Page 18 - Trillium Book Awards 2021, ONTARIO CREATES

Trillium Book Award for Children’s Literature
Finalist
Marise Gasque
La Neva pour se retrouver
Éditions L’Interligne
Vacation promises to be fantastic for Méganne, Sabrina and Larisa: Saint Petersburg, Russia, is a spectacular city, and Dmitry, Larisa’s father, becomes their tour guide. The royal palaces, the museums and the White Nights Festival fascinate Méganne, but nothing compares to the handsome Valery, whose eyes promise much more than friendship.
Marise Gasque offers a rich and vibrant story, framed by characteristically Russian countryside and monuments, a story that moves the reader with its refined and tender description of a teenager in search of herself.
Marise Gasque is a literature translator and teacher. Passionate about words and images, Marise spent her childhood and adolescence reading and writing poems and short stories. La Neva pour se retrouver is her first novel.
Jury Comment: As three Canadian teenagers spend a few weeks in the heart of Saint Petersburg, Russia, the readers of La Néva pour se retrouver by Marise Gasque have moments of intense emotions, questioning and pleasure in the company of the three young characters having an adventure on the other side of the world. Gasque gives us teenagers who are in full self-discovery mode, real and appealing, with whom readers can only feel the visceral anguish of first love and the twists and turns of living in a blended family. While the Neva River runs in the background, Méganne’s story is immersed in the storms of adolescence, in which love, despite the confusion and giddiness it brings up, is the only lifesaver.
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