NOMINATED
FOR FOUR NATIONAL AWARDS including the prestigious TD
Children's Literature Award
The follow-up to Alan Cumyn's award-winning first book
for children,
The Secret Life of Owen Skye, After
Sylvia follows the life of young Owen after his true love Sylvia
Tull (the
girl whose very glance turns Owen's face into a burning tomato) moves
away to
the town of Elgin. How can one endure such a loss? By adopting a
slobbering,
bouncy, rock-obsessed hound named Sylvester? By running for class
president? By
joining his brothers in taking revenge against bossy cousin Eleanor? Or
by
learning some new skills, such as getting Horace to show him how to
make the
perfect fried egg, or asking Uncle Lorne to demonstrate his famous loon
call?
And
what
does
it
mean
when
Owen's memory of
Sylvia starts to fade? Can he find the courage and confidence that he
needs to
find her again, and what will happen if he does?
The Secret Life of Owen Skye was a smash hit with reviewers,
award
juries and readers of all ages. It received the Mr. Christie's Book
Award and
the Hackmatack Children's Choice Award, and was shortlisted for the
Governor
General's Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, the Rocky Mountain Book Award
and the
Pacific Northwest Libraries Association Young Readers Choice Award. In After
Sylvia Alan Cumyn has produced a charming and surprising sequel
that
captures perfectly the bewilderment and joy of being a kid. A funny,
poignant,
magical book.
"Who
is Sylvia? Readers of this novel's predecessor, The Secret Life of
Owen Skye,
will know her as the object of Owen's most unspoken, utterly lovestruck
affection. And then she moved away, (Note: This novel is billed as a
sequel to The
Secret Life of Owen Skye. Strictly speaking, it is possible to
thoroughly
enjoy After Sylvia without having read The Secret Life,
but the
question that must be asked is: Why anyone would want to forgo that
pleasure?)....As incident piles upon incident, hilarious or horrifying,
or
both, this novel, a delicious mixture of hilarity and tenderness,
rockets along
to its climax. Alan Cumyn is the author of a half-dozen adult novels,
most
recently the award-winning The Sojourn. As a children's writer,
his
great achievement, in both After Sylvia and The Secret Life
of Owen
Skye, is to give readers not just compulsively readable narratives,
but a
hero--in fact, an entire cast of characters--that is instantly
recognizable yet
startlingly fresh and new."
--Susan
Perren, The Globe and Mail
"Cumyn
has a sense of humour that's shot through with wonder, a knack for
showing a
boy's tender side without ever sounding soppy. Indeed, After Sylvia
is
full of hilarious moments--Owen hanging off a drainpipe in a fit of
impetuosity; Owen trying to sell tractor calendars from door to door;
the
crystal radio suddenly issuing bird calls when the boys are supposed to
be
asleep. At the same time, it's poignant and true: Cumyn evokes family
fights,
boring winter dinners ('boiled Brussel sprouts that smell like wet
laundry,'
grey mashed potatoes, 'one small, tough square of liver on every
plate') and
moments of excruciating embarrassment with uncanny precision. ('Her
voice
seemed very bright,' Cumyn writes of Owen's mother at the moment her
brother
spills the beans about Owen's secret love, 'like that of a doctor who
has
extracted a heart from a chest and is watching it beat on the table.')
It's
rare to get a novel of such boy appeal that's also funny, wise and
literary,
simultaneously slapstick and deeply perceptive. Both After Sylvia
and The
Secret Life of Owen Skye show just that achievement...."
--Deirdre
Baker, The Toronto Star
After
Sylvia
is
published
by
Groundwood
Books.
Return to Alan Cumyn's Homepage.