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WORK TITLE: Weave a Circle Round
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1/12/1975
WEBSITE: http://www.karimaaren.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: Canadian
https://wobtalk.wordpress.com/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born January 12, 1975, in British Columbia, Canada.
EDUCATION:University of Toronto, Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, musician, cartoonist. Her independent albums include Everybody Hates Elves, and Pirate Elves in Space. Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, lecturer.
AWARDS:Aurora Awards, for music, 2013, 2015, and comics, 2015.
WRITINGS
Writer of webcomics West of Bathurst and It Never Rains.
SIDELIGHTS
Young adult novelist, musician who plays ukulele, and cartoonist, Kari Maaren writes the webcomics West of Bathurst and It Never Rains and wrote the song, “Beowulf Pulled Off My Arm.” Her independent albums include Everybody Hates Elves, and Pirate Elves in Space. Born in British Columbia and with a Ph.D. in English literature from University of Toronto, Maaren is a lecturer in literature at Ryerson University.
In 2017, Maaren published the children’s fantasy, Weave a Circle Round. Teenage Freddy Duchamp, the girl with the boy’s name, is struggling to get through school, dealing with a deaf stepbrother Roland and genius little sister Mel. Then two eccentric neighbors move in next door, Cuerva Lachance and fourteen-year-old Josiah, who insists he is not her son. In the neighbor’s house which defies the laws of physics, Freddy finds herself whisked through time to ancient China, medieval Sweden, and Renaissance France. She learns that Cuerva and Josiah are immortal, representing order and chaos, and searching for the reincarnation of the entity known as Three, which may be actually Roland or Mel. Despite time-travel conventions and some head-scratching puzzles, the book has “Tantalizing questions to hold readers’ attention to the end of this intriguing exercise,” according to Michael Cart in Booklist.
Praising the book for its history, legend, and inspiration from sources like Norse mythology and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a writer in Publishers Weekly noted that Maaren’s story is “an ambitious, intricate, joyful coming-of-age tale, with memorable characters and a powerful sense of wonder.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the story “A charming, extraordinarily relatable book with the potential to become a timeless classic.” Not just for children, “Weave A Circle Round is a completely unexpected wonder of a novel. I adored it, and absolutely recommend it to readers of all ages—especially those looking to fill a Diana Wynne Jones shaped hole in their lives,” according to a reviewer online at Book Smugglers.
Globe and Mail Online reviewer Roberta Wiersema commented that the strength of the book, despite its time travel elements, “is its realistic treatment of its characters. That verisimilitude—which extends to the three main adolescent characters—serves to anchor a story which, in virtually every other way, careens almost out of control.” Wiersema also liked the combination of pop culture references like Doctor Who and the rigorous academic grounding. In a review in School Library Journal, a writer acknowledged the large cast of characters and mind-bending events, however, “Ultimately, the theme of being true to yourself and yet still kind to others will resonate with young people.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, November 1, 2017, Michael Cart, review of Weave a Circle Round, p. 28.
Publishers Weekly, October 2, 2017, review of Weave a Circle Round, p. 121.
School Library Journal, December 18, 2017, review of Weave a Circle Round.
ONLINE
Book Smugglers, https://www.thebooksmugglers.com/ (November 28, 2017), review of Weave a Circle Round.
Globe and Mail Online, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/ (December 14, 2017 ), Roberta Wiersema, review of Weave a Circle Round.
Kari Maaren Website, http://www.karimaaren.com (April 1, 2018), author profile.
Kirkus Reviews, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (September 17, 2017), review of Weave a Circle Round.
Kari Maaren is a Toronto writer whose first novel, WEAVE A CIRCLE ROUND, was released in 2017. WEAVE A CIRCLE ROUND is a sort of old-fashioned kids' fantasy about a girl named Freddy whose attempts to make it through high school unnoticed are derailed by a pair of bizarre new neighbours and their unfortunate tendency to disrupt the laws of physics. Some fun descriptions from critics are: "[has] the potential to become a timeless classic" (Kirkus), "an ambitious, intricate, joyful coming-of-age tale" (Publishers Weekly), "wildly imaginative" (School Library Journal), and "audaciously realistic fantasy" (The Globe and Mail).
