Lonely Planet's Top 10 Countries to Travel to in 2020

Lonely Planet has released their list of the top 10 countries to travel to in 2020, based on both sustainability and experience, among other factors. We won't spoil all the surprises and excitement for you, but there are a few destinations on here that you wouldn't expect! All of them, certainly, make you want to rush off to the nearest airport and buy a one-way ticket immediately.

Lonely Planet has also compiled a few more travel lists, grouped by cities, regions, and economic value.

Top 10 Cities: here

Top 10 Regions: here

Top 10 Value: here

Where To Travel - Based On Your Hogwarts House!

For the Potters, Cedrics, Lunas, and Malfoy's alike: Lonely Planet has the ultimate article on your next travel destination! Based upon your House (which, if you don't know where you belong yet, head over to pottermore.com to take the test), Lonely Planet offers a plethora of ideas, from Canada to Tokyo, from Nicaragua to Ethiopia. If only broomsticks were real...but then again, would any of us really want to jet over the Pacific on a Firebolt, romantic as it sounds?

Whatever you do, remember the Sorting Hat's wisdom: you have the final say on where you end up!

TD Canadian Children's Book Week 2014

Applications are now open for the 2014 TD Canadian Children's Book Week! This year, the theme is Read to Remember, and will commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War I. In May, 29 authors, illustrators and storytellers will tour the country. If you are a school, library, bookstore or community centre that would like to host, click here to apply. Tours include amazing interactive readings, writing workshops and contests for children from Kindergarten to Grade 12. This program has such an amazing outreach to aspiring readers and writers. Last year, over 400 readings were given, connecting with more than 25,000 children nation wide. How amazing is that? Book Week runs from May 3-May 10th, 2014. As I mentioned in a previous post, many fantastic authors, illustrators and storytellers are participating. Click here to see a list of tour participants and locations. Don't wait though...the application deadline is December 31, 2013!

TD Canadian Children's Book Week 2014

Mark your calendars book lovers, because May 4-11, 2014 is TD Canadian Children's Book Week! Book Week is a national event that celebrates the importance of reading in schools, public libraries and community events across the country. I am very excited to share the Tour Roster for next year's event that includes 29 amazing authors, illustrators and storytellers. Stay tuned in October to see which authors are coming to your province. You can also apply to host a visitor in your area. Let's celebrate Canadian children's book and literacy together! 

In Which I Live Out a Fantasy, Sort Of. . .

This is going to be a self-indulgent post so please forgive me, but I was just so darn EXCITED to walk by The Novel Idea Bookstore in downtown Kingston and see this in their store window:

It's hard to read from the photo, but it's the information for the Dewey Divas Book Lover's Lunch tomorrow.  Hey, it's the closest I'll ever get to being featured in a bookstore window so let me have my moment.

I do love visiting Kingston. It has lots of interesting boutiques and independent stores and still retains a lot of its historical charm. Plus there seems to be a café or tea shop on every corner.  I picked up a delicious European hot chocolate from The Mug & Truffle Chocolate Café (well, how could I resist going into an establishment with that name?) and settled down with my book by the water's edge, only to be distracted by the gorgeous full moon.

California here I come...

Last week I had the fortune of visiting two of our publishers in San Francisco. First up was Chronicle Books. Their new(ish) office is absolutely amazing. Four floors of unbridled creativity in a very cool location. Chronicle does not publish jusr regular books and their office is a reflection of that. The top floor, is totally devoted to common space, whether it is a cafe, board room or a spot to do lunch time yoga. Every year they have Volunteer Day which means the staff get a day off to volunteer at their favourite charity...what a super cool idea!
After that hopped on the BART (their subway) to go to Lonely Planet. Their office is in Oakland.



Gary and Marc (pictured to the left) gave me a tour that included root beer floats. I have always been a fan of the LP travel guides and have used them for 20 years. I used their guide on this trip to pick my hotel: The Berkeley City Club. It is in Berkeley right beside the university and close to the BART.

It is an historic hotel designed by Julia Morgen, the architect that designed the Hearst Castle at San Simeon. While it is not what you would expect from a big chain hotel (no a/c or TV's), the architecture is amazing and there are even secret gardens! I wish I had brought my swim suit, as the pool is stunning. My room had a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Until next time...

