The occupied garden

I first stumbled across Kristen den Hartog's fiction as a short story in Canadian Living magazine. I was skimming the magazine while waiting in a doctor's office and was intrigued to see a name I recognized - the den Hartog girls were in school with me and my siblings many years ago.

A few years after reading the short story, I saw one of Kristen's novels at the library and had to see what it was like. I first read her work because I once knew the author. Now I read her work because I enjoy her writing. I'm pleased to see that she's been getting noticed in literary circles.

The occupied garden is a departure from her usual fiction because it's not fiction and it's not written by her alone. The garden is co-written by Kristen's sister, Tracy, and is a beautiful account of their grandparents' and father's lives in Holland around the time of the German occupation.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this book is the parallel drawn between the events and circumstances of the den Hartog household and the events and circumstances of the Dutch royal family at the same time. Getting married and having children at the same time heightens a feeling of connectedness between the two families despite the fact that their lives should be considered a world apart. I also appreciated the view of ordinary people surviving extraordinary times. We're not looking at master spies or war heroes here, but ordinary people at a time when daily life required daily acts of heroism and despair didn't always stay around the corner.

The research was thorough enough to provide insight into several different people's points of view which made this account much more interesting than the narrow view one usually gets when reading biography. It's hard enough to recover personal papers and anecdotes to document a famous person's life, but the authors here had access to letters, journals, and pictures from several of the families in the story, as well as personal interviews with surviving family members and friends, and all for the story of a middle class family. It's a welcome addition to the large collection of World War II stories and you don't have to be a WWII fan to enjoy it.

The occupied garden : recovering the story of a family in the war-torn Netherlands by Tracy Kasaboski and Kristen den Hartog. Published in 2008 by McClelland & Stewart. ISBN: 978-0-7710-2622-5.

Elijah of Buxton

Buxton, Ontario was founded by Rev. William King who bought land to provide homes for escaped and newly freed slaves. Elijah of Buxton is a fictionalized account of the first child born free in Buxton. Elijah himself is a kindred spirit to Tom Sawyer. He gets involved in all sorts of escapades involving family, friends, and community members - practical jokes, fishing, money-making schemes, even kidnapping and daring rescues.

Author Christopher Paul Curtis, has received multiple awards through his writing career including Newbery Honor and Medal, Coretta Scott King Honor and Medal, the Golden Kite award, and, most recently, the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award for Elijah of Buxton. It was the TD announcement that prompted me to read this book and I'm very glad I did.

Eleven-year-old Elijah does a fair bit of growing and learning through the course of this story but this is not a heavy coming-of-age story. There are a lot of laughs but it isn't just a comedy either. Neither is is a history book although I learned some history by reading it. Elijah of Buxton is a brilliantly-told view of the world through the eyes of a boy - sometimes brave, sometimes "fra-gile," sometimes wise, sometimes dangerously naive, but always interesting. It's written and published for children but I would recommend it to any adult as well.

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis. Published in 2007 by Scholastic. ISBN: 987-0-439-93647-7.