Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 18

B6 Books THE EDMONTON JOURNAL, Saturday. June 25, 1988 EDITOR: James Adams, 429-5358 Runaways enduring theme in children's books i i -A i. hc.tv.i4m I By GLEN HUSER Runaways have abounded in children's literature for as long as there have been family stories. With the movement of James Barrie's Peter Pan, that most famous tale of runaways, from its copyright hold into the public domain, we can expect to be reminded of this particular tradition at our every turn. Already, there are three volumes of the Barrie story gracing the shelves of local shops, and we can expect to find Maurice Sendak's version surfacing soon.

Michael Hague's illustrations, in a lavish Holt edition (158 pages. have an Edwardian flavor to them that seems perfect for the noveL Hague is a stickler for detail and his pages are filled with the flora, fauna and fishes of Neverland. Peter himself is a wild-haired youth garbed in clinging bits of leaves and moss while Tinkerbell looks like she might well have stepped off the stage of an English music hall. The multiplicity of the illustrations there is one for about every four pages of text allow readers to follow the series of pictures almost as you would a movie. Illustrator Jan Ormerod, in the Viking Kestrel edition (206 pages, offers a mix of black ink sketches and watercolors flanked with borders and panels.

Both Ormerod. with her sinuous silhouettes, and Hague, with his mix of realism and art-nouveau lines, seem to be acknowledging a debt to the turn-of-the-century artist Arthur Rackham who, in fact, created designs for an earlier packaging of the novel, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Montreal artist Susan Hudson, in The Eternal Peter Pan (Tundra Books, has culled parts of the bock that have sometimes made Pan readers a bit nervous. Still, they do show an intriguing side to Barrie, his obsession with death, the denial valley of ancient China which few ever manage to leave. But it is here that Kung meets the revered and magical Panda, a guardian of the Celestial Empire, ho gives him words of wisdom and a magic ring to help him on his way.

Even youngsters who have not had a chance to view the visiting pandas in Calgary will savor Kung's acquaintanceship with the great beast and his dangerous encounters with dragons and wily wizards. Day, a British Columbian, has a good sense of how to construct this kind of romantic folktale, balancing the pace of the adventure with touches that are lyrical and comic. Soft, pencilled illustrations by Enc Beddow the artist of the Zoom books, are just the right finishing touch. Midway through Kevin Major's Dear Bruce Springsteen (Delacorte, 135 pp.t $14.95, for ages 12 and up). 14-year-old Terry Blanchard takes off, without telling anyone, to visit his father who seems to be dropping more and more out of sight since he moved out on Terry's mom.

Major has constructed the story entirely through letters written by Terry to his singing idol. In this way the book is quite similar to Beverly Geary's Dear Mr. Henshaw which also explores the break-up of a family through the letters of a boy to someone tie has never met. The advantage of the letter format, of course, is its immediacy and Major capitalizes on this, making the reader feel he is right in on Terry's decisions to take up guitar-playing against his mother's wishes, to find out what's happening in his father's life, to phone a girl from school who just might be interested in him. As a character, Terry is a laid-back rock-music lover with lazy grammar but a good deal of human warmth.

Teenagers who have trouble cracking a book might get hooked on this one. of maturity, the strange contours of his mind. (Not for nothing have some critics described Peter Pan as "the Hamlet of children's Hudson has created a series of etchings using contemporary figures and motifs to elaborate this whimsical, sometimes dark aspect The etchings are predominantly faces, with plants and animals and the bric-a-brac of rooms superimposed. Their appeal will be to an adult audience willing to put up with Barrie's philosophisizing unshored by narrative. The runaw ays in And I'm Never Coming Back (Annick Press, by Edmonton writer Jacqueline Dumas, are a little girl and her mother.

hen Louise tells her tale of woe about how she is being ignored by Daddy and an older sister, Mom decides her day hasn't been too great either and the two of thempack their bags and head out for some respite. A few towns down the line, the two find a motel (after a quick getaway from a rather disreputable establishment) where everything is in wonderful shades of blue and Mom can read and Louise can color in peace. Dumas' story is warm and satisfying and bound to appeal to the preschoolers and children in their first years of school who have felt just exactly like Louise. Iris Paabo, in her illustrations, has been particularly effective in capturing the various moods of Louise. Young children are apt to be a bit perplexed, though, by the interjection of a motorcyclist who isn't identified in the concluding illustration.

