Customer Reviews

The Hemingway Tradition (Orca Soundings)

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Part of a series of "hi/lo" books for teen readers, THE HEMINGWAY TRADITION is short, intense and packed with incident. Sixteen-year-old Shaw moves to Winnipeg after the suicide of his writer father. Although Shaw's father killed himself as a result of depression and despair over his own homosexuality, Shaw reads this as his father's ultimate rejection. Shaw's own love of writing is tainted as a result. At the new school a friendship with a Pakistani student, a conflict defending his friend from violent bigots, a new romance and a chance to use his writing talents to draw attention to injustice, all drive Shaw's journey to emotional recovery and acceptance.

A decent read, decently written, but so slim and "easy" it's hard to recommend it even to younger teens: The subject matter, honestly handled, is really more to the taste of older readers (say grades 8-10). For those teens, however, who are reading at an elementary school level, and who find even a short story rather daunting, this is just the ticket, and would make an excellent (and entertaining) building block with which to develop their reading skills.

One of my teen reviewers (Gr 8) concurs: "I think this book is for someone who can't read that well-it was short and easy. The Hemingway Tradition was interesting though. The way Shaw found out how to live after his dad committed suicide was cool."