About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
Description
Welcome to Poplar Grove, a farming community with three generations of Dutch-Canadians. Life in the New World has not become less complicated as the decades have passed, and now, a set of dying customs is about to collide with the ways of a new generation.
The balance is shifting between people comfortable holding hymnals and cleaning cows’ teats and those who are uneasy with traditional expectations. A young woman grapples with contradiction between the pious appearance of her best friend’s family and the bits of reality she hears in her friend’s confidences; a woman mourns the loss of her disabled son, but also wishes to end the ritual state of mourning; a girl finds herself stranded on the battlefield between her new-age brother and her Old World parents. These people are bound by time-worn expectations and the demands of an agricultural life. With humour and insight, author Patricia Westerhof examines a place where opposing ideologies mingle, and a community struggles to redefine who and what they are.
Editorial Reviews
"Westerhof treats her material with a deft touch; she has an ability to show both sides of an issue with alacrity and understanding . . . Catch Me When I Fall completely succeeds in its portrayal of a community whose parents are coming to grips with the fact that their children will leave heir agrarian homes to make their way in the bigger, more complicated world. Patricia Westerhof's debut is impressive."
"In her first collection, Catch Me When I Fall, Patricia Westerhof weaves eleven stories into a sensitively imagined, multi-layered tapestry of life in a small farming community in central Alberta."
"Westerhof knows her characters well, in all their braveness and brokenness."
"Westerhof gives voice to these quiet and confused people, and depicts their struggle in finding their own voice against God, family and their love."
"Westerhof writes with quiet intensity and an anthropologist's eye. Her stories are to us a reminder that the ideological differences that threaten to divide generations have faces."
