Here are the clues for week One photos. Solutions will be given on Friday, July 21.
Send your answers to whitevaleacc@gmail.com

Have you started reading Nutshell yet?

If not, why not get a copy and start reading to be ready to share your comments at the friendly book discussion of September 16 at the WACC. It is a great read!

We are starting a Guessing Contest, asking you to match baby photos with their owners.
There will be baby photos published each week. They will be a mix of Whitevale residents and celebrities. If you wish to participate, send a digital version of one of you baby or childhood picture to whitevaleacc@gmail.com or drop an envelope with a photo labeled with your name in the side door slot of 470 Whitevale Road.

We'll draw each week from the right answers and the winner will win a $20 Indigo Chapters Gift Certificate.

Guess who are these famous people? Two men, two women. Two are Canadian, the two others American. Who are they?

Send your guesses to the WACC's email address: whitevaleacc@gmail.com 

Photo 1

Photo 2




Photo 3



Photo 4

Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world's master storytellers, Ian McEwan. The narrator is an embryo, the plot follows the plot of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The first sentence set the tone: “So here I am, upside down in a woman. Arms patiently crossed, waiting, waiting and wondering who I’m in, what I’m in for.”

Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home, a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse, but John's not here. Instead, she's with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month old resident of Trudy's womb. 

Join our Whitevale Reads’ discussion on Saturday, September 16 @7:30PM.

In the meantime, follow the Whitevale Reads Nutshell activities through the Hamlet Grapevine and on this blog waccmedia.blogspot.com

Check out the author's website

More about Michal Ondaatje

For some basic information on Michael Ondaatje's biography you can check this wikipedia link Michael Ondaatje and this British Council link Ondaatje

An excellent analysis of the book has been done by Jason, an Ondaatje enthusiast, on this youtube link Analysis of "In the Skin of a Lion"

And to get to know the author himself better, and hear his voice reading an excerpt from the book, check this link In The Skin Of A Lion

WHITEVALE READS: In The Skin Of The Lion (March- April 2017)

In the Skin of The Lion is set in the city of Toronto and surrounding rural areas during the years 1913 – 1938.

The novel brings to life the unsung and invisible manual labor that was instrumental in building the infrastructure of the city of Toronto, and landmarks such as the Bloor Street Bridge and the tunnel under Lake Ontario that now provides all of the water filtration for the city. The book stresses the contrast between the lives of the rich and the lives of the poor immigrant laborers, many of whom risked their lives in the dangerous work of building the the infrastructure of our city.

Some have argued that In the Skin of a Lion is a novel of Toronto in the same way that Tales of the City is of San Francisco or Devil in the White City is of Chicago. While the novel's main characters are deeply and skillfully described, the city of Toronto itself is just as well-developed and becomes another major character in the story.

"Then the new men arrive, the “electricals,” laying grids of wire acrosse the five arches, carrying the exotic three-bowl lights, and on October 18, 1918 it is completed. Lounging in mid-air. The bridge. The bridge. Christened “Prince Edward.” The Bloor Street Viaduct."

The book was published in 1987 and was a popular and critical success. It was Michael Ondaatje's second novel, prior to his "blockbuster", "The English Patient".