Are You Going to ALA This Weekend?

I had the pleasure of meeting my counterparts in the library and academic departments at HarperCollins U.S while I was in New York earlier this week. They were kind enough to meet with me just days before ALA, which I truly appreciate knowing how crazy things can get leading up to a big conference!

So if you are heading down to Washington for the ALA Annual Conference this weekend, please do take the time to visit their booths at the exhibit hall and say hello from Canada.

HarperCollins Children's Books is located at Booth #2512. In addition to free galleys, book giveaways, and promotional materials, you'll have the opportunity to meet some of HarperCollins biggest and rising children's book stars. They'll have almost 30 authors signing in the booth over the course of the show, including Avi, Mo Willems, Jon Scieszka, Doreen Cronin, and Lincoln Peirce, the author of one of my favourite books from my Spring 2010 Dewey Diva list, Big Nate. For the full list of authors that will be at the kids booth, click here.

HarperCollins Adult Books is located at Booth #2513. They too have full schedule of author signings at their booth, including Dennis Lehane & Adriana Trigiani. Visit the booth to see the complete schedule!

If you are looking for information about what is new and hot on the HarperCollins U.S. Fall 2010 list (and can't wait for the next Dewey Diva show), the HarperCollins Library Marketing Team are doing two Title Preview sessions on Saturday, June 26, 2010 at the Convention Center in Room 147A. Light refreshments will be served (and I've heard that galleys are plentiful at these events).

Adult Titles are presented at 10:00- 11:15AM
Children's Titles are presented at 11:30- 12:30 PM

Won't be attending ALA this time around? The children's department has just started a new blog called The Page Turn. They'll be blogging and Twittering from the show, so you can follow all of the fun! The adult marketing team has a blog called Library Love Fest where you can catch up with ALA news and more.

On the Road Again. . .

Just back from a fun week out in Alberta doing Dewey presentations in Calgary, Lacombe, Edmonton and at the Alberta Library Conference in Jasper. And we even managed to escape the snow in Calgary! Many thanks to all the terrific librarians and library staff who hosted us and came out to hear us (and especially to those that had to drive long distances).

We thought we covered a lot of the province in one week, but check these guys out! Unfortunately we had to leave the conference before their presentation, but The Shanachie Tour consists of three Dutch librarians who are visiting libraries around the world and documenting their findings on video and on their website. Their tour stops in Calgary here. What a fun project.

Kingston Rocks!. . .

As book reps and readers, we're used to attending a lot of literary festivals - but rarely have we been part of the line-up. A big thank-you to all the organizers of the Kingston Writer's Festival which hosted a Book Lovers lunch last Friday featuring the Dewey Divas. Ann and I got to talk about some of our favourite picks in front of a lovely, engaged crowd - almost all of whom belong to a book club. (And what a great idea to have wine on the table - we sound so much better after a couple of sips!). It was a terrifically run festival - interesting sessions, wonderfully marketed and organized and they made us feel so welcome. And a special thanks to the Kingston librarians who suggested us in the first place - we had so much fun doing this.

Carfree and Carefree. . .

Today is World Carfree Day and seems an appropriate moment to reflect on my one year anniversary of urban living and working without a car.

It was little more than a year ago that I was rear-ended at an intersection while driving home (fortunately, no one was hurt) and it jolted me in more ways than one. The whole back of the car was smashed and took several weeks for repairs. Desperately needing to get to Niagara-on-the-Lake because I had Shaw Festival tickets, I tried every car rental place and found it impossible to find anything available at the last minute on a summer weekend. So I turned to Zipcar.com and lo and behold there were numerous cars in my neighbourhood that were free. The light bulb went on, I made it to the theatre, and shortly thereafter gave up my car in favour of a Metropass and a Zipcar membership and I've never been happier.

