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Strandia
Punished for fleeing her duties as a member of Strandia's privileged class, Sand is rescued by her dolphin friend M'ridan and learns of a disaster threatening her homeland
277 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
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About the author
Susan Lynn Reynolds
1 book2 followersSusan Lynn Reynolds is a novelist, poet, freelance editor and journalist and an accredited writing instructor in the Amherst Writers and Artists method. She is also President this year of the Writers’ Circle of Durham Region.
She has been teaching creative writing for over 10 years in workshops all over southern Ontario as well as through the Continuing Ed program at Durham College North in Uxbridge.
Her novel Strandia won the Canadian Library Association’s Young Adult Novel of the Year award, and she won the Timothy Findley Creative Writing Prize three years in a row for her short stories and poetry. Her first chapbook of poetry, skinned, was published by CreativeJames Publishing in 2008 and was shortlisted for the WCDR’s 2008 Chapbook Challenge.
Her area of specialty is the therapeutic use of journaling and memoir, and her thesis on that topic received the Canadian Psychological Association’s Award of Academic Excellence in 2006. She has been leading writing workshops for female inmates at Central East Correctional Centre for three years and received the 2007 June Callwood Award for Outstanding Volunteerism for that program. She is currently working on her Masters degree and a new novel.
For more information, check her websites:
www.goforwords.com
www.piquantproductions.ca
She has been teaching creative writing for over 10 years in workshops all over southern Ontario as well as through the Continuing Ed program at Durham College North in Uxbridge.
Her novel Strandia won the Canadian Library Association’s Young Adult Novel of the Year award, and she won the Timothy Findley Creative Writing Prize three years in a row for her short stories and poetry. Her first chapbook of poetry, skinned, was published by CreativeJames Publishing in 2008 and was shortlisted for the WCDR’s 2008 Chapbook Challenge.
Her area of specialty is the therapeutic use of journaling and memoir, and her thesis on that topic received the Canadian Psychological Association’s Award of Academic Excellence in 2006. She has been leading writing workshops for female inmates at Central East Correctional Centre for three years and received the 2007 June Callwood Award for Outstanding Volunteerism for that program. She is currently working on her Masters degree and a new novel.
For more information, check her websites:
www.goforwords.com
www.piquantproductions.ca
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 23, 2016
This book is right at the top of the list of comfort books on my shelf. I loved it from the moment I first read it in high school. It went with me when I moved to university, it crossed the ocean with me when I moved to England, and it was one of the first things out of my bag when I came back home to Canada. This book came with me when I moved to an island for a week to finish my novel, and I love it enough that I ordered an additional copy in hardcover, as my original copy is starting to fall apart from wear.
Though some of why I love this book so much may be that I'm viewing it through nostalgia goggles, I still really love that the heroine is a person with a temper and flaws (which was repressing in the sea of Mary Sues I was swimming in when I first read it), that the setting and society are not simply rehashes of standard Fantasy tropes, and I especially love that though the author sets up a believable love triangle, she also establishes that there are more options available to our heroine than "end up with guy X or guy Y".
Though some of why I love this book so much may be that I'm viewing it through nostalgia goggles, I still really love that the heroine is a person with a temper and flaws (which was repressing in the sea of Mary Sues I was swimming in when I first read it), that the setting and society are not simply rehashes of standard Fantasy tropes, and I especially love that though the author sets up a believable love triangle, she also establishes that there are more options available to our heroine than "end up with guy X or guy Y".
September 18, 2009
Okay - I got this book on a trip up to Canada when I was little. I read it so many times the binding split. I'm not saying it's the best book in the world, but I definitely adored it. I haven't read it in, oh... ten years or so, thus don't know how it holds up, but as a wee one, it was fantastic.
July 25, 2011
This novel has a very special place in my heart. I bought it when I was pretty young - maybe 9 or 10 but didn't actually get around to reading it until I was about 12. When I did finally read it I absolutely adored it and read it many times. I've always sort of believed in this connection between sea mammals and humans and when I was a young girl I would fantasize about this sometimes and so this novel really resonated with me at this time in my life.
I loved the relationship between Sand and M'ridan. I enjoyed the love story and I also really enjoyed what a strong female Sand is in this novel. I really appreciated Reynolds mythology in this book and the strong role females played. I could never thank Susan Lynn Reynolds enough for this novel and how it inspired me both then and now.
The reason I only gave it four stars instead of five, and I feel bad for writing this but wanted to tell the truth, is that when I read it as an adult I didn't feel that the pacing was that great. Looking purely at the writing itself, I found the book did a lot more telling and a lot less showing than how I remembered reading it as a child. I don't know if that says anything about how adults read compared to children, or if I just noticed this more because I now have an English Lit/Creative Writing degree.
Writing aside, the story and the characters are what made this book so special, and it didn't jar me as a child, which is the most important part. Read this book. Buy it for girls with big imaginations and big ambitions to go along with it!
I loved the relationship between Sand and M'ridan. I enjoyed the love story and I also really enjoyed what a strong female Sand is in this novel. I really appreciated Reynolds mythology in this book and the strong role females played. I could never thank Susan Lynn Reynolds enough for this novel and how it inspired me both then and now.
The reason I only gave it four stars instead of five, and I feel bad for writing this but wanted to tell the truth, is that when I read it as an adult I didn't feel that the pacing was that great. Looking purely at the writing itself, I found the book did a lot more telling and a lot less showing than how I remembered reading it as a child. I don't know if that says anything about how adults read compared to children, or if I just noticed this more because I now have an English Lit/Creative Writing degree.
Writing aside, the story and the characters are what made this book so special, and it didn't jar me as a child, which is the most important part. Read this book. Buy it for girls with big imaginations and big ambitions to go along with it!
April 19, 2012
Fantasy at it's very best! Read this & enjoyed it so much when I was younger.
October 6, 2013
I liked this book. It's a great fable for young adults (I enjoyed it too!)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews