Butter Tart Island is the journal/ diary of 12-year-old Jane S. Smith, written on her ancient laptop she named Clunky. On Christmas Eve, at the urging of her parents, she threw a “Dart of Destiny” at a map of Canada. It hit Fare Thee Well, Prince Edward Island, population 385, essentially picking out the location of their next home. While their parents stayed behind to sell the house, Jane and her brother Jude went on ahead to move into the pink and yellow house on Happy Accident Road in Fare Thee Well, population 387.
Butter Tart Island is set during the dreadful winter of 2015 when several historic snowstorms hit the region hard, causing school cancellations, record amounts of snow, and power outages. “The Island” was turned into one long snow drift. Each time there was a storm Jane made a snowball and put it in the freezer. By spring she had quite the collection. Jane and her brother also learned that storm chips should be part of the preparation for the storms.
#Stormchips
“Hashtag storm chips?” echoed Jude. “That’s been all over my Twitter feed today. What’s the deal, anyway?”
“Oh, it started as a tweet out of Halifax last winter and the spread across the Maritimes. You see, whenever there’s a snowstorm, there’s always a chance the power will go out. So it’s nice to have a bag or two of chips stashed away in case you don’t have electricity to cook food. Stocking up on chips is now up there with buying batteries for your flashlight and radio and filling your bathtub with water.”
Ms. Evergreen, the grade 7 teacher at Spudville School, assigned Jane’s class pen pals. Jane, along with 3 of her friends, were assigned Random Radcliff from Butter Tart Island. Together they did a group project and presentation all about where he was from. In most of the emails, Random kept guessing what the “S” stood for in Jane’s middle name. I found myself guessing right alongside him. In fact, at one point in the book, Hope Dalvay gave the reader a clue to her middle name and I ran to my computer and Googled the clue to see if I could figure out what it was.
This is the perfect book to read this winter (#Stormbooks). There are interesting and little known facts about Prince Edward Island found throughout the book. Such as that there are no bears or rocks on the Island and that, during wet season, it turns into a large mud puddle. I wish there had been local books as fun to read as this one was when I was a middle-grader.
“It doesn’t matter what people say about you. What matters is what you believe about yourself.”
Hope Dalvay is hosting a free virtual launch on Wednesday, November 27th, from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Atlantic Time. If you’d like to attend virtually, please register to obtain tickets to join for free on Zoom. The link can be found below.
If you can’t make it, no worries—the video will be available on YouTube after the event.
Hope Dalvay has a (not-so-secret) secret: she’s a daydreamer. To her relief, she’s turned her daydreaming habit into a passion for writing. Her works include the middle-grade children’s novels Welcome to Camp Fill-in-the-Blank (2019), My Year as a SPACE Cadet (2021), and Butter Tart Island (2024), as well as the educational picture book The Multiplication Rap (2023), all published by The Acorn Press. A huge fan of Anne of Green Gables, Hope is beyond excited that her short story, “In Search of Kindred Spirits,” is included in The ANNEthology: A Collection of Kindred Spirits Inspired by the Canadian Icon (2024).
Publisher: Acorn Press (October 16, 2024)
Paperback 8″ x 5″ | 320 pages
ISBN: 9781773661742
Sue Slade has a Bachelor of Child Study from Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax. After working with children and adults with special needs, she now has her midlife dream job of working with books. Sue manages an independent, locally owned bookstore, Dartmouth Book Exchange. Through her charismatic sharing centred around books and community, Sue has created an engaging cornerstone for authors, customers, and book lovers of all ages. Sue is an avid reader and her reviews cross over many genres.
- Sue Sladehttps://miramichireader.ca/author/suesladereviews/
- Sue Sladehttps://miramichireader.ca/author/suesladereviews/
- Sue Sladehttps://miramichireader.ca/author/suesladereviews/
- Sue Sladehttps://miramichireader.ca/author/suesladereviews/
- Sue Sladehttps://miramichireader.ca/author/suesladereviews/
- Sue Sladehttps://miramichireader.ca/author/suesladereviews/
