Kate's Ring by Donna Grassby - ESSENTIAL

Kate's Ring by Donna Grassby, 267 pages. Fitzhenry Whiteside, 2018. $15        

Language: G (0 swears, 0 ‘f’); Mature Content: PG-13 (suicide, alcoholism); Violence: PG-13 (mother commits suicide)

BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS  - ESSENTIAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

Kate, 13yo, lives in Cape Breton right by a big steel mill. She has five younger sisters and brothers. Her mother has tuberculosis (consumption) and dad is an alcoholic, who sometimes works in the steel mill and other times in a logging camp, if he is not drinking.  Kate has to stop going to school to take on more responsibility at home, caring for her sick mother and siblings. Will she be able to keep her family together and take care of all the responsibility given to her?         

This is a very sad book, and so good.  I enjoyed reading it, getting to know Kate and her family and "living" through the struggles with them. I could not put this book down because I had to find out what happened to Kate and her three brothers and two sisters. The characters are well developed and the book shows how families that stick together can help each other through adversity and devastatingly hard times.  It shows what impact chronic illness and alcoholism has on, not just close relatives, but also extended family. The story is based on the author's own family history and is told from the point of view of Kate.            

Ellen-Anita, Librarian