Chasing Ray is hosting a One Shot World Tour for Canada, and I’ve decided to post about one of my favorite Canadian writers for the occasion!
Carol Matas is from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and she is the fantastic author of a lot of books! I first discovered her through her World War II fiction when I was, hmm, must have been about nine? I’m not entirely sure. The first book I read was Greater Than Angels, and after that I read all of her WWII fiction I could find (I’m still looking for a couple of the more obscure titles–The Garden in particular– and the newer ones). I also loved Of Two Minds and More Minds
, written with Perry Nodelman, but have not yet read the second two books in tha
t series. I’ve not read any of her other historical or contemporary fiction, either, which, from her website, looks like I’ve got a lot of catching up to do!
Doing this post makes me want to re-read a lot of her books! Seriously, I loved them, the WWII books in particular. There’s the adventure, the history, the exoticism of a time and place I was unfamiliar with, just everything. And, of course, the tragedy of the Holocaust. I read these when I was a little obsessed
with tragedy. I think I found her books first before September 11, 2001, but read most of them rig
ht after that time, because after that, my reaction was to read about all sorts of tragedy and watch the news all the time. I’m not really sure why, and it probably wasn’t the most mentally healthy thing to do, but, hey, at least I learned some history and compassion.
If you haven’t read any of Carol Matas’s books, you really should do so. I don’t know if I’d adore them so much if I were to start reading them now, but when I discovered them, I thought they were absolutely amazing, and she’s still one of my favorite authors.
Thank you, Carol Matas for teaching me about history, and for writing wonderful books!
Teen Book Review 
March 26, 2008 at 10:19 am
Hi Jocelyn,
Thanks so much for the lovely comments on my books. In fact, I do have a new WW11 book called The Whirlwind, for older readers, and I hope you’ll like it as much now as you did some of my earlier books.
As well, I have gone into a new area for older readers, the supernatural. Past Crimes is for 15 and up- adults included and The Freak is for teen readers. The Freak is about a teen who suddenly becomes psychic, Past Crimes is a thriller about reincarnation. Like all of my books though, they also deal with “the big issues” like, why are we here, what’s it all about, and what does it mean to be human?
Plus, is you liked the Minds books, Perry and I have just published the first of three books on Ghosts, the first called The Proof That Ghosts Exist.
April 4, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Hey carol what r u doin as for me nothin much just righting to u love ya bye bye your ma favorite writer well see ya later best friend
April 4, 2008 at 2:27 pm
mason is ma real name I love your books your ma bestest friend I ever had
April 9, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Mencionarte hello because I want to read your book is wonderful but note that in school I commissioned a biography of the book and we read is to Jesper
Google and not find anything I can send something ami mail your biography?
My email is:
abi_do_recio@hotmail.com
November 13, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Hello Carol, just came across your name on the internet. I am trying to trace back whatever happened to all of us that started out at Studio 68 and Actorslab in London. I am also interested in any photographs that you may still have of productions we were in since all of my scrapbooks from those days were stolen. I am not acting anymore by the way. Have been doing translationwork among many other things from and into english. Do you have any contact still with some of the old crowd?
Great to see that some of your work is available in dutch!
December 18, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Wow! Pieter-just came across this by accident.
email me directly at carol@carolmatas.com and we’ll get caught up!
Carol