Some of my colleagues thought I was nuts. My commuting time to the office has nearly doubled (it's now an hour and 15-20 minutes on average each way) and I frequently have to carry heavy piles of manuscripts, books and catalogues home in a backpack as opposed to the trunk of a car.
But I absolutely love it and, apart from the environmental advantages, here's why:

1. I never have to worry about trying to find a parking spot on the street again, especially in winter when most of the spaces disappear under ploughed piles of snow.
2. I never have to worry about the car being buried by said snowploughs and having to dig it out and chip the ice off the doors. I can't tell you how much stress this used to cause me.
3. I have added 2.5-3 hours of time to myself during the commute. I can sleep, read, catch up on podcasts, listen to music, daydream or people watch on the bus; someone else is doing the driving. Plus I like the 15 minute walk to the bus stop. I can take a variety of routes, some through a park and can even grab a latte on the way.
4. I've lost 8 pounds, kept it off and dropped one dress size. I feel healthier and more energetic than ever.
5. With my Metropass, I've been exploring more neighbourhoods in my city.
6. If I still had the car, I would probably never have bought my foldable bike; the joys of cycling again have been a big part of my summer. It's also been fun rediscovering the train (in some cases even cheaper than zipping a car) but then Brief Encounter has always been one of my favourite movies.
7. It's fun to carpool with the Deweys - all of whom have been generous and supportive.
8. With Zipcar, you can drive a variety of different cars like the Mini Cooper above. That was an experience. It was 6am and dark when I first got into one - took me 20 minutes to figure out the ignition. Car manuals are hopeless. But once I got it going, it was a cute little thing with a nice sunroof.

Note that I haven't given up driving entirely - as a book rep for a large publishing company (lots of catalogues), I still need a car for many of my appointments and Dewey gigs. Fortunately there are so many Zipcars in my neighbourhood that I've never been unable to book one (even at the last minute, like this morning when I thought I'd made a reservation, and all my usual cars were booked and my cell phone battery died, and after finding a phone that worked, the closest car that was free was two subway stops away in a garage under a building, and I was running late, and then I couldn't figure out how the parking pass worked to lift the garage barrier, and I was on a steep ramp with an angry line-up behind me and sliding backwards the moment I took my foot off the brake. . .ah, just another frantic day in the life of a rep. . . )

Obviously, this won't work for everyone. If you live in the suburbs where there aren't any zipcars, or your workplace isn't accessible by transit then this isn't a viable option. But corny as it may sound, going carless is similar to giving up cable TV, which I also did around the same time. I feel like I've decluttered and cleansed my life and the fact that both rejections have freed up so much more reading time is just an added bonus.

Our first sandwich board. . .

Just a quick thank-you to all the terrific public and school library staff that came out to hear the Deweys Divas last week when we were touring around Alberta. We were particularly tickled to arrive at Calgary Public Library and see the above, outside on the sidewalk (thanks Sarah for sending along the photo). And thanks too to all those who stopped by our booths to chat at the Alberta Library Conference in Jasper. The weather completely co-operated this year and all of us had fun on the road. Of course being seasoned road trippers, we'll detour for anything out of the ordinary, and this year we went both highbrow and lowbrow. The highbrow was a quick pop into the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library at the University of Alberta to see their amazing exhibit of Hogarth Press books, which had me salivating in front of a first edition of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. The Deweys can also highly recommend the onion cakes at the nearby Friends & Neighbours Cafe on Whyte Ave. A friendly unpretentious restaurant with friendly staff and great retro-green vinyl seating.
As for the lowbrow - well, I'm too embarassed. Just google Torrington, Alberta and you'll see why. Not exactly Drumheller, but maybe next year.

A little home cooking in Cobourg. . .

The only thing book reps really dislike about travelling is that often you have to stop for a meal along the highway and the pickings can be pretty slim. We've been spending a lot of time this fall on the stretch of the 401 between Ottawa and Toronto and the 5-6 hour drive necessitates at least one meal stop. And just by chance on Friday night as two of us were coming back from Prescott we found a terrific little gem (we were talking so much in the car, we didn't really notice where we were and just decided to get off at the next exit with a food sign, which turned out to be Cobourg) where we discovered The Buttermilk Cafe on the main downtown street, just opposite the town hall.