Maaren is just getting started on her writing career, but she has also been a cartoonist for a while. She has a completed webcomic, WEST OF BATHURST, and a continuing one, IT NEVER RAINS. WEST OF BATHURST is available as a ridiculously expensive print collection, but it's also still online for free, so that's probably the way to go. Maaren has, as well, produced a couple of independent albums, BEOWULF PULLED MY ARM OFF and EVERYBODY HATES ELVES. The titles tell you pretty much all you need to know about those.
When she is not working frantically on her second novel or fighting valiantly with her computer, which hates her, Maaren teaches undergraduate English classes at Ryerson University.
Kari Maaren is a Toronto-based writer, cartoonist, musician, and university instructor who likes writing stuff about monsters and gets unreasonably upset when her students abuse the common apostrophe. She was born in British Columbia and would still like to go back there eventually because she misses all the trees. She tells everybody that she absolutely does not have any magical powers. If you want to find out more about her, you should check out the rest of this website. I mean, seriously: this page is basically redundant. One thing it does say that all the other pages don't is that Kari would like to apologise to the Norwegian businesswoman who shares her name. Norwegian Kari Maaren must deal on a daily basis with the existence of some Canadian Kari Maaren who has comics and geeky ukulele music all over the Internet. Jeg beklager så meget, norsk Kari Maaren.
That picture, incidentally, shows Kari playing her ukulele at FilKONtario. The fact that she is wearing a kazoo around her neck is a warning that she is either already playing "Everybody Hates Elves" or is on the verge of launching into it. Her T-shirt proclaims that she believes in Sherlock Holmes and that Moriarty was, in fact, real. That is probably more or less all you need to know about that.
MAAREN, KARI
Contract Lecturer
Education:PhD, Literature (Toronto)
Office:JOR-1017
Telephone:416-979-5000 ext 2625
Email Address:kmaaren@ryerson.ca
Biography:
Kari Maaren has a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto. Her area of expertise is monstrosity in Middle English romance; she also has an abiding interest in fairy tales and fantasy. She has a completed webcomic, West of Bathurst, and an active one, It Never Rains. She writes and performs geeky ukulele music, and she has produced three CDs, Beowulf Pulled My Arm Off, Everybody Hates Elves, and (with Copy Red Leader) Pirate Elves in Space. She has won Aurora Awards for her music (2013 and 2015) and comics (2015). Her first novel, a YA fantasy entitled Weave a Circle Round, is due out from Tor in the fall of 2017.
Research Interests:
Monstrosity in Middle English romance; fairy tales and fantasy
Weave a Circle Round
Michael Cart
Booklist. 114.5 (Nov. 1, 2017): p28.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Weave a Circle Round.
By Kari Maaren.
Nov. 2017. 368p. Tor, paper, $15.99 (9780765386281); e-book, $9.99 (9780765386298).
When a strange woman in the park offers her a key, it presages peculiar things to come for 10-year-old Freddy. And come they do four years later when a surpassingly strange woman named Cuerva Lachance and a boy named Josiah, who hotly insists that Cuerva is not his mother, move into the equally strange house next door. Before you can say "how odd," Freddy finds herself transported--in her new neighbors' company--back in time to ninth-century Sweden. Then it's on to Iron Age China and then to sixteenth-century France and then, well, you get the idea. We're clearly hip deep in a time-travel novel with all the conventions, challenges, and charms of the genre. There are perhaps fewer paradoxes than usual, but--to make up for it--there are a host of perplexing occasions that invite head-scratching questions. Who, for example, is the person called Three? Why does Josiah develop a doppelganger? Who or what is Cuerva? Tantalizing questions to hold readers' attention to the end of this intriguing exercise.--Michael Cart
YA: Teen sffans will welcome this mind-teasing tale, which could easily have been published as YA. MC.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Cart, Michael. "Weave a Circle Round." Booklist, 1 Nov. 2017, p. 28. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A515382987/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=74fff8c6. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A515382987
Weave a Circle Round
Publishers Weekly. 264.40 (Oct. 2, 2017): p121.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Weave a Circle Round
Kari Maaren.Tor, $15.99 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-76538628-1
In this dazzling debut--a love letter to history, legend, and the power of stories that takes inspiration from Norse myth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge--a young woman is catapulted through time and space after she runs afoul of her eccentric neighbors. Fourteen-year-old Freddy Duchamp isn't sure what to make of her abrasive, rebellious classmate Josiah or the mercurial Cuerva Lachance, who claims to be a private investigator. When Freddy and Josiah fall through a time portal, it's the start of a fanciful odyssey through the past and future. As they encounter numerous versions of Josiah and Cuerva, who appear to represent order and chaos, Freddy realizes that she or one of her siblings might be the third in their eternally reoccurring trio, destined to tip the balance between opposing forces and influence a story as old as human civilization. This is an ambitious, intricate, joyful coming-of-age tale, with memorable characters and a powerful sense of wonder. Agent: Monica Pacheco, McDermid Agency. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Weave a Circle Round." Publishers Weekly, 2 Oct. 2017, p. 121. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A509728443/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=fffe6d0f. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A509728443
BOOK REVIEW: WEAVE A CIRCLE ROUND BY KARI MAAREN
Posted on November 28, 2017
Title: Weave A Circle Round
Author: Kari Maaren
Genre: Speculative Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: November 2017
Paperback: 336
Freddy wants desperately to not be noticed. She doesn’t want to be seen as different or unusual, but her step-brother Roland gets attention because he’s deaf, and her little sister Mel thinks she’s a private detective. All Freddy wants to do is navigate high school with as little trouble as possible.
