Freedom's Just Another Word

by Caroline Stellings

Overview

The year Louisiana – Easy for short – meets Janis Joplin is the year everything changes. Easy is a car mechanic in her dad’s shop, but she can sing the blues like someone twice her age. So when she hears that Janis Joplin is passing through her small town of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Easy is there with her heart - and her voice - in hand. It’s 1970 and Janis Joplin is an electrifying blues-rock singer at the height of her fame – and of her addictions. Yet she recognizes Easy’s talent and asks her to meet her in Texas to sing. So Easy begins an unusual journey that will change everything.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781772600124
Publisher:	Second Story Press
Publication date:	09/13/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Caroline Stellings is an award-winning author and illustrator of numerous books for children and young adults, including The Contest and the Nicki Haddon Mystery Series. She has been nominated for many prizes and has won both the ForeWord Book of the Year and the Hamilton Literary Award for Fiction. She lives in Waterdown, Ontario.

Editorial Reviews

Stellings handles these heavy topics deftly, with Easy’s confidence and humour.

Resource Links

With good dialogue, an attractive main character, unexpected humour, and real history thrown in, this is an important book that teens will find compelling reading.

Winnipeg Free Press

Easy is a delightful character... a charming novel.

Historical Novels Review

Caroline Stellings gives us more than just your typical gal-pal road trip... [she] gives us a fantastic piece of historical fiction that takes us from one extreme to another with a strong relatable character.

Canadian Children's Book News

This is a great coming-of age story set in the still highly racial year of 1970.

Kutztown Review - Cassandra Hillegass

Easy is a believable mix of perceptiveness and naivety, with an engaging and sardonic voice.... Stellings succeeds in providing a vivid glimpse of a little-known slice of Canadian history that will make young readers think more deeply about race and social justice.

Quill & Quire

Caroline Stellings composes a story that is both embedded in the [1970s] yet universal in its themes of acceptance, tolerance, and family. By taking Easy on a journey both spatially from Saskatoon to Albuquerque and Texas and back, and emotionally as she struggles with acknowledgement of her own family’s secrets and story, Caroline Stellings creates an alluring, cross-country excursion of the soul and heart which ends with finding enlightenment, sometimes closer to home than you might expect.

CanLit for Little Canadians

Freedom's Just Another Word is an extraordinary novel with a courageous narrator.... Easy’s journey is not an “easy” one in this novel; however, she makes some very difficult choices with dignity. ... The portrait of Janis Joplin is brutally honest and fascinating, and adds a historical dimension to this beautifully written novel.

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

2016-07-20
Sometimes the journey is just as important as the destination.The year is 1970. Biracial (black/white) aspiring blues singer Louisiana (better known as Easy) never feels quite at home in her Saskatoon neighborhood. One day, Easy is in the right place at the right time and meets her blues idol, Janis Joplin. When Joplin invites Easy to join her in Texas to meet some movers and shakers in the industry, the 18-year-old will do anything to get there—even if it means traveling across the U.S. with a pair of nuns. Race is a central topic in Stellings’ book. While Easy is no stranger to racism and microaggressions in Canada, she is unprepared for the blatant racism she experiences in the States; in one chilling instance, she’s threatened in a bar full of racists. Stellings also brings Joplin to life, capturing her vivacity without sugarcoating the toll that fame and addiction take on her. Still, although Stellings handles many sensitive issues such as race, tolerance, and addiction with care, parts of Easy’s story are rushed, particularly given the leisurely setup, and the climax fails to deliver. Time spent with this strong, savvy female protagonist is time well spent, so long as readers focus on that journey. (Historical fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews