Saturday and continue engaging with them through exclusive offers and updates throughout the year.
The Small Business Saturday campaign is important not only for the holiday season, but also for continued patronage throughout the year. Supporting small businesses creates local jobs and strengthens communities. This annual effort builds relationships during the holiday season and can extend into the future.
When customers “shop small,” they’re investing in their neighbors, their communities, and a more sustainable economy. Small Business Saturday reminds us all that where we spend our dollars makes a difference. Supporting local businesses keeps unique products, exceptional services, and vibrant community traditions alive. Every transaction, no matter how small, can have a big impact in bolstering the financial health of small businesses nationwide.