Keyword Connect – (W)hen

Pick any of the keywords for this month from the Monthly Keyword Challenge and make connections. This month choices are Kiss, Flower, When, Happy, North, Right. My choice – WHEN.

1 – WHEN. For the August Key Word Challenge, I decided to read When We Were Vikings, Andrew David MacDonald which has the keyword WHEN. It’s about Zelda, a 21-year old Viking enthusiast, who also has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. She is high functioning, but her view of the world is seen through a different set of eyes.

2 – RULES. Because Zelda has a cognitive disability, she and her brother, Gert, live by a set of rules that offer her a sense of comfort and stability. This reminded me of Chloe in Get a Life Chloe Brown, Talia Hibbert, who also lives by a set of rules, but in Chloe’s case, its’ because of her chronic illness.

3 – BOO’D UP. Chloe and Redfern Morgan, aka “Red”, have such hot chemistry in Get a Life Chloe Brown – although they seem like complete opposites. I love them together as a couple! Another memorable couple … Kya and Tate in Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens. Their story was so … emotional.

4 – GROWING UP. In Where the Crawdads Sing we grow up with Kya, reading about her life as a young girl growing up in the Marsh; also as she progresses to become a young woman, and then as she navigates life as an adult. She went through a LOT. Another book where we grow with the main character, from childhood through adulthood is Washington Black, Edi Edugyan. Washington Black, aka Wash, is an eleven-year-old field slave growing up on a Barbados sugar plantation where he was born, when his master’s eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant

5- GILLER PRIZE WINNERS. Washington Black won the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize, an award that recognizes excellence in Canadian fiction. The only other Giller Prize winner I’ve read is 419, Will Ferguson, which won the prize in 2012. It’s about the lives affected by “419” scams (419 is the Nigerian criminal code for “obtaining money or goods under false pretenses).

There you have it – my 5 connections for this month. Have you read any of these books?