Is it supposed to be Dad? In David Dav's The Emperor's Panda (McClelland Stewart, 111 $14.95, for eight- to 10-year-olds), an orphan leaves home to find an uncle who has fallen into the hands of three wicked enchanters. The boy's journey takes him into an enchanted The pirate ship in Tundra Books' The Eternal Peter Pan Susan Hudson illustrations of darker side of Barrie writings may appeal more to adults Saga plods instead of sweeps 1 North of the Battle, Summers 2. God's Bedfellows. Carpenter 3. Spycatcher, Wright 4.

The Power of Myth, Campbell 5. Century of the Wind, Gaieano 6. Love in the Time of Cholera, Marquez 7. Old Possum's Book, Eliot 8. The Songlines.

Chatwin 9. A Brief History of Time, Hawking 10. Tottering in my Garden, Keeble The soap-operatic but potentially interesting story line is dragged down, too, by shallow characterization and a truly incredible assortment of cliches and cheap literary devices: "The economy tightened like a vi.se". "Yarrow thought he looked as strong as an ox." "She felt her heart had broken in two." And when we lose track of what year it is, Elliot's wife Blanchette helpfully announces, "It's April, darling, 1950." The book has its share of the bosom-heaving soft-core sex scenes typical of this genre plunged into her and swooped her away into the sky. He was here, he was hers.

This was what heaven However, Yarrow's main obsession isn't romance, but "Love of The train wheels seem to repeat this phrase endlessly to her like a mantra on a trip back to Colorado from Washington. Seriously. In the hands of a more skilful writer, this big, sprawling story of journalistic ambition and political intrigue might have galloped along with a certain epic splendor. But burdened with the author's tedious blow-by-blow style, it merely lumbers. in his footsteps by making newspaper journalism her life.

Yarrow has her problems. Though she tries hard to combine family life with her budding career as editor of the Platte City Journal, "the best-laid plans were so easily veered away from," she laments. There is the obligatory obsessive love relationship with politician Elliot Weyden, a similarly driven character who is nevertheless "as steady as a ruled line on a (I'm sorry, but this is as good as Murdoch's metaphors get.) This Scarlett-Ashley relationship agonizes its way through nearly 600 pages, during hich time, as if to ensure their mutual unhappiness, each marries the rong person. Murdoch covers quite a lot of ground here, taking us from the wilds of Colorado to New York and London as Yarrow's publishing empire grows. But since her prose is so wooden, all her locations seem equally lifeless.

And through Business covers a 100-year time span, the atmosphere for Murdoch's 1888 has little to distinguish it from 1988. Family Business By Anna Murdoch, Macmillan, 592 $27.95 By MARGARET GUNNING "Every journalist has a novel in him." Russell Lynes once said, "which is an excellent place for it." Family Business is one that got away. In this book journalist Anna Murdoch wife of billionaire press magnate Rupert took it upon herself to wne a sweeping saga of a fictional newspaper family in Colorado, spanning four generations. With Murdoch's newspaper background, there is no doubt she knows what she is writing about. And the novel would have worked if only she knew how to write.

At the centre of this journalistic bodice-ripper is our heroine Yarrow McLean, granddaughter of patriarch Jock who founded the family's first newspaper, the Galena Humdinger. Grampa is full of Waltonesque wisdom mountains. Grandfather said, like a mistress, beautiful but and shrewd business advice for Yarrow, who follows A Anna Murdoch cliches tedious James Adams fcl II llll 111 Again and again, Murdoch breaks the first rule of fiction writing: she doesn't show us; she merely tells us. In fact, the entire book reads like a plot outline, with none of its scenes really springing to life. Margaret Gunning is a former Alberta freelance writer and broadcaster now living in B.

C. Simmie no one-book author Latest Cussler definite Treasure c-d nate the beautiful Egyptian Secretary General of the United Nations, depose the head of the Egyptian state and replace him with a religious fanatic, topple the Mexican president and organize an invasion of the United States thereby regaining the glory of the Aztecs all have their part to plav. Abbreviated in this fashion, Treasure sounds fantastic and ridiculously contrived. But given Cussler's undeniable gifts as a storyteller, it's a spellbinder. Treasure is a treasure any reader will find hard to put down.

