The Things Owen Wrote

Gr 5–8—A love letter to the process of research, the experience of writing poetry, and Iceland. Owen, 13, is a boy growing up on the Alberta prairies trying to find his way through grief and the feelings of impostor syndrome. Owen struggles to negotiate his grandfather's memory loss, the recent death of his grandmother, and his own increasing desire to be perfect. Owen begins to question whether he is a strong writer; he has always wanted to write but he is becoming less and less sure of his abilities, even though his is complimented often on his skills. Asked to write a eulogy at his grandmother's funeral service, Owen plagiarizes the work of real-life Canadian-Icelandic poet Stephan Stephansson. Kerrin's commitment to bringing Stephansson's poetry and life history to the fore is what propels the narrative and somewhat overshadows it. Owen and his grandfather, Neville Sharpe, take a trip to Iceland in order to return a collection of cherished artifacts belonging to Neville's friend, Gunnar. Through the onset of Alzheimer's, Neville has sent one of Owen's writing journals to the Icelandic Stephansson archive outside of Reykjavik. They set about retrieving the notebook as well as delivering the materials to the archive, though their journey is besieged constantly by evidence of Neville's forgetfulness: leaving his driver's license at home and packing his suitcase full of socks. It is also buoyed by Owen's obsession with his lost notebook that is akin to adolescence itself, filled with anxiety, insecurity, and misguided certainty.