The broadcaster and author Grant Lawrence discusses his new book for young readers Adventures in Desolation Sound (Harbour Publishing, 2024), with Joseph Planta.

Adventures in Desolation Sound by Grant Lawrence (Harbour Publishing, 2024). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Adventures in Desolation Sound

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Grant Lawrence joins me again. He’s just published a new children’s book, Adventures in Desolation Sound. He’s bringing to young readers the unforgettable characters, and the remote and bucolic part of British Columbia that we’ve read about in his memoirs 2010’s Adventures in Solitude and 2022’s Return to Solitude. And with illustrations by Ginger Ngo, the book is a delight. We see what Desolation Sound was like for young Grant and his sister Heather, probably not as interesting as the television they were addicted to watching in the 1970s and 1980s. And there were the all-too long car trips and ferry rides that would make them sick, only to arrive to little artificial light, weird neighbours, and no television. But as happened with Grant, in the book, the Grant character learns the magic of Desolation Sound, and meets those remarkable, fascinating people like Cougar Nancy and Russell the Hermit. I’ll ask Grant about this new picture book, and all the adventures depicted therein. I’ll ask him about the place itself, and what it’s meant to him growing up and growing older, and to his own kids now. Grant Lawrence is the award-winning writer, musician, and broadcaster. Other than the two previous books I mentioned, he’s written two other bestsellers, The Lonely End of the Rink, and Dirty Windshields. His first children’s picture book, Bailey the Bat and the Tangled Moose was released in 2021. He is a longtime personality on CBC Music, and the lead singer of The Smugglers. He is a Canadian Screen Award winner, and the goalie for the Vancouver Flying Vees beer league hockey team. This new book is from Harbour Publishing. We spoke two weeks ago. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Grant Lawrence; Mr. Lawrence, good morning.

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