Iris Winston is publicity director of Saskatoon's Persephone Theatre Great Library and Museum of Alexandria. The Roman Emperor Theodo-sius had ordered the library destroyed in 319 A.D. There is a possibility that many of the ancient relics and manuscripts were spirited away by scholars determined to save their heritage. This much is fact. In Treasure, hero Dirk Pitt a man as magnetic and capable as any James Bond and then some determines to find that ancient treasure following an odd discovery at an excavation site in Greenland.

This would be enough plot for many a novel. However, it is only a small section of the complex tale that Cussler weaves. International political intrigue and various plots to assassi Treasure By Clive Cussler, Simon Schuster, 539 $24.95 By IRIS WINSTON Ancient history, international politics, plots to unseat nation heads, Aztec reincarnations, futuristic scientific study and a madcap hero to beat all heroes. This is what Clive Cussler's Treasure has to offer. In this intricately plotted, highly readable and rich novel, Cussler (Raise the Cyclops) makes the unbelievable plausible and highly entertaining.

The treasure of the title is the Give Cussler makes unbelievable plausible Collection offers top Quebecois SF writings First novels usually have a pronounced streak of autobiography and liOis Simmie's was no exception. Entitled They Shouldn't Make You Promise That (NAL-1981 Fifth House-1987). the novel, set in the mid-1970s, was the witty, occasionally painful story of a middle-aged Saskatoon housewife and mother of three grown children whose marriage was on the skids. Simmie, herself a Saskatoon-based mother of four, went through a similar experience more than a decade ago, eventually divorcing her husband of many years at age 44. OF COURSE, another truism about first novels is that quite often their authors have nothing more to say after they're written.

Look at the case of Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man), or Henry Roth (Call It Sleep) we're still waiting for their second novels and we've been waiting more than 30 years. Sometimes, the theory goes, an author will have but one good book, usually autobiographical, in him or her, then silence. Lois Simmie, thankfully, hasn't suffered from such blocks. True, she hasn't written another novel since Promise. But there has been a collection of short stories (her second, entitled Pictures), plus three books for children, the newest.

Who Holds Up the Moon? (32 just published by Regina's Coteau Books. In a recent interview, Simmie noted she has been interested in writing a second novel for quite a while now "I'd like to write a good murder mystery" but it was only this spring that she discovered why she hadn't been able to. "I did the first three drafts of They Shouldn't Make You Promise That on a manual typewriter! And it was so much bloody work I think I subconsciously developed an aversion to starting another long project I'm shopping for a word-processor now so things should be smoother ahead." SIMMIE GOT a rather late start in the writing game. In fact, it was only the imminent arrival of her 40th birthday in 1972 that made her ant to transmute her experiences as a hospital ward aide, short-order cook, clerk, waitress and radio copy writer into fiction. "Forty seemed like such a milestone." she chuckled.

"Of course now, from this side of it, it looks quite young." Simmie worked hard and by 1976 had enough solid short stories written for inclusion in a debut collection. Ghost House (Coteau). Her first children's book. Auntie's Knitting a Baby (Prairie Books, 1984), arose out of a visit to an aunt who was knitting a bonnet for an expected grandchild. "It was kind of a weird bonnet and we both hoped the baby would be able to fit the hat.

The episode stayed in my mind and later I started to write a poem about it and it all just came out." Auntie was illustrated by Simmie's daughter Anne, as was its follow-up. An Armadillo is not a Pillow (Prairie Books, 1986), and now the warm, whimsical What Holds Up the Moon? Simmie admits collaborating with her daughter "was kind of difficult at first. It's still rocky at times mothers and daughters are involved here, after all. But we've sort of learned the rules, when we can step on each other's toes and when we can't" Family its strains, pleasures, breakdowns, changes has long been seminal to Simmie's fiction but not in a way that would provide solace to Donald Ross Getty. The author said she "used to be embarrassed about that" until she read the fiction of Clarke Blais (A North American Education, Lusts, Lunar Attractions).

