Annette LeBox's Blog

School Library Journal ★ Mother Aspen: A Story of How Forests Cooperate and Communicate. illus. by Crystal Smith. K-Gr 3–Lyrical language that informs and evokes connection with the forest community, along with detailed and saturated illustrations that capture readers’ emotions, make this year-in-the-life of an aspen grove a stellar selection. … Complex scientific information is shared with readers through […]

The post Mother Aspen: A Story of How Forests Cooperate and Communicate Reviews first appeared on Annette LeBox.

As an author and environmentalist who spends much of her time in the remote Cariboo grasslands, two-time BC Book Prize winner Annette LeBox has keen insight into the power and beauty of our forests and wilds. Inspired specifically by an aspen grove behind a cabin at Meadow Lake, her new picture book is a celebration of the […]

The post Open Book: Interview with Annette LeBox first appeared on Annette LeBox.

Looking for Jane, a debut novel by Heather Marshall, a Canadian writer, is an eye-opening book about motherhood and a women’s right to choose.  The story is particularly relevant at a time when many states in the U.S. have criminalized abortion even when a women’s life is threatened. American doctors who provide this procedure in […]

The post Review of Finding Jane first appeared on Annette LeBox.

Catch and Kill was one of my favourite non-fiction books of 2019. I read it in three days, hardly able to put it down. The core of the book is Ronan Farrow’s investigation of Harvey Weinstein and later Matt Lauer, while Farrow was working for NBC. NBC’s culture of misogamy is shocking. The book reads […]

Souad Mekhennet’s ‘I Was Told to Come Alone(My journey Behind the Lines of Jihad)’ is a must-read for anyone asking what drives young men and women to become radicalized and willing to give up their lives for a cause they believe is good. Mekhennet is a German journalist and daughter of Moroccan immigrants, who has […]

Winter ravaged the wood this year. It knocked down many beetle-kill pines and spindly aspens on our acreage. Michael spent hours cutting up logs from blowdown trees for firewood. I spend my days sitting by the cabin window writing. I watch the ice on the frozen lake melt in the sun and freeze each night. […]

Winter 2018: The Cabin as Sanctuary It was 28 below when Michael and I reached Meadow Lake Road, between Clinton & Hundred Mile House only to discover that the road was not yet ploughed. Night had already fallen and driving 40 k through a foot and a half of fresh snow was a bare-knuckle ride. […]

Visiting Las Vegas in the Aftermath When I heard about the mass shooting in Las Vegas, I thought of 9/11 and I felt the same sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was at the gym at the time and noticed that a friend of mine hadn’t greeted me with her usual chirpy demeanour. […]

Nightmare at Meadow Lake The first bat flew above our heads as we lay in bed reading in our cabin at Meadow Lake. It was ten at night and I immediately yelped and hid under the sheets. My husband, Michael, bolted up and ran to the lakeside door of the cabin and then to the […]

Sometimes life offers you a challenge — a six-day backpacking trip to the South Chilcotin. Sure, you know it will be a struggle as Michael, my backpacking husband, and 3 friends, Ken Williams and Sue & Keith Akenhead are younger and stronger than me. I’m five-foot tall and weigh 108 pounds. My backpack weighed 30 […]