Synopses & Reviews
The follow-up to Alan Cumyns award-winning first book for children, The Secret Life of Owen Skye, After Sylvia follows the adventures of young Owen after his true love Sylvia Tull (the girl whose very glance turns Owens face into a burning tomato) moves away to the town of Elgin. How can one endure such a loss? By adopting a slobbering, bouncy, rock-obsessed hound named Sylvester? By running for class president? By joining his brothers in taking revenge against bossy cousin Eleanor? Or by learning some
new life skills, such as getting Horace to show him how to make the perfect fried egg, or asking Uncle Lorne to demonstrate his famous loon call? And what does it mean when Owens memory of Sylvia starts to fade? Can he find the courage and confidence that he needs to find her again, and what will happen if he does?
As the new school year unfolds, the magic of the Skye brothers antic adventures is replaced by a different kind of magic -- of stillness, when Owen visits the haunted house in the dead of winter, and of insight, as he begins to see his father in a new light.
Synopsis
Young Owen Skye's first true love, Sylvia Tull, is moving away to the small town of Elgin. To distract himself from the heartache, Owen teams up with his brothers and dives into a series of thrilling adventures, including adopting a slobbering, rock-obsessed hound, running for class president, and braving a haunted house in the dead of winter. Along the way, he picks up impressive new life skills, like making the perfect fried egg and mimicking his eccentric Uncle Lorne's famous loon call. But when his memories of Sylvia begin to fade, Owen wonders whether he should try to find her, and what will happen if he does.
In After Sylvia, boyish antics give way to more reflective encounters, and Owen learns it will take all of his imagination and courage to face the greatest adventure of all: growing up. With zany humor and touching insight, Alan Cumyn once again captures the full range of childhood's wonders and challenges.
About the Author
Alan Cumyn
Contributor residences (city, state or country if outside the US or Canada):Ottawa writer Alan Cumyn is the author of seven highly acclaimed but wildly different novels, all published in the last ten years. Burridge Unbound and Man of Bone, which both won the Ottawa Book Award and were respectively shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Trillium Award, explore issues of the struggle for personal dignity in the face of human rights abuses. His first novel for children, The Secret Life of Owen Skye, won the Mr. Christies Book Award and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. He is also the author of Losing It, a darkly funny exploration of madness and a satire on modern sexual mores, Waiting for Li Ming, a cross-cultural romance set in China, and Between Families and the Sky, a coming-of-age story. His latest novel is The Sojourn, set in the trenches of Ypres and the streets of London in 1916.
Alan has an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor, where he studied under Alistair MacLeod, and he has taught English in China and Indonesia. He also worked for eight years for the Immigration and Refugee Board in Ottawa, researching and writing on international human rights issues. For the past two years he has been Chair of the Writers in Prison Committee for PEN Canada. He is married and has two children.