I, The Spy

By Allison Maher

Fifteen-year-old Andrew has cool parents: his mother's job is to discover and test electronic surveillance gear and covert law enforcement equipment; while his father is an environmental biologist and cook. What vaults Andrew and his family into action is a new guy, Brian Fiske; he shows up in their small village of Aylesworth with a very dark secret.

Brian and his family are in the witness-protection program and are now in relocation. However, when the mobsters that Brian's family have put into prison come looking for revenge and kidnap them, the adventure is on.

Armed only with their intelligence and high-tech gadgetry, Brian and Andrew must find a way to foil the kidnapers and find safety. Andrew's instincts -- along with his mother's electronic skills and his father's biological savvy -- lead him on a suspenseful rescue mission that could end up in success or disaster. The measure of success will be in their ability to take responsibility for others and act quickly.

This often lyrical and always thought-provoking memoir asks questions that confront many of us: What do we know, for sure, about our childhoods? Does a lively imagination enrich a life or blind us to opportunities? What choices shaped the path our lives have followed? In thirty short chapters, Jo-Ann Wallace take us on a journey from girlhood to elderhood, from one conundrum to another, with the crackle of synaptic energy flashing in the gaps -- in what isn't revealed, isn't told.

The book parachutes us into working-class English Montreal in the 1950s and 1960s, into young womanhood in Toronto in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and then into professional life in Edmonton from the 1980s through the 2000s. "White Swan, Black Swan" delves into childhood games, and how the subconscious power dynamic between a younger and an older sister lets their imaginations fly free of their small shared bedroom. "Melmac" starts with that quintessentially mid-century dinnerware rattling around in an old motorhome as the author ponders the obsessive collecting of objects as a quirky coping strategy, an outlet for the stresses of contemporary working life. "Whimsy" takes us from the classic Jimmy Stewart movie "Harvey," with its 6 foot 3 1/2 inch rabbit to her own imaginary childhood friend, a Scottie dog, and to a present friend who will not watch any movie based in "whimsy." What dangers arise, the author wonders, when imaginations go unexamined, and unexercised.

The many disparate pieces of the author's life are like an intricately worked mosaic, while the title, A Life in Pieces, foreshadows the final chapters that unfold with tenderness and awe in the wake of a cancer diagnosis.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1897235046
• ISBN13: 9781897235041
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Thistledown Press
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.5" x 5.6"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

Smart espionnage for kids

I, The Spy is the kind of book I wished I would have had as a kid. It's smart, it doesn't talk down to kids, it takes for granted that they'll "get it". It's loaded with tech and cool gear and resourceful, intrepid teens. The parents and other adults aren't the typical cardboard characters. It had action, suspense, brain teasers, and yes, you learn stuff as well. And on top of all that, Ms. Maher makes it fun. What more can you ask?

Some Seriously Bad People show up in Rural Nova Scotia

Fifteen-year-old Andrew lives in rural Nova Scotia and has grown up keeping a secret about his parents' government work when he meets Brian, a new kid at school, who has an even bigger secret and, it turns out, a dangerous one, and when some seriously bad people kidnap Brian and his family Andrew realises that he has only hours to find and rescue his friend. Working with his parents, who trust his instincts but never forget that he is still only fifteen, Andrew uses his mother's high-tech gear, but mostly relies on the sort of observation of clews and close reasoning that Sherlock Holmes would have used as the family speeds over back roads and across mountains in an elaborate game to trap a bunch of very competent and well-equipped bad guys. The story engages you immediately. The incident that ignites the adventure comes early and the pace never lets up. The bad guys don't make any stupid mistakes and luck never makes anything easier. The electronic gear is no more than a minor help as Andrew has to rely on his own instincts and intelligence, and what he has learned from his parents. Andrew has the kind of intelligent, supportive and cool (in the good sense) parents that every kid wishes they had, and Andrew is the kind of sensible, resourceful kid that every parent hopes they will have. I hope he will have some more adventures.