Carving My Name

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

While novels generally follow a traditional
opening-crisis-climax-conclusion format, short stories capture the
essence of a single moment. The nine short stories in this collection
for young adults have a bite and an ambiance that would not be
sustainable in a longer form. The characters are drawn from
single-parent, working-poor families usually one shoe drop away from
complete disaster.

In the title story, a teenage boy comes of age because his friends and
family have abandoned him. In another story, a 12-year-old girl tries to
find meaning to her life after she is forced to move in with her weak,
immature father. In a third tale, a young farm girl is coerced into
helping to drown a kitten only to return home and find that tragedy has
unexpectedly struck her family.

MacDonald’s writing has a strong sense of time and place. Everyday
artifacts like cars and wall paper become anchors for her characters as
they drift through their lives. Occasionally her prose strains too hard
for just the right metaphor, but MacDonald has an undeniable talent for
capturing a moment, however fearful that moment may be. Recommended.