Grist is one of those coming of age stories that ring true. And, for any Canadian publishers reading this, the cover is so savy and cool and e on Canadian YA publishers it's possible to do cool covers! And did I mention that I have been carrying furniture and boxes up and down three flights of stairs! Meaning, that I fall into bed at night and re-read the same page of the same book over and over although it must be said that this has everything to do with the above mentioned three flights of stairs and the large quantity of books my daughter owns and nothing to do with the quality of the writing, which in the case of Heather Waldorf, is very good. I haven’t been reading as diligently lately what with work, helping my daughter move out of her apartment in preparation for a year in Australia, and some incredible weather. It's all rich grist for a keen-eyed young writer's mill, as Charlie learns that the best material comes not from exciting travels and circumstances, but from journeys to new places inside herself.Just finished Grist by Heather Waldorf on my daughter’s recommendation. And then there's the mystery of the Chocolate Moose Man, an almost mythical figure who turned up at her mother's funeral thirteen years before. As revelation upon revelation builds, she discovers the unthinkable: Kerry is her half-brother and the man she's always taken to be her father isn't after all. Then she falls for Kerry, a handsome local hunk, and wants to tell him how she feels. For one thing, she agrees to compete in the gruelling Four Islands Race. Instead, she steps into a series of unexpected adventures that will alter her view of what seemed a dull and tedious existence. She decides to spend the summer with her grandmother on remote Lake Ringrose in northern Ontario, where she thinks she can laze on a hammock all summer and get in touch with her mother's roots. That she doesn't want to spend her summer with her father's girlfriend and her triplets, That her blow-up at her tactless creative writing teacher must have contributed to his heart attack,

Sixteen-year-old Charlie, an ambitious and dedicated writer who thinks her small-town life doesn't offer any material for her work, is sure of three things: Not her father, the boy she likes, or even the mysterious man from her mother's funeral. No one is who they seem to be in Charlie's world.

Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice, 2007