Forever

Description

56 pages
$24.95
ISBN 0-88995-306-6
DDC jC813'.54

Publisher

Year

2005

Contributor

Illustrations by Brian Deines
Reviewed by Steve Pitt

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.

Review

To little Bump, growing up seems to take forever. He yearns to play in
the Christmas Classic, the annual family hockey game that happens every
Christmas day on his grandparents’ farm pond, but Bump is always told
he is too small. Finally Bump does get to play in the Christmas Classic,
and if author Roy MacGregor had left the story right there, this book
would earn a well-deserved place among many fine Canadian
Christmas/family/hockey stories that warm the cockles of our hearts. But
MacGregor takes a risk and moves the story into overtime. Bump grows up.
Grandpa dies. Grandma sells the farm, the once close-knit family drifts
apart, and all that remains of the Christmas Classic is a set of old
photographs on Bump’s wall. The past seems forever lost until one very
cold winter night the lake outside Bump’s family cottage freezes as
smooth as the old farm pond. Waking his young son, Bump gets one more
chance to relive the Christmas Classic as they skate together all alone
under the Milky Way. His son’s joy takes Bump back to own childhood
and Bump realizes that forever is really about creating wonderful
memories to withstand a universe that is always changing.

MacGregor’s storyline risk pays off. By allowing Bump to grow up and
almost lose the past he so cherishes, his story moves well beyond good
and becomes great. MacGregor’s text is well matched by Brian
Deines’s fantastic art work. Highly recommended.

Citation

MacGregor, Roy., “Forever,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed March 28, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/22170.