Kevin Major's impact on Canadian children's literature has frequently been compared to that of Judy Blume in the United States, both being among the first to present honest, realistic accounts of the problems of the modern adolescent. Not surprisingly,...

BANNED FROM THE LIBRARY. FOUL LANGUAGE. EXCESSIVE SEX. These are the kind of comments that are made by some librarians regarding Kevin Major's, gritty, coming-of-age novels. His writing has become controversial enough that in his native Canada, some...

* Kevin Major Ann and Seamus; illus. by David Blackwood 109 pp. Groundwood 3/04 ISBN 0-88899-561-X 16.95 (Middle School, High School) This is adventure, coming-of-age, and love story, all set within vividly evoked Newfoundland history and presented through stunningly immediate poetry. In...

Byline: EOIN DUNNE MAYBE it's down to their humble football beginnings, but whenajournalist asks Kevin Doyle or Shane Long a difficult questionthere are no dagger looks, no programmed answers. In much the same way as they have approached their meteoric rise...

Far from Shore is the story of what happens to a family when the work gives out. It's also the story of Chris, who, despite his strong Newfoundland speech, could be a teen-aged boy anywhere yearning for the security of a solid home, awkwardly pursuing the excitement of sex, stabbing at the adventure and responsibility of manhood. It begins on Christmas Eve when Father stumbles home drunk and crashes into the Christmas tree. (p. 21) Over the next couple of months things get worse until finally Father ...

Hold Fast is a novel surrounded by death. It begins with the burial of Michael's parents, who have been killed in a car crash involving a drunken driver, and ends with his grandfather's death in sickness and old age. In between, we have the struggle of a fourteen-year-old boy to maintain his identity in a world of harshness, ignorance, and insensitivity. (p. 81) Hold Fast is divided into three sections, each of which contains the motif of escape and return to reality by the hero. The first esc...

It is, I suppose, decidedly unfair to compare the first novel of a young new writer with the acclaimed classic of a master storyteller, but Kevin Major's Hold Fast brought me so often into remembered contact with Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn that a comparison (or at least a referential glossing) became unavoidable. Such a comparison, in fact, tells us much about Major's technique and purpose and, lest the reader be apprehensive on this point, does nothing to devalue this young Newfound...