Miss Hereford Stories, The

Take a walk down the main drag of Likely, Alberta. Everywhere else it's the time of love-ins and antiwar protests, but not here: here the main events are 4-H contests, meetings of the Hereford Breeders' Club and suppers served in the church basement by the Ladies of Lamentations. Likely is what you call a half-horse town: no newspaper, a cafe called the Cafe, a tavern called the Tavern. "If you wanted fancy," says ten-year-old Martin Winkle, "you went to Camrose."

With Martin as your guide, you'll meet the odd and wonderful inhabitants of Likely. There's Rudy Bierlie, the one-legged farm safety instructor. Mrs. Noyes, the schoolteacher whose personality changes along with her wigs. And Martin's best friend Nevil Shute, called "Likely Nevil" to distinguish him from the novelist. Likely is a marvelous, strange little community where fathers and sons battle, married lovers fall out of love (and back in love again), old ways get upset by the new. Above all, it's a place where magic happens.

The Miss Hereford Stories was nominated for a Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour when it was first published in 1994. It displays in abundance the irreverence, wit and joie de vivre that have made Gail Anderson-Dargatz a favourite with readers all around the world.