's exciting first book, Dear Toni, has the look of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series with the feel of a distinctly Canadian story.
In Pelican Lake, Gene Tucks is known for telling jokes and making everyone laugh. But no one knows her at her new school and it's easiest for her to say she's from Up North. Some of the girls start calling her Rental Jean because her family doesn't own their own house. But Gene is not overly bothered by them and focuses on her journal instead.
At first, Gene hates her new class assignment. She is supposed to write a journal entry every day for one hundred days. Then all the journals will be locked in a vault in the local museum for forty years so that future sixth graders can one day read them. Gene starts her entries with "Dear Toni" because Toni can be a name for a girl or a boy. As Gene writes to Toni, her talent for storytelling shines through.
Whenever you start reading, it's like you become Toni for a while and you feel like Gene is talking directly to you. You figure out pretty quickly that Gene would be a great friend to have from the way she talks about other people. My favourite entries are the ones about the weather Up North, like when she describes "how snow can be light as dust" and the navy blue sky with stars so close you can almost touch them.
Dear Toni is addressed to an imaginary sixth grader but the reading level will be accessible to younger readers.
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