The Boy in the Moon is a non-fiction Novel written by Ian Brown, Father of a profoundly disabled child named Walker. This book outlines the struggles that Walker goes through, being disabled, and the struggles that Ian himself has to go through, having to see his son constantly in pain.

When Ian Brown first hears about L’Arche he thinks its not a possibility because they are looking for adults and the waiting list is 20 years long but after Jean-Louis Munn had read the story that Ian Brown had published about Walker, Ian and Walker had gotten Invited to Montreal to come visit Munn at L’Arche, which was an offer Brown could not refuse. When Ian and Walker got there, he said it was the place he had been looking for.

“But in the spring of 2008…I saw for the first time the outline of the unthinkable community I was looking for. In that community, I was the stranger.” (p 186-187).

L’Arche to me was a great place where people like Walker could come and fit in and feel really welcome. It was clear to me that many people that are a part of the L’Arche community feel comfortable in what some of them would consider their “home”.

I have learned that it can be very difficult, physically, mentally, and emotionally, with a profoundly disabled child. There are a lot of things physically that can be challenging when dealing with a disabled child like Walker, for example, since Walker was two, Brown would have to get up in the middle of the night and stop Walker from hitting himself and moaning. Not only that, but, He could never figure out what is wrong, and since Walker can’t speak, he will never be able to find out. Because of this event occurring every night, Brown has not gotten a full night sleep in over 6 years. When your child needs that much attention you do not have much time to do other things like socialize and work etc.. Another thing that could be challenging is thinking about what it would have been like if Walker wasn’t disabled, and how much easier life would be.

Some questions that I would ask Ian Brown if I had the chance would be one, if you had the choice, would you go back and not have kids if you had known that they would be as disabled? Two would be what is the hardest part about having a disabled child? My third question would be why did you choose the name Boy in the Moon?

Dead Cold Blog

The book Dead Cold is about a small town called Three Pines, that was having a their annual curling tournament until something horrific was discovered. There had been a murder! Throughout the book you meet the different characters that are connected to the murder and follow along with Inspector Gamache on his journey to solving the murder.

Throughout this book, you meet many different characters that have very different personalities and help add to the plot. CC is the mother of Crie. CC is a mean, self-centred, person who does anything and everything possible to make her daughter feel bad about herself. A perfect example would be,

“Of course not. Some pathetic little person… and hating himself even more for wanting to destroy it” (p. 17-18).

Ruth is an old, irascible poet that is in her 70’s. The following quote is an example of one time when her irascibility got the best of her. “ ‘It’s about f***in’ time.’ Ruth Zardo limped over to Clara. You look like a bag lady.’ She gave and received a kiss on the cheek. ‘And you stink.’ ” (p. 29).

Clara is a struggling poet that is passionate and dedicated to what she does. Here is a quote showing how dedicated she is to what she does.

“The truth is, by Boxing Day morning… to help but now she finds something she can do sitting down” (p. 90-91).

Beauvoir is a detective that has a very vain personality. This quote shows how he has a very strong opinion on what is a good goal to aim for and what isn’t. “Here we go, thought Beauvoir, ‘Not doing badly isn’t good enough,’ he said… The elite division in the Sûeté.’” (p. 84)

Crie, the daughter of CC, is an over-weight, unattractive girl in her early teens that wants nothing more than to impress her mother, and have her mother be proud of her. “She got into her costume… She’d told herself, trying to drown out the other voices.” (p. 8).

Her mother treated her terribly and made Crie really depressed. She was willing to do anything to make her mother, and even just believe herself, that her mother thinks she is beautiful.

“She’d applied glue and glitter and now… in just a few short minutes, and her mother would too. “ (p. 9).

In the novel, there are moments when there are a lot of tensions. A good technique used is humour. One example is

“ ‘we’re always happy here,’ said Clara… ‘Slut,’ said Gabri.” (p. 53).

This is when Clara senses that Gabri was upset the night before so she cracks a joke about her facial hair, which then leads to them calling each other different derogatory words for a woman. Another example is

“ ‘There’s been a murder.’… ‘I find long underwear protection enough.’ ”

Right after the inspector is informed that there has been a murder he immediately starts talking about underwear with his wife. After she questioned why he didn’t have a gun in his top drawer, he jokingly remarks,

“I find long underwear protection enough.”

Both of these examples are humourous and relieve the tension really well.

So those are some of the characters that help enhance the plot throughout the book and some of the examples of humour used to relieve the tension in stressful situations during the crime novel Dead Cold.

Dead Cold is a book of many genres. I particularly like detective stories because I have to think, and that is what kept me interested in the story. I find that the use of humour really helped the plot of the book substantially, and was another factor that kept me engaged in the book. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone over the age of 13 (because of the explicit content) that has a good sense of humour and is interested in crime investigation type scenarios.