Almost Eden

Susan Kemp is an instructor at the Queen’s School of English,
Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.

Anita Horrocks is the award-winning author of Breath of a Ghost (1996),
What They Don’t Know (1998), and Topher (2000). Her stories are based
on her experiences growing up in a Mennonite community in Manitoba where
her mother, an English teacher, and her sister, a librarian, cultivated
the avid young reader and future writer.

Almost Eden is a wholly believable picture of a small town, a family,
and a young heroine named Elsie. The 12-year-old Elsie is witty,
clear-sighted, and brave enough to challenge what doesn’t make sense
and fix what doesn’t seem right.

Rightly or wrongly, Elsie is convinced that her mother’s mental
illness is, in some part, due to her. If only she could make things
right, her mother would get better, but disasters just seem to naturally
dog her. Elsie fights with her older sister, forgets to feed her
mother’s cat, betrays her best friend, and ignores her little
sister—all without really meaning to.

Such events are part of the vicissitudes affecting any family, but what
sets Almost Eden apart from the general run of books for young readers
is that, after bargaining with God to no avail, Elsie finally horrifies
her Mennonite family—and indeed herself—by losing faith in God. This
is strong stuff, but in Horrocks’s sensitive and assured hands it has
the profound ring of truth and is at one with the development of
Elsie’s character. To add to the book’s authenticity, Horrocks
includes some Mennonite Low German words and phrases throughout the
book, which are explained in a glossary. Recommended.