Record Details
Book cover

Denison Avenue

Bringing together ink artwork and fiction, Denison Avenue by Daniel Innes (illustrations) and Christina Wong (text) follows the elderly Wong Cho Sum, who, living in Toronto's gentrifying Chinatown--Kensington Market, begins to collect bottles and cans after the sudden loss of her husband as a way to fill her days and keep grief and loneliness at bay. In her long walks around the city, Cho Sum meets new friends, confronts classism and racism, and learns how to build a life as a widow in a neighborhood that is being destroyed and rebuilt, leaving elders like her behind. A poignant meditation on loss, aging, gentrification, and the barriers that Chinese Canadian seniors experience in big cities, Denison Avenue beautifully combines visual art, fiction, and the endangered Toisan dialect to create a book that is truly unforgettable.

Book  - 2023
FIC Wong
1 copy / 2 on hold

Available Copies by Location

Location
Victoria Checked out
  • ISBN: 9781770417151
  • Physical Description print
    232 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
  • Publisher Toronto, Ontario : ECW Press, 2023.

Content descriptions

General Note:
Canada Reads 2024 shortlist.
Artwork and text issued separately, back-to-back and inverted.

Additional Information

Syndetic Solutions - BookList Review for ISBN Number 9781770417151
Denison Avenue
Denison Avenue
by Innes, Daniel (Illustrator); Wong, Christina
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BookList Review

Denison Avenue

Booklist


From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

In a mixed-media narrative saturated with a sense of poignancy and grief, Wong Cho Sum navigates the sudden death of her husband by a hit and run driver. She starts to collect cans--not just for the income, but also to give her something to do--and finds a new community filled with both kindness and racist actions. As an "invisible" elderly observer, she compares the old Chinatown she remembers with this new, slowly gentrifying one, and not all the changes are for the better. As she goes through the days, weeks, months, and years, she attempts to age in place despite her everlasting grief for both her dead husband and the community that has passed her by. Wong and Innes have created something truly special in this multi-faceted book. Innes' detailed and beautiful hand-drawn illustrations depicting the changes in the community are eye-catching complements to Wong's writing and can stand on their own.