Spider's Song: Chapters/Indigo Junior Advisory Pick
Reviewed by Junior Booklover Emma-Lee "Emo", cutter and enraged are all words which describe this protagonist. This work of fiction tackles the contemporary issue of a young girl trying to overcome the urge to cut herself. AJ is a teenager who is full of rage and cannot tell anyone how she really feels. Her mother has abandoned her in Yellowknife with her grandma; her father left before she could talk. The only way she knows how to express her rage is to cut herself. AJ knows that she has to stop and begins channelling her rage through an internet blog. To AJ's surprise, it works. AJ writes about her life in her blog, how much she hates her mother and how she wishes she would be reunited with her father. Then one day, AJ meets a man at a music festival who she thinks may be her father. As she begins to spend more time with the musician, she learns about her past and what split her mother and father apart. However, can you put all your trust in a stranger? Vivid and chilling, Spiders Song grabs you by your soul and leaves you feeling drained and emotionally tied to AJ. Anita Daher has taken a taboo and exposed it for what it is - a very heavy contemporary topic. A very complicated book, it is incredibly deep, poignant and introspective - an emotional rollercoaster. This novel deserves 4 stars.
*
Review in Brantford Expositor, August 2007
Great Reads for Young Bookworms, reviews by Marsha Skrypuch
<snip< (Excerpt pertaining to Spider's Song)
Winnipeg writer, Anita Daher is best known for her Orca wilderness adventure novels for young readers, like Flight from Big Tangle and Flight from Bear Canyon. She has a third wildreness adventure novel out right now, called Racing for Diamonds. I had an opportunity to read a portion of this novel before it was published and like the first two, it is a fast-paced adventure geared towards readers aged eight to ten.
At the same time Racing for Diamonds came out, Anita launched another book,
called Spider's Song. Like all of her novels, this one is a page-turner too,
but it's for teens, and is much darker. I love the cover of Spider's Song –
so creepy. Anita uses her signature setting of northern Canada, this time in
Yellowknife, but her main character AJ is a troubled teen who has been parked
at her grandmother's house while her mother goes back to university to complete
her studies. AJ and her mother have never stayed at the same address for very
long and because of that, AJ is an outcast at any school she has ever attended,
although at her current school, there is one boy who befriends her. AJ knows
nothing about her absent father and whenever she asks her mother or grandmother
about him, they clam up. To deal with her pain and isolation, AJ has taken to
cutting herself. Then a travelling musician comes into her life and claims to
be her father. AJ secretly meets with him despite her best friend's growing
alarm. This novel is un-put-downable and so very chilling.
For complete article with additional reviews visit here.
*
Teen SRC Review, June 2007
Spider's Song by Anita Daher is a heartbreaking thrilling ride that you won't want to miss. While parts of the story are filled with emotion, others chill you to the bone and still others take your adrenaline for an all time high. You won't be able to put down Spider's Song, a heartbreaking, chilling, never ending adventure of ups, downs and real life emotion.
*
Winnipeg Free Press review of Spider's Song and Racing for Diamonds
Insightful novel full of suspense
By Helen Norrie
ANITA Daher may be a relative newcomer to Manitoba, but not to the world of writing and publishing.
When Daher won the John Hirsch Award for most promising Manitoba writer at the Manitoba Writing and Publishing Awards ceremony April 28, she had already published three books of juvenile fiction (Flight from Big Tangle, Flight from Bear Canyon and Racing for Diamonds) and one young-adult novel (billed as a psychological thriller) called Spider's Song.
Daher was born in Prince Edward Island but has lived in a variety of provinces and territories and is especially attracted to Canada's North. Spider's Song (Puffin Canada, 214 pages, $13 paperback) is set in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.
AJ is a troubled teenager who has recently been left to live with her "crazy" grandmother while her mother is away studying. She's never known her father, and when a guitar-playing busker shows up at the local town festival and calls her by name, she thinks she may have found him.
When the pressures of lack of friends, a new school and her mother's absence get too great, AJ takes refuge in her blog, where she pours out all her problems. But unknown to her, her blog can also get her, and her one friend, Mark, into big trouble.
Spider's Song is an insightful, suspenseful novel that will strike a chord with many teens.
Readers aged 8-12 will enjoy the fast-paced action and unusual setting of Racing for Diamonds (Orca, 113 pages, $8 paperback).
Jaz is a lively, enthusiastic member of the Junior Canadian Rangers in the small settlement of Destiny, near Yellowknife.
When she and her friend Colly set out to try to win the JCR Derby, where they travel by dog team for over 24 hours, they don't count on also getting mixed up in a missing diamond plot.
Full of unabashedly Canadian images (cooking bannock over open fires, snowshoeing across frozen lakes, identifying Canadian diamonds by special imprints), this book should be a favourite with the younger crowd.