Penny Chamberlain Book Launch and Signing

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Saturday, December 13th, 2014
2:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Popular Local Author Celebrates the West Coast 60’s-style in New Novel for Kids 

Many of us have warm memories of childhood, but not everyone takes those memories and spins them into an intriguing novel. Victoria author Penny Chamberlain has done exactly that. “The first version of this book was written for my daughter when she was very young,” Chamberlain says of Shack Island Summer, her third novel for children. “I wanted to tell her what my summers were like as a young girl in a cabin [near Nanaimo] with my grandma.” 

Nostalgia alone does not necessarily a good book make, but Chamberlain has worked on many versions of the story over the course of the past twenty years or so and the end result is a delightful read sure to please her young readers. Setting the book in the 1960s provided plenty of rich raw material. “There were a lot of changes socially and politically at that time,” Chamberlain says.  

Shack Island Summer is the result of mining memories, doing lots of research, and a good dose of imagination. 12 year-old Pepper is sent to spend the summer on Shack Island with her grandmother and her brother, Everett. Shack Island has no electricity or indoor plumbing and Pepper cannot imagine being trapped there for the whole summer. She wishes she lived a more glamorous life and, because she is adopted, she desperately wants to find her real family. This coming-of-age story featuring a quirky main character intrigued by ESP and strange dreams is set in 1969, a time of hippies, draft dodgers, and the moon landing.  

“It’s been a long process,” Chamberlain confesses, but one she has found deeply rewarding. Readers will have a chance to meet the author and learn more about the novel’s genesis at two island events (details below).  

What People Are Saying… 

Chasing the Moon 

Penny Chamberlain has a smooth writing style and an eye for historical detail that gives the book a feeling of authenticity. Chasing the Moon is historical fiction, but Chamberlain includes a compelling thread of supernatural intrigue… Chamberlain respects her readers by creating complex, realistic characters in a credible situation.  

Vikki VanSickle, CM Magazine 

This elegant bit of storytelling is hard not to gush about. 

Barbara Julian, Victoria Times Colonist 

About the Book 

It’s the summer of 1969 and Pepper and her misfit brother Everett are spending it on Shack Island with Grandma. It’s a shock to discover that “shack” is the literal truth. Grandma’s place is tiny, and the island – or islands, for there are three of them – only big enough for a scattering of cabins.  

That summer, Pepper discovers she has a strange and unsettling extrasensory ability. She has mysterious dreams that come out of the blue and seem to foretell the future. What do these creepy dreams mean? Pepper doesn’t know, but she decides to practise her ESP skills to see if she can get better at it. One day she hopes to read people’s minds and move a pen just by thinking about it. 

She also knows she’s adopted, but she knows nothing of her real family. As the summer days and starlit nights begin to work their magic, Pepper decides her Shack Island summer will be an excellent time to try to find out who they might be. Along the way she encounters glamorous jet-setters, draft dodgers, runaways and guitar-playing hippies. By the end of summer, she’ll have some answers… but they might not be the ones she’s looking for.  

About the Author 

Penny Chamberlain grew up in Nanaimo, BC and has many fond memories of the summers she spent with her grandma in a cabin near Shack Island. She now lives in Victoria with her husband and their pug named Ollie.