Oh bliss - just what a weary, hungry rep longs for - delicious, healthy home-cooking (trans-fat free no less), friendly staff, cosy, shabby chic decor with a sophisticated twist, discreet music in the background that isn't blaring your eardrums and did I mention the food? I highly recommend their French onion soup and they have a buttermilk lemon pie to die for ! Very reasonably priced as well. They are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I think we've found our new favourite pitstop. And yes, they do very good lattes as well.

On the road in Seattle. . .

I've come to the beautiful city of Seattle for a few days inbetween conferences. It's my first visit and I'm loving the vibrancy of the streets (and their steepness - I adore cities on hills), the fact that coffee shops have latte happy hours starting at 7am, the long pedestrian paths along the waterfront, the terrific bookshops, the shoe shops, the seafood, and of course I had to check out their new main library.

While the design has had its critics, I quite liked it. It certainly stands out among its neighbouring buildings (I never have a problem if a library wants to draw attention to itself, architectually or otherwise). and once inside, all the floors are flooded with natural light which allows for very comfortable reading. The chairs are extremely comfy and well-padded, and though there is a lot of open space, the acoustics are such that you don't hear a lot of echoing voices or computer tapping. The third photo with the Dewey Decimal numbers on the floor is part of their four floor spiral system. You can follow the gentle ramp continuously through all the non-fiction sections, leading to the magazines and documents. The red stairs lead up to the fourth floor which contains meeting rooms - the walls, ceilings and floors are all painted different shades of red.

And there's a great view of the city high up on the tenth floor.

On the road in Vancouver (again). . .

I'm back in Vancouver for two conferences, the first one being the Canadian Library Association conference. It's wonderfully bright and sunny in the city and despite getting up yesterday at an ungodly 3:45 am to catch a 7:00 flight, I'm feeling surprisingly energetic. One of things I love about Vancouver is all the lush foliage. Coming into the city from the airport along Granville Street, it's impossible not to admire the enormous hedges (hiding many a secret garden, I'm sure) and the multiple varieties of topiary - all on a huge, gigantic scale. There is so much construction of high-rise condos going up everywhere in the city, and yet inbetween the bustle and dust, one stumbles on the odd pedestrian square - a tiny little oasis of verdant green which is so pleasing to the eyes. Such as this:

I've come with lots of reading material as usual, but for the first time, some of it is in a new format. My company has recently issued some Sony Readers to the reps in order for us to download manuscripts of upcoming books. Now, I've been the biggest sceptic of electronic reading devices in the past, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how light and small this gadget is (it's slightly larger than a mass market book and very slim - fits easily into a purse) and how comfortable reading the type is. You have a choice of three font sizes and I had no problems with eye strain reading for a solid two hours on the flight. I love the environmental benefits of saving all that paper and also it's ideal for travelling - manuscripts can weigh a ton. Currently I've brought nine with me on the Sony reader - I'd never have been able to pack that many into a suitcase. So, for work purposes - I absolutely love it. But then manuscripts are not books - they are just large and heavy piles of paper.

So would I use the Sony Reader as a consumer and book buyer? No - I don't think they can ever replace actual books, especially for the generations that have grown up with the real thing. (What the future kids may start to read with is anyone's guess). I can see a healthy market however, for the Sony Reader in downloading academic textbooks and journals, travel guides and other reference material. If the technology improves so that one can scroll through the pages very quickly (say as fast as scrolling through songs on an iPOD), then I'd definately load one up with several dictionaries, a thesaurus, language verb tense guides, maps, and other reference material and carry it everywhere. But for fiction and trade non-fiction, it just can't replace the aesthetics of an actual book (at least not for me). It can't replicate the tactile feel of the paper and the joy of gazing on a beautiful cover. I also am constantly dog-earring pages, underlining passages, and writing notes in the margins of my books and while the future technology will probably allow one to simulate these thing electronically - I want to continue to do it in my own handwriting; I want to make my books my own. So I don't think either the industry or book lovers need to panic. Yet.

And in addition to my nine electronic manuscripts, I still packed two books and two printed galleys and I'll be hitting more than a few bookstores on this trip.

And our final destination. . .

