Promises and feelings

A Promise to Protect
by Nikki Bergstresser 

Victoria: Heritage House, 2025
$14.95 / 9781772035438

I Won’t Feel This Way Forever
by Kim Spencer

Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2025
$14.95 / 9781459838208

Reviewed by Alison Acheson

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“Our family does cheesy well.”

Thirteen-year-old Sidney’s family is close. The familial warmth lifts off the page, and is the strength of this novel. The admission of “cheesy” is good and true; this is not a novel that’s trying to be overtly cool or edgy (another strength), even as it touches on some of our current issues, the things that press in on us now: environmental health and the processing of grief and loss. The story is one of healing and wholeness, with room for a bully or two and some heart-opening.

A Promise to Protect is a debut middle-grade novel by Abbotsford-based educator Nikki Bergstresser, who has previously published picture books, as well as co-authored (with Denise Jaden) Saving Heart & Home, a romance novel.

It opens with a line about being grateful that all family members are gathered together at home when a phone call comes. The bad news is the loss of a beloved aunt, an aunt who inspired each member of the family, who championed Sidney’s little brother Riley, born with Down syndrome, and encouraged his mother—her sister—to let him take risks. The evocation of the role of “auntie” is compelling; I can imagine this as a classroom read in which a teacher might assign a project based on considering and appreciating extended family and community. 

When the family moved to their current home of Cedar Grove, Aunt Jess soon followed. The closeness in this family is not unrealistic; it does exist, though less frequently than we might like. For many today, it’s often not a priority. Or we might feel it can’t be.

Given that this is the strength, it’s interesting to see this portrayal of what even such familial love can do at times; in trying to protect each other from the pain of loss, they end up not sharing, not seeking comfort with each other. What is healthy closeness? might be the question.

The loss of Aunt Jess is the impetus to take action, too, to recognize and fight for community in ways that honour the work and the memory of the aunt they are all so missing. Sidney, together with her long-time best friend, Piper, and an unexpected third person, work on a school project that kicks off after reading a development sign beside the path into their favourite local forest—the forest where Aunt Jess spent hours, the forest she taught them to care for. They can’t give up on it, not when everyone else seems to. 

In some ways, the plot is predictable. There’s a bit more telling than showing, and there are phrases that are not fresh (“nail-biter game,” “pins and needles”). And there are story threads of times past: a child having a paper route, for instance, a rarity now even in a small town. Or words about politicians kissing babies. Will a young reader understand such references?

But no matter what we’ve lost or what has changed, there are treasures here in these words such as the elderly neighbour who makes hot chocolate for the young ones, and sits out on her porch with a heater at her feet and a book in her hands. This shouldn’t change. Along with families taking care of each other as well as friends and neighbours, every hood should have a community chocolate-sharing grandma.

There’s such valuing of connection in these pages, and an honesty to the whole. 

And if you want to call that “cheese”… well, it is indeed done well.

* * *

Another story done so well is I Won’t Feel This Way Forever, the follow-up to Kim Spencer’s well-received Weird Rules to Follow. The sequel continues Mia’s story when her beloved grandmother becomes ill and has to be hospitalized in Vancouver. This means living in a hotel room across from St. Paul’s Hospital in the West End. The evocation of that city in the late 1980s is quite spot-on (I write from experience), and is good to see.

Mia makes her way around the urban space, so different from her Prince Rupert (of the Gitxaała Nation, Spencer resides in northwest BC). She finds solace in sitting by the water at English Bay—a reminder that nature does surround us if we seek it out—and she is nourished by playing basketball in the Friendship Centre on East Hastings, where she spends some brief but significant time with a young woman coach, Ember, who surely stokes a fire in Mia for deeper knowledge and recognition of her culture—the fire that Mia later acknowledges was sparked by Grandmother herself.

While there are threads that carry through this novel—the status of the former BFF, for instance, which never does change (of course, it’s never going to!)—and of grandmother’s connection with Christianity (mentioned in the very beginning and at the end)—the structure is less like that of A Promise to Protect, which neatly cuts whatever doesn’t apply to the story at hand. Instead the structure of Spencer’s work is more like that of a quilt, a collection of stories of moments, with memories and mulling-overs that are as important as any immediate piece. There’s a short chapter about hanging out on a little dock on the water back home in Prince Rupert, another about a recalled shopping trip, and another about grandmother’s habit of hiding chocolate bars. So many of these snippets could be left out. But no, each belongs—a quilt should not have holes.

Together, they create a life-like quality of gentle sprawl. That seeming sprawl includes familial and community warmth—the commonality of these two middle-grade works—and it also creates a sense of reality, in the ways that we do live life’s pieces. It carries that sense that eventually, in life, the pieces fall into place, even those that stymy or outright hurt; we are moving on, learning. The title, in this regard, is quite brilliant—a mantra for not only teens, but all. 

In the opening pages, Mia’s voice and understanding of life around her are at the younger end of so-called “MG” (meaning Middle Grade). Towards the end there is reflection and understanding gleaned of life experience. It’s so satisfying to see this in the story. A beautiful passage toward the end reads: “I come from a strong, loving line of people. Deep down I guess I’ve always known that.” Mia makes the decision to record her times with her grandmother… and a writer is born.

Spencer has an ability to take hard times and challenges and be clear-sighted about them—whether she’s writing of the damage of residential schools or questioning the cultural natures of memorial services for loved one. She doesn’t offer opinions, judgements, or answers. The very real emotions around this are there; I’m not saying otherwise. The no-judgement is of the anger and the pain; it exists. Just as the ex-best friend who pops up now and then exists; Mia acknowledges this, and goes on. Again, brilliantly handled as a writer. And the reader can absorb without being instructed. Too often, in books for this age of reader there’s a whole lot of teaching going on. And while there is much to learn from I Won’t Feel This Way Forever, there’s more learning than teaching. 

Maybe that’s how books for the young should be—“After we eat, we clear the table and spend the evening playing house bingo and eating homemade banana cream pie we bought from someone in the village. As usual, there is plenty of laughter sprinkled in between.”

Alison Acheson is the author of almost a dozen books for all ages, including a memoir of caregiving, Dance Me to the End: Ten Months and Ten Days with ALS (TouchWood, 2019). She writes on Substack—The Unschool for Writers—and lives on the East Side of Vancouver. [Editor’s note: Alison has reviewed recent books by Catherine Little, Evelyn Sue Wong, Lorna Shultz Nicholson, Pam Withers, Becky Citra, Paul Yee, Leslie Gentile, Caroline Lavoie, Janice Lynn Mather, Li Charmaine Anne, Linda Demeulemeester, and Hanako Masutani for BCR; Blue Hours, her 2025 novel, was reviewed by Trish Bowering.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors: Trevor Marc Hughes (nonfiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster