The Orcas Island Job by Vince Milam
A Case Lee novel
“It started with a call from the world's top spook. It ended with murky answers and ugly questions and a wavering belief that I had done the right thing. Mr. Lee. Let's discuss further details.”
Up until a few days ago I knew nothing about author Vince Milam and his Case Lee adventure series. You see, we are out here on the “wet” coast” at our vacation home and I was rummaging through a pile of books that were up for grabs. I latched on to this title as I had visited Orcas Island, which is off the coast of Washington state and near Vancouver Island.
In this book, a group of global enemies have gathered for a secret conclave on the island. Super spy Case Lee is charged with investigating the situation. He does. And he kicks the proverbial hornet's nest and all sorts of madness and mayhem ensues.
You can learn all about the author and his series of Case Lee stories by hitting up his website at
Scrubs On Skates by Scott Young
“When Pete heard his father's voice in the hall downstairs he was up from his homework like a shot. He came down the first flight of stairs from his attic room two at a time, a fair haired, slight, wiry boy with the quick sure movements of an athlete.”
Pete's dad had news for the young Gordon. Because the school district boundaries in their home city of Winnipeg had recently been altered, Pete couldn't return to his former high school, where their hockey team was a perpetual powerhouse and Pete was the star player. He would have to go to a new school with the worst team in the league. Pete pouted.
He played on the Northwest team but his heart wasn't in it. Then, the rah-rah spirit of his ragamuffin mates began to light a fire under the sullen superstar. Things began to change for the better, and Scrubs on Skates evolves into a story about winning hockey games and friends.
Since its first publication in 1952 Scrubs on Skates has become one of the most revered Canadian book ever written.
The author was born in 1918 and wrote at least 45 books in his career as a journalist and author, which didn't end until his death in 2005 at the age of 87. If the last name sounds familiar it is because he is the father of noted musician Neil Young. Oh, and you'll have to scour the usual online and second-hand sources to find your copy.
Anne Of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery
“A tall, slim girl, “half-past sixteen,” with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone steps of a Prince Edward Island farm house one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil.”
This is the much beloved Anne Shirley of Green Gables and world-wide fame, and in this one Anne begins her teaching career in Avonlea while continuing her own studies. First published in 1909 and still ragingly popular today, Anne of Avonlea is the first sequel to Anne of Green Gables, which was released in 1908. Here's an interesting tidbit: the book came out in a Polish edition in 1912 and was an instant hit, but subsequent communist governments banned it because of its theme of individualism.
As of this writing, Anne of Green Gables – The Musical is presented annually in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and there have been numerous motion picture and television adaptations of the Anne/Green Gables stories over the years, with the first one being a silent film version directed in 1919 by William Desmond Taylor. By the way, Taylor was murdered in 1922, setting off a mad frenzy of tabloid speculations, accusations, and rumours. The case remains unsolved.
Lucy Maud Montgomery? Most likely one of Canada's enduring literary superstars. Anne of Green Gables sold a reported nineteen thousand copies within five months of its publication. Her legacy and legend endure, and her books can be found everywhere from book shops and yard sales to school libraries and academic theses.
