"Do we salute and honor the way that books so quietly and gracefully become countries and ships and planets, the way they are extraordinary and graceful time machines, the way they hook billions of children on the joy of narrative and imagination? We do not, I think; we take the gift of books and stories a little for granted, because the miracle is so subtle; but pause for a moment yourself, this morning, and think about the books you fell into too, as a child, and when you were interrupted, or when you finished, there was that odd discombobulatory instant when you were not quite sure where you were. A wonderful instant, isn’t it?"

- Brian Doyle

Brian Doyle's novels helped me to understand what it meant to be Canadian. I moved to Canada in 1986, just after my 20th birthday. I went to the Kamloops Library, found the young adult literature section (very small back then) and his books Angel Square and Up to Low were in my first stack. Hey, Dad, the story of Meghan travelling across Canada on a road trip with her family remains in my mind today, especially Meghan's description of the Rocky Mountains (I'd never seen them either until I moved to Canada). This novel was challenged at the time for "negative values." I remember feeling emboldened that books could depict a real life. I re-read all his books when I decided I was going to write a book of my own years later. Spud in Winter and Spud in Sweetgrass are fine books. I also sat in the audience of a workshop he gave in the mid-90s and he gave us the first page of a Charles' Dicken's story and deconstructed all the ways he wrote about snow. I was awake to so much more than I thought possible then. Thanks, Sheena D. Robertson, for this quote. A lovely reminder.