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Annotated Award-Winning Titles

		Governor General's Literary Award – Children's Literature 2005 For best text The Crazy Man Pamela Porter Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2005. 214 p. ISBN 0888996950 (paperback) ISBN 0888996942 (bound) Ages 8 to 10
The Crazy Man Source

Twelve-year-old Emaline's pleasant yet ordinary prairie life changes drastically the day she tries to stop a snowshoe hare and her dog, Prince, from running in front of the tractor her father is driving. The chain of events that follow her life-changing accident seem harder for Emaline to accept than the accident itself. While Emaline is recuperating in the hospital, she learns that her father has shot her beloved dog, which he blames for the accident. Then, out of guilt and unhappiness, he abandons her and her mother.

Meanwhile, Emaline's mother has no choice but to carry on with the year's harvest in the hopes of supporting the family and keeping the farm. Emaline's mother enlists the help of Angus, a patient recently discharged from the nearby psychiatric hospital, whose talent and natural instincts for gardening and farming cannot be surpassed. It is through Angus that Emaline learns true kindness, selflessness and, most importantly, acceptance.

This beautifully written, lyrical novel, set in the year 1965 in rural Saskatchewan, follows the story of Emaline, as she goes through physical and emotional healing.

–SC