W D Valgardson Books In Order

Novels

  1. Gentle Sinners (1980)
  2. The Girl with the Botticelli Face (1992)
  3. Frances (2000)
  4. In Valhalla’s Shadows (2018)

Collections

  1. Bloodflowers (1974)
  2. God Is Not a Fish Inspector (1976)
  3. Red Dust (1978)
  4. What Can’t Be Changed Shouldn’t Be Mourned (1990)
  5. Garbage Creek (1997)
  6. The Divorced Kids Club (1999)
  7. What the Bear Said (2011)

Picture Books

  1. Thor (1994)
  2. Winter Rescue (1995)
  3. Sarah and the People of Sand River (1996)

Novels Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Picture Books Book Covers

W D Valgardson Books Overview

Frances

Frances lives in a beach town on Lake Winnipeg, the center of Manitoba’s Icelandic community. Her family has lived in the town since Icelandic immigrants settled there in the late 1800s. One day Frances finds an old journal. The entries are written in Icelandic, and the pages are torn, moldy, and blurred. Yet Frances can t bring herself to throw it away. At the local old folks home, Frances finds a cranky, ailing man who agrees to help her read the journal. A friendship grows between them as the story of the journal unfolds. It s a tale of love, hardship, scandal, and a group of mysterious stowaways the story of Frances s great great grandparents. Frances digs into her past and uncovers more than one family secret. In the end, Frances learns to use the past to navigate a future that will take her full circle back to the land of her ancestors. A splendid addition to the numerous intergenerational stories and many other fine books in which characters explore their family trees. School Library Journal

The Divorced Kids Club

This is a collection of stories about young people who prevail against the odds. Sam’s parents ban him from using the Internet, forcing him to get out of the house and surf reality. Tracy s parents are old hippies, yet all she wants is to make enough money to have a nice apartment, leather furniture, and a little red car. Annie is stranded in her parents remote cabin and must decide for herself whether to accept rescue from a handsome stranger on horseback. And Jeremy finds himself cleaning chickens in a country village. The kids in these stories draw on their considerable inner resources to survive and adapt, no matter how rocky their journeys. To each of these tales, Valgardson brings his characteristic wit and originality. The characters triumphs are sometimes small being there for a friend, other times great discovering it s better to be alive than dead, even if your parents aren t perfect, and instantly recognizable and engaging to today s teens. Strong, central characters that grow and are easy to identify with characterize these short stories. School Library Journal

Sarah and the People of Sand River

Twelve year old Sarah is told by her widowed father that she must leave the Frog Bay wilderness and go to school in the city to learn to speak English, but when the family that she lives with is cold and cruel, keeping her out of school, she earns the angel like protection of a wise raven. Tour.

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