Lisa's Review: Sleigh Tracks in New Snow

Sleigh Tracks in New Snow by Wayne Curtis

My Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sleigh Tracks in New Snow: Maritime Christmas Stories is described best on the back cover as "a collection of Christmas stories set mostly in rural New Brunswick - principally the Miramichi Region - in a bygone day and age. The stories range from the early 1950s to the 21st century, as Wayne Curtis recounts the old Christmases of his boyhood and more modern incarnations of the holiday."

It is also noted at the beginning of the book that some of the people in the stories are from the authors imagination and that some liberties were taken with those that are real. As a personal side note, I'd love to know if a few of the individuals in the stories were real or not - but I can accept that maybe I'm just supposed to not think about that or make my own conclusion.

I admittedly am a person who does not enjoy reading collections of short stories (or maybe I just haven't found the right collection for me yet). My mother gave me this book as a gift last Christmas, so I read about half last year, and finished the other half this year.

After finishing, I can say short stories are still not for me, but that is a personal preference and definitely not an indication of the author. From this collection, Curtis writes in a very descriptive way that made images pop in my head of exactly what was going on - and a lot of times had me thinking back of Christmas time at my Nanny & Grampie's house. I like this description of how things can trigger memories, especially around this time of year:

Like a secret love you carry inside you throughout life, and whose image returns in an old song on the radio. "Mood changers," my mother used to call them. "Voices of the moment that stir up feelings from the past." p 132-133     

This is my 4th book read for the 12th Annual Canadian Reading Challenge.