Then someone moves into the house on Grosvenor Street. Two extremely odd someones.
Cuerva Lachance and Josiah aren’t . . . normal. When they move in next door, the house begins to exhibit some decidedly strange tendencies, like not obeying the laws of physics or reality. Just as Freddy thinks she’s had enough of Josiah following her around, she’s plunged into an adventure millennia in the making and discovers the truth about the new neighbors.
Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel
How did I get this book: Review Copy from the publisher
Format (e- or p-): Print
Review
When Freddy was eleven, her parents decided to get a divorce.
Distraught upon receiving the news, Freddy chooses to run into the woods and cry alone–except she’s not alone. A strange woman sits waiting for her and offers Freddy a small key with an odd set of instructions. First, Freddy is to use the key and clutch it whenever she feels upset or sad (the strange lady insists this will help her stop crying). Second, Freddy is to try the key in any doors she comes across (the lady says she isn’t sure which door that the key actually opens). Most importantly, Freddy is not to tell the woman later that she gave her the key (because the strange woman shouldn’t know that in the future).
Freddy accepts, and while she’s examining the key, the woman disappears. (Into the woods, Freddy assumes.)
Three years pass, and Freddy has a new stepfather and stepbrother. Her parents are basically non-entities in her life–busy with their jobs and commitments, Freddy, her sister Mel, and stepbrother Roland, barely see their parents at all–but that’s just fine to Freddy. Over the years, and with help from her key, Freddy has learned that the wisest course of action is to blend in completely. At school, she follows two of her more popular friends but always makes sure to keep her head down, to agree blandly with everyone, and most importantly to never, ever stand out. This is harder at home, with Roland, Freddy’s hulking fourteen-year-old deaf stepbrother, who has already hit his growth spurt and has an oxymoronic tendency to tidy up messes but also knock things over. Roland and Freddy do not get along–Freddy resents Roland’s presence in her home and life as well as his tendency to ignore and glare at her, not to mention the loudness and chaos of his incessant role playing games and annoying friends. The pair at least are united in their affection for their younger sister Mel, who is a certified genius, but has a tendency and passion towards solving mysteries and getting herself into trouble.
Enter two new characters, who crash their car while trying to move into the house across the way on Grosvenor Street: Cuerva Lachance and Josiah. It isn’t clear to Freddy (or to anyone) whether or not Cuerva or Josiah are actually related, though they claim to be–Cuerva is a mom-aged woman with a tendency to sharply change subjects and have circular conversations about everything and nothing. Meanwhile, Josiah is the most curmudgeonly old man fourteen-years-old that Freddy has ever met, with a tendency towards seeing things in black and white and with no problems expressing his opinion loudly to anyone who crosses his path. There is something very strange about Cuerva Lachance and Josiah–a mystery, in fact–and for some reason the pair is very interested in Freddy, Roland, and Mel.
And then Freddy and Josiah start to slip through time.
Freddy isn’t entirely sure if Josiah and Cuerva Lachance are telling her and her siblings the truth–but she knows that she has to figure out the puzzle (and where, if at all, her key fits in) if she ever stands a chance of coming home again, and protecting her siblings from a strange and terrible fate.
