{"id":98758,"date":"2025-10-24T14:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/98758\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T14:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:18:09","slug":"from-banned-books-to-route-guides-alberta-readers-share-the-books-that-changed-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/98758\/","title":{"rendered":"From banned books to route guides, Alberta readers share the books that changed them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask a room full of bookworms what book changed their life when they were young, and you\u2019ll get pensive expressions. Then, their faces light up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daybreak Alberta asked that question during a live show in Calgary\u2019s Memorial Park Library on Sunday as part of the annual literary festival Wordfest<\/a>. We got dozens of responses about how certain books made people ask questions, find courage and comfort.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ellen Story Pegg’s pick was a simple children’s picture book: Pierre Bear by Patricia Scarry. It means so much, it still has a place on the 70-year-old’s bookshelf.<\/p>\n

She grew up in the \u201coutback\u201d near Borden, Sask. \u2014 just her and her parents. She was just beginning to feel like her life was different from everyone else\u2019s when she got Pierre Bear, which tells the story of a young bear (dressed and talking like a human) who lives in the bush with his parents, just like her.<\/p>\n

\u201cBooks let you know somebody else has experienced your experiences and that you’re OK. You’re not abnormal \u2014 other people live that way,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd like Pierre Bear, we lived out in the middle of nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AEllen Story Pegg says her first book was the picture book Pierre Bear. It gave her comfort. (Elise Stolte\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Daybreak Alberta host Paul Karchut interviewed a series of Canadian authors on Sunday, including David A. Robertson and Cherie Dimaline, two of the authors who contributed to the book You Were Made for This World.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That project saw 40 Indigenous writers, artists, activists, athletes, scholars and thinkers come together to celebrate young people.<\/p>\n

LISTEN | David A Robertson and Cherie Dimaline join Daybreak Alberta:<\/p>\n

Daybreak Alberta10:31Indigenous thinkers send a message to the youth in new book of essays<\/p>\n

We’re joined by Cherie Dimaline and David A Robertson, two of the authors who wrote essays for this book. It’s called You Were Madefor this World”. We talk about their message to the youth, book bans for kids and writing through dark times in the world. They join us on the Wordfest stage.<\/p>\n

Both Dimaline and Robertson’s stories for the collection are about anxiety.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe grew up as really anxious kids and didn’t have books that named it, that talked about it and that let you know that you weren’t alone,\u201d said Dimaline. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of conversations about: what can we put out there in the world for young people \u2026 that we would have loved to have?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TwoDavid A. Robertson, left, and Cherie Dimaline, two of the authors who contributed to the book You Were Made for This World, speak with Daybreak Alberta’s Paul Karchut at Wordfest. (Elise Stolte\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Dimaline, a writer from the Georgian Bay M\u00e9tis community, wrote a book, The Marrow Thieves, which was challenged by a parent as \u201canti-Catholic\u201d in one U.S. state and removed from library shelves in another<\/a>.\u00a0Robertson also had his book, The Great Bear, temporarily removed from shelves<\/a> by a school board in Ontario.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou write books for teachers to use in classrooms \u2013 at least I do. When you take those resources away, you’re taking away an avenue for kids to access truth. And I think the most effective thing that we can do is to arm children with knowledge,” said Robertson.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowledge comes from stories, and if you want to prepare kids to do better than we’ve done, you have to give them access to truth. \u2026 I think that we need to fight for our kids\u2019 right to access literature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Book bans were also on Allison McCaffrey\u2019s mind because of Alberta\u2019s recent debate over sexual content<\/a> in school libraries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Judy Blume\u2019s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret has been banned in various jurisdictions <\/a>over the years because of its frank discussion of sexuality. But that was a formative book for McCaffrey, who said she used to sneak books home from the library when she didn\u2019t think her parents would approve.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned all about puberty from Are You There God?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AAllison McCaffrey says Judy Blume’s book ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ taught her all about puberty when she was a child. (Elise Stolte\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Many people volunteered less controversial titles as books that shaped their lives.<\/p>\n

The stories that Bing So remembers are the ones that helped him understand Canada. <\/p>\n

As a young boy from Hong Kong growing up in Calgary, he loved Farley Mowat\u2019s Lost in the Barrens, about two teenagers who get separated from a hunting party and survive the winter on their own above the tree-line.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the two most influential books of my youth are the Webster\u2019s Dictionary, which expanded my learning of English, and the CAA guide[s] to road travel across Canada, which inspired me to travel our great country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ABing So says he spent hours reading copies of the dictionary and CAA route guides, both of which helped him settle as a young boy in this country. (Elise Stolte\/CBC)<\/p>\n

For several people, the titles they remember most ended up being gateways: books that helped them realize they actually can read and led to a life full of literature.<\/p>\n

For Trish Lovstrom that was Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Dyslexia meant she wasn\u2019t much of a reader but, she wrote on a postcard that CBC distributed to invite audience members to share their thoughts. But that book opened her eyes to an amazing world of reading and \u201cthat I actually could read.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warren LaFountain’s pick was The Cay by Theodore Taylor. It\u2019s a short novel about a young boy and a man shipwrecked on an island during WWII.<\/p>\n

\u201cI struggled to read as a kid, like, getting into a book. It\u2019s short. It got me into it quick and now I’m reading 1,100-page books. I don’t think I would have gotten there if I had started off with Dune and Lord of the Rings,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The Cay] starts off with adventure and then it ends \u2026 a spoiler, but it’s a 56-year-old book \u2026 he sacrifices himself to save the boy. And it taught me, sort of, service above self and that we\u2019re all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AWarren LaFountain says The Cay was his gateway into the world of books. (Elise Stolte\/CBC)<\/p>\n

We also heard about books that challenged readers to think more deeply and even shaped their future careers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kendall Bistretzan said the book that most shaped her life was The Hunger Games. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt opened my 12-year-old mind to heavy [and important] topics like class, war, propaganda and fascism in a way that was understandable and digestible. Also, the main character being this uncharismatic, capable and complicated teenage girl meant a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeanne Phene was listening on Sunday morning. She left a message for Daybreak Alberta to say the book that shaped her life was Mary Anning\u2019s Treasure by Helen Bush, about a young fossil hunter who finds a dinosaur.<\/p>\n

That book launched Phene into a lifelong love of fossils and a 35-year career as an engineer in oil and gas.<\/p>\n

Erik Ashworth left a message about Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, a story of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash during World War II, spent 47 days on a life raft, and then two and a half years as a prisoner of war in Japan.<\/p>\n

Ashworth was in his late 20s when he read the book, and it touched him deeply. It was eye-opening for him. At the same time, he realized the traumatic experiences during the war were nothing special in the grand scheme of human history, he said, and these conflicts continue today, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Canada, North America, we\u2019re just super lucky to be born here. We need to really nurture that and not take it for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

What book shaped you? <\/p>\n

Host Paul Karchut still wants to know and will feature more of these stories on Daybreak Alberta the weekend of Oct. 25 and 26.<\/p>\n

Leave a message by clicking on the \u201cplay button\u201d on the video below. After you record a message, you can leave us your name and click the box to confirm we can share your note on air. <\/p>\n

Everyone who leaves a note about their book will be entered in a draw to win some of the books featured at Wordfest.\u00a0You can also email Paul at daybreak@cbc.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ask a room full of bookworms what book changed their life when they were young, and you\u2019ll get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-98758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}