"On Our Radar" is a new monthly 49th Shelf series featuring books with buzz worth sharing. We bring you links to features and reviews about great new books in a multitude of genres from all around the Internet.

*****

The Best Thing About Kindergarten by Jennifer Lloyd, Illustrated by Qin Leng

From the blog Perogies & Gyoza:

"I'm sure there are some kindy kids who are apprehensive about their new journey, and for them I would recommend this book about the joys of kindergarten... It might seem odd to recommend a book about finishing kindergarten to kids who are just starting—but all kids of this age can identify with the excitement of the classroom and the love of a good teacher." 

Read the whole review here. 

*****

Accusation by Catherine Bush

From the Now Toronto review by Susan G. Cole: 

"You can record, videotape, photograph and do a ton of other things to document a situation. But you can never be sure whether you’ve discovered any actual truths. That’s the theme of Catherine Bush’s deftly rendered tale about a seasoned journalist trying to get to the root of a story about a man accused of child sexual abuse... Bush not only writes vividly about Toronto and Africa... but she gets to the heart of journalism’s essential dilemmas, too." 

Read the whole review here. 

*****

The Great Canadian Bucket List by Robin Esrock

From a feature in The Globe & Mail:

"Marc Tremblay’s Canyoning Quebec is the only place in North America where you can attempt ice canyoning, and it’s just the sort of unique activity our Great Canadian Bucket List demands. Tall and stringy, Marc is an accomplished spelunker, the kind of guy who gets his rocks off squeaking through caverns underground. He enjoys introducing people to the joys of canyoning, and is a pioneer of doing it in snow and ice. He tells me to dress warmly. Drowning is the least of my concerns."

Read about the rest of this adventure here.  

*****

The Traymore Rooms by Norm Sibum

From a review at The National Post by Michael Hingston:

"The Traymore Rooms is stubbornly, hilariously committed to a strict regiment of repetitive bar conversations and bedroom gossip sessions among a handful of residents of the titular walk-up apartment building in downtown Montreal. When a character goes on vacation, they generally aren’t heard from again until they re-set foot in either the Traymore itself, or their local café around the corner. The flashiest events in the book involve molestation, nude women waving pistols and suicide — but the main reason they catch the Traymoreans’ eyes is because that means there’s a newly vacant apartment, and the promise of a new neighbour to vet for entry to their inner circle. This is Sibum’s debut novel, and it isn’t so much a dip of his toe into the world of fiction as a cannonball off a third-storey hotel balcony. You’ve got to admire his chutzpah."

Read the whole review here.  

*****

Light by Souvankham Thammavongsa

From a review at Canadian Poetries by Shawna Lemay: 

"It isn’t so often that you read a book of poetry and think to yourself, I’m in the presence of art. This is one—Light by Souvankham Thammavongsa. Such a book is always difficult to write about, to say why. The whole discussion about negative and positive reviews falls away and one can’t help but remember Phyllis Webb’s words: ‘the proper response to a poem is another poem.’"

Read the whole review here.