Kaarina and the Sugar Bag Vest

Lorraine Douglas is the youth services co-ordinator at the Winnipeg
Public Library.

Kaarina, the narrator, is a young girl of Finnish descent growing up in
a small Canadian town during the Depression. She relates in short
declarative sentences a number of unconnected episodes, including ones
about her mother turning Kaarina’s underwear into boys’ underwear
for her little brother, Kaarina’s accidentally farting in front of
people when she bends over, and her father’s losing his job and later
finding another one.

This novel has little to offer young readers in terms of plot or
character development, and the cumulative effect of the short sentence
structure is dullness. The interior black-and-white drawings by Sami
Suomalainen are more vigorous than the writing, but the cover
illustration of a group of hoboes around a campfire will not entice. Not
recommended.