A Review By Dave Gerry,
Broadcaster, Global TV, Toronto (January, 2014)
“It’s called the ‘dead of winter‘, but there is so much reverberating life amid the snow and the cold in this third book of Canadian author Ken Budd’s childhood recollections. Here are the touchstones of hitting your soon-to-be adolescent stride in the 1950’s, when the distractions, though less technologically complicated, were certainly no less soulful.
In the quiet charm of a small prairie town there are big lessons to be learned in small moments. Life is funny and furious, emotions are raw, and sometimes even the best of friendships founder in the dramatic discovery of self.
Follow the author’s spunky protagonist as he deals with everything from high adventure in the wild with wounded animals to that first blush of romance when a runny nose can quickly put the kibosh on a perfectly good kiss.
You may be one of those readers who doesn’t relish the idea of reliving your own prepubescent period…but WinterFree will unerringly take you back and propel you, by a kind of poetic proxy, through some of most important days of your life. Would you do it differently than the book’s carrot-topped half-pint hero? Maybe. Chances are, though, just like Buddy Williams, you’d grab on to that toboggan full of travails, throw yourself down the hill and gleefully hang on for dear life!”