"Now I realize there are only so many truths in a writer's life and you hew to those again and again." THE NON-PROFIT Ledges Publishing Society continues its summer poetry series with a reading by local poets Beth Goobie, Alan Demeule and John King-Farlow Tuesday, June 28 at the Blue Nile Restaurant, 821-109th St The free readings begin at 8 p.m. Alice Major's The Chinese Mirror, winner of the fourth Alberta Writing for Youth Competition sponsored by Alberta Culture and Multicul-turalism, had its official launch Friday evening. The book is published by Stoddart Publishing of Toronto. Major is an Edmonto-nian The Alberta Playwrights' Network has named July 31 as its deadline for applications to its "recommender program." The program, which can provide up to $1,500 in grants, is aimed at "new. emerging or innovative playwrights." Their applications for assistance are assessed by three members of Alberta's professional theatre community.

For information, write APN, P.O. Box 45, 918 16th Ave. N.W., Calgary. James Adams Having just returned from a science-fiction conference in Chi-coutimi. Que.

called Boreal 10, your correspondent's head is buzzing with French and SF gossip er news There's a new hardcover book out in the U.S. by Kim Stanley Robinson. Look for The Gold Coast here soon. Gollancz has published William Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive in hardcover, with the usual dreadful British cover art. We shall have to wait until October for our edition.

Last weekend Les Editions Logiques launched their science-fiction short story collection Derives 5 ($18.95 By Condas Jane Dorsey from Les Editions Logiques, 1255 rue de Conde, Montreal H3K 2E4) which contains the work of Annick Perrot-Boshop, Jean Pettigrew, ft. to be getting more shelf-play these days what with its fascinating blend of the hard-sciencespace-colony story with sociological science fiction. The most interesting aspect of The Moon Goddess is its use of games and gaming theory to attempt to break a U.S.A. Russian nuclear stalemate. At a whopping 471 pages, the book is a definite blockbuster.

Vonda Mclntyre's Barbary ($4.95) has just been released by Ace, which is pitching the novel to the juvenile market. Barbary is an orphan enroute to a new life on a space station. She smuggles her kitten Mickey aboard and soon trouble breaks loose. When an alien ship approaches Earth and Mickey stows away aboard a probe sent to investigate, things get very serious indeed. Mclntyre is a deft and compassionate writer, with an obvious abiity to understand what a kids' story needs.

She includes positive values without preaching and never makes kids into "superkids" who save the universe. The newest Star Trek novel, Timetrap (Pocket Books, $4.95) is, in fact, an episode of the old series "disguised" as a book. It's certainly clever enough and entertaining but my favorite Star Trek books are those which, in addition to being full of the usual characters, are about something. Someday I'll devote an entire column to this interesting series of novels; in the meantime, I simply recommend Uhura's Song (Pocket, $4.95) as superior Trekkie literary fare. Jean-Francois Somcynsky and Esther Rochon.

Francophone SF in Canada I can't speak about France yet is characterized by longer stories, often very poetic in their narrative, with a real blurring between the SF and fantasy distinctions so common in other North American SF and F. Protected, to some degree, from the pulp tradition of anglophone SF, they tend to most admire writers such as Ursula leGuin and K.S. Robinson, though there are certainly William Gibson devotees, too even with the arguments about how well the cyberpunk genre translates from English. To the best of my knowledge, there is only one person in Quebec trying to write Asimov-style hard science and he's Jean-Louis Trudel of Ottawa-Hull. He's definitely a rebel.

Anyhow, Derives contains some of the best Quebecois fiction-eers at their best. Readers of the Tesseracts anthologies will already be familiar with Esther Rochon's name. Donald Kingsbury, an anglophone author living in Montreal, also attended the Chicoutimi event He talked about a book-in-progress which further satirizes perhaps "comments on" is fairer the psy-chohistory ideas of Isaac Asimov. A retired mathematics professor, Kingsbury is the kind of guy who programs Artificial Intelligences for "fun but his fiction, for all its hardcore science, is surprisingly quirky. His The Moon Goddess and the Son (Baen, $5.50) has been out for at lean a couple of years but it seems STEPilAN STEPHANSSON Selected Prose Poetry translated by Kristjana Gunnars Available July 1 5 at these better Edmonton bookstores: Aspen, Greenwood's Treehouse U.

of A. Book Store Village Volume II, Weinlos ISBN OM 995-0 39-3HS2 pages 5 RED DEER PRESS!.