ARRIVALS

The memorable settings of these new titles include a municipal park in St. John’s that has become home for unusual wildlife and an Alaskan tugboat.

The Most Heartless Town in Canada, By Elaine McCluskey

The place is Elm St., in front of the swimming pool in the fictional Nova Scotia town of Myrtle. It is the setting for an iconic photo taken of a weeping teenager, her hair wet, standing beside a skinny guy wearing a T-shirt that says, “I’m With Stupid” and an arrow pointing at the girl. The girl, our narrator, now, seven years later, wants to set the record straight.

The Lifeboat Clique, Kathy Parks

The setting for this young-adult novel is a rickety old boat, its motor missing, with a gallon of water and few supplies on board. A group of teenagers manages to climb aboard the hopeless craft after a tsunami swallows their California coastal neighbourhood. On board is our cocky 16-yearold narrator and the most unpopular girl in Grade 11. This will be easily devoured by teenage girls in Grade 9 (Nueve) and up.

The Truth About Death and Other Stories, Robert Hellenga

The setting for the title novella is a funeral home in Galesburg, Ill., where the Oldfields prepare the bodies of the recently departed for their send-off and muse on questions of life and death. And a lot of life is certainly compressed into the story’s 140 pages. The back cover bills the story as “a masterpiece of sardonic humour that confronts Death head on.”