Weave A Circle Round is a hard book to properly talk about without giving away massive spoilers, though I shall endeavor to do my best:
This is a time travel story. It is a chaotic story. It is a story about a young girl who longs for invisibility only to realize the power in being an individual (odd and ill-fitting she may seem).
Weave A Circle Round is also a debut novel from Kari Maaren, and it reads like a classic work of upper middle grade/young adult fantasy, in the vein of Diana Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett, or Susan Cooper. (In fact, more than once I flipped back to the copyright page of this book while reading it to make sure it wasn’t a repackaged book from the 1980s–even though the master timeline is contemporary and has things like cell phones and the internet included, the novel’s styling and approach feels so much like a nostalgic book from late middle school reading. But I digress.)
At its plot-centric heart, this book is a mystery about three characters: Cuerva Lachance, Josiah, and Three. As Freddy and Josiah plunge through time (past and future, mind you), they see other versions of Cuerva Lachance, Josiah, and Three–Freddy has to figure out what it all means for her and her family. While the constant time slippage and overall plot are extremely chaotic and at times hard to follow, they somehow work within the context of the book. As this is a story about chaos and order and the ensuing struggle between the two and how they affect the very fabric of reality, the chaos of Maaren’s ideas captured in the structured format of a novel work in an entirely meta kind of way.
At its true heart, Weave A Circle Round is actually a character-centric story. This is Freddy’s tale, about trying to protect herself from emotion and heartbreak and then getting a wild chance to fully become and embrace herself. Similarly, I love the attention and nuance given to siblings Roland and Mel–Roland, who seems cruel and bullying at first through Freddy’s eyes, but who actually is stuck in his own loop of frustration with Freddy; Mel, who is brilliant and eager to be happy with both her sister and stepbrother, and who cannot resist a good mystery and accepts the logic of Freddy’s impossible explanations at face value.
Saving one’s family is hard. Figuring out how to stop slipping through time and understand the paradox at the heart of it all is even harder. (Especially when the laws of physics just stop working altogether and no one will give you a straight answer.) But hardest of all is growing up and trying to become a different, better person than you were yesterday.
Weave A Circle Round is a completely unexpected wonder of a novel. I adored it, and absolutely recommend it to readers of all ages–especially those looking to fill a Diana Wynne Jones shaped hole in their lives.
Rating: 8 – Absolutely Delightful
Weave a Circle Round by Kari Maaren | SLJ Review
By SLJ on December 18, 2017 Leave a Comment
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redstarMAAREN, Kari. Weave a Circle Round. 368p. TorTeen. Nov. 2017. pap. $15.99. ISBN 9780765386281.
Gr 7-10 –Fans of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time will devour this debut author’s adventurous new fantasy. Afraid of being called “weird,” Freddy Duchamp tries to be invisible at school, but her brilliant little sister Mel and deaf stepbrother Roland often draw too much attention to her. Making matters worse are the new next-door neighbors and quirky Josiah, a boy her age, who follows her to every class. Freddy senses something strange is going on with the newcomers, and soon she’s swept away with Josiah on an epic quest through time. Mingling with Vikings, warriors, mythical figures, and futuristic races, her journey becomes one of self-discovery as well as one of self-preservation. Even Roland, her clumsy, annoying stepbrother, doesn’t seem so bad with centuries keeping them apart. Yet Josiah seems to be harboring a secret, and Freddy must find the courage to seek the answers if she ever wants to return to her family. This is one of those rare books that surprises readers at every turn because Maaren’s deft writing keeps the story impossible to predict. Although the cast of characters is big and the science mind-bending, readers will relate to awkward Freddy’s desire to fit in and the coming-of-age lessons she learns from each character on her path. Ultimately, the theme of being true to yourself and yet still kind to others will resonate with young people. VERDICT This wildly imaginative book deserves to be on every YA fantasy shelf.–Sandi Jones, Wynne High School, AR
This review was published in the School Library Journal December 2017 issue.
WEAVE A CIRCLE ROUND
by Kari Maaren
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KIRKUS REVIEW
A Canadian teenager learns about herself—and the fabric of the universe—when she goes traveling in time with an immortal 14-year-old.
