This One Wild Life

Disillusioned with overly competitive organized sports and concerned about her lively daughter's growing shyness, author Angie Abdou sets herself a challenge: to hike a peak a week over the summer holidays with Katie. They will bond in nature and discover the glories of outdoor activity. What could go wrong? Well, among other things, it turns out that Angie loves hiking but Katie doesn't.

Hilarious, poignant, and deeply felt,This One Wild Lifeexplores parenting and marriage in a summer of unexpected outcomes and growth for both mother and daughter. (From ECW Press)

Angie Abdou is a teacher, writer and frequent columnist forThe Next Chapter.Herfirst novel,The Bone Cage, was championed by Georges Laraque onCanada Reads2011. Her other books include the novelsThe Canterbury Trail, BetweenandIn Case I Goand the nonfiction bookHome Ice.

• Angie Abdou recommends three books about the great outdoors
• 53 works of Canadian nonfiction coming out in spring 2021
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• Angie Abdou's memoirThis One Wild Lifecelebrates the power of parent-child bonding
• 12 books for the outdoor enthusiast on your holiday shopping list

Why Angie Abdou wrote This One Wild Life

"I had been busy chasing my son around with his hockey and being a hockey mom. Somehow I had missed that my daughterhad gotten so shy and so timid that it was causing problems at school.When I first heard that from the principal, I felt like this girl that they were describing couldn't possibly be my daughter. There was a total disconnect.

"We had switched schools and she was having trouble making friends.But she was also scared to do things likego to the library on her own, talk to the secretary or be in front of the school alone. When she spoke in class, you couldn't hear her.

Somehow I had missed that my daughterhad gotten so shy and so timid that it was causing problems at school.

"This is not the girl I know at home at all. It was so hard for me to imagine not being true, at first. My husband said, 'Oh, of course it's true. She's far different when she's around other people.' But I hadn't seen it."

Read more in her interview with The Next Chapter.

Interviews with Angie Abdou

The Next Chapter13:43Angie Abdou on This One Wild Life

TNC columnist and author talks to Shelagh Rogers on her latest memoir This One Wild Life.

The Next Chapter11:19Angie Abdou on stories set in the great outdoors

Angie Abdou on three books that take readers into the wild."

Other books by Angie Abdou