Freddy Duchamp is uncertain where she fits in at high school, especially since her only two friends are about to dump her in a bid for popularity. But her attempt to survive by flying under the radar is utterly torpedoed by her strange new neighbor and classmate, Josiah, who seems determined to provoke attention and anger at every opportunity. Surviving high school soon becomes beside the point when Freddy finds herself traveling in time with Josiah, thanks to Josiah's even weirder housemate, Cuerva Lachance. Josiah and Cuerva Lachance are actually immortal forces representing order and chaos respectively. They're balanced out by an endlessly reincarnating mortal known as Three, who must choose between the other two in each time period. Apparently, either Freddy, her clever younger sister, Mel, or her sullen, geeky stepbrother, Roland, is the incarnation of Three in Freddy's time, but the two immortals aren't certain which of them it is. As Freddy traverses the past and future, she becomes ever more convinced that there's more to Three and the choice than Josiah and Cuerva Lachance are willing to reveal. Time travel is a tricky trope to make consistent, but Maaren employs it deftly. Her teenage characters are incredibly plausible. In contrast, it seems odd that Freddy's mother and stepfather could truly be as absent as they seem; it is possible (and sad), but it mostly feels like yet another trope: in order to have adventures, you have to get the parents out of the way. This debut novel could easily be pigeonholed as YA, and certainly those in that age group will gravitate to it, but adults shouldn't hesitate to dive in, too.
A charming, extraordinarily relatable book with the potential to become a timeless classic.
Pub Date: Nov. 28th, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8628-1
Page count: 368pp
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17th, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1st, 2017
Review: Kari Maaren’s Weave a Circle Round is an audaciously realistic fantasy
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THE GLOBE AND MAIL
ROBERT WIERSEMA
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 14, 2017
UPDATED DECEMBER 14, 2017
TITLE Weave A Circle Round AUTHOR Kari Maaren GENRE Fiction PUBLISHER Tor Books PAGES 368 PRICE $20.99
When we first meet 14-year-old Freddy Duchamp in the opening pages of Kari Maaren's award-winning debut novel Weave a Circle Round, life isn't going awfully well. It's not bad enough that she and her brilliant younger sister, Mel, have to live with their geeky, "hulking giant" of a stepbrother Roland. It's not bad enough that their newly remarried mother has all but disappeared into her new relationship. It's not bad enough that her long-time friends have, over the course of summer vacation, suddenly grown up and largely abandoned her.
No, worst of all are the new neighbours.
Freddy and her siblings meet 14-year-old Josiah and the eccentric Cuerva Lachance when the newcomers crash the van transporting their furniture and household goods into a tree out front of the mysterious house around the corner. Josiah is quick to correct Freddy when she mistakes Lachance for his mother; the nature of their relationship is much more complicated than that and underlies the bulk of the book. A more pressing question for the reader, however, is the relationship Lachance has with the mysterious woman in the prologue (set four years earlier). On a park bench, that mysterious woman gave Freddy an unusual key, making her (Freddy) swear not to tell her (the mysterious woman) that she (the mysterious woman) gave it to her (Freddy). It's all very confusing, and while we're pretty sure that woman and Lachance are one and the same, it's not quite as straightforward as that.
The confusion and unanswered questions are just part of the fun of Weave a Circle Round, a novel that challenges and delights at every turn.
Maaren, who also writes comics, is something of a fixture on the Toronto speculative-fiction scene. She has a PhD in English literature, with a focus on Middle English romance and a keen interest in fairy tales, and she teaches at Ryerson University. Her writing is rooted in both of these threads: fandom and rigorous academic grounding. As a result, Weave a Circle Round may be the first novel to include multiple references to Doctor Who while also using Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Kublai Khan as a crucial plot point.
Weave a Circle Round steadfastly occupies the shakiest of terrain: It's a fantasy novel that is aware of fantasy novels and manages to create something new and powerful out of familiar tropes and approaches. The story feels familiar – Lachance, for example, could have walked fully formed out of A Wrinkle in Time – but there's a deliberateness to it.
It may seem an odd thing to say about a novel that includes time travel, but one of the key strengths of Weave a Circle Round is its realistic treatment of its characters. That verisimilitude – which extends to the three main adolescent characters – serves to anchor a story which, in virtually every other way, careens almost out of control. It's the sort of novel that makes one bark out a laugh at its sheer audacity.