We made it to Jasper where the warmest day of our two week trip came on the day we had to go home. But it was well worth the drive and the weather; it was a wonderful and busy library show. Thanks to everyone who came out to our Dewey Diva presentations and to our booths.

Back home now for one day before heading off to sales conference. After talking about books non-stop for two weeks, my mind has temporarily gone to mush, so today it's DVD recommendations as apart from a long afternoon nap, I've been prone on my sofa in front of the television set. When I'm tired and drained, I need something fun and silly but also really clever in its way. Enter a young Maurice Chevalier.

Criterion has recently released a wonderful collection of four Ernst Lubitsch musicals from the late 1920s and early 1930s. These were made before the "moral" censorship codes came to Hollywood and the visual and verbal sexual puns come fast and furious and are fairly hilarious. I've now seen two of them - Love Parade in which Chevalier's military attache character woos and weds the queen of "Sylvania" played by Jeanette Macdonald, only to find that a prince consort has very little power over his wife. In The Smiling Lieutenant, Chevalier plays a Viennese soldier (with a strong French accent) who winks and laughs at his violin-playing girlfriend (a beautiful Claudette Colbert) just as the king and princess of "Flausenthurm" pass by in a carriage (Flausen means silly ideas in German). The princess (played by Miriam Hopkins) believes Chevalier was laughing at her and it causes a bit of a diplomatic incident, made worse when she falls in love with him too. Colbert realizing that the girl, "who starts with breakfast never makes it to dinner" reluctantly gives up Chevalier to the princess but not before giving her make-over tips in the funny number "Jazz up your Lingerie". Honestly, if you are a fan of musicals you really need to buy or rent this set.

Then I turned to an old favourite, but just as goofy. Carefree is one of the ten movies Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made together, all of which have crazy, implausible plots, but really who cares? In this one, Astaire is a psychoanalyst who is trying to help his friend's fiancee (played by Rogers) to make a commitment to marriage. Rogers ends up dreaming about Astaire and falls in love with him instead and after many hypnosis crises, all ends happily. This movie has one of the best dance numbers ever as Astaire and Rogers bounce off furniture and twirl all around a clubhouse to "The Yam". Ah, if all of life's problems could be solved just as easily by dancing to songs about vegetables.

We're going to the birds. . .

I'm hanging out today in an Edmonton hotel preparing for fall sales conference next week. Sales reps literally get boxes filled with catalogue and information sheets on the books, along with manuscripts or excerpts, background information about the authors, reviews of previous books etc. It can all be a bit overwhelming. But one of my favourite ways to prepare and make notes on the new books is to listen to the editorial presentations on the audio CDs that my publishers provide - which is what I am doing this morning. The editors have lived with these books for months and their personal anecdotes and passions can go a long way towards helping us develop our key selling pitches. Plus, they are crucial for getting the reps enthusiastic about reading the books. I've always maintained this energy has to start right from the get-go; if the reps aren't excited by the books then we can't get the booksellers and librarians interested and in turn they won't pass the enthusiasm on to their consumers or patrons. So much about the book business is word of mouth.

We'll be previewing the fall season for you in a few weeks with our picks for must-reads, but in the meantime, I'll tease you with the covers of two highly anticipated Canadian novels, that I'm certainly looking forward to reading - The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews and The Origin of Species by Nino Ricci, both out in September. I'm posting the covers because I think they are both stunningly beautiful but also in honour of my colleague whose love of bird-watching has been badly hampered by the snow we've been travelling through in Alberta this week (sorry, geese and gulls don't count). We have seen some fairly large magpies however.

We made it!

Whew. It was a bit of a white-knuckle ride but we made it safely to Edmonton and in time for our afternoon presentation. Rosalyn was our awesome driver - there were a few scary moments where the snow was blowing so much that visibility was completely nil, but she never lost her cool composure. We were a bit unnerved to see so many trucks and cars in the ditches (we stopped counting after about 40) and so it's been a stressful and rather exhausting day, but the roads do seem much better now and should be fine for driving to our next stop - Jasper. If any of you are going to the Alberta Library Conference, do stop by our booths and say hello. We'll also be doing two Dewey Diva sessions on Friday and hope to see you there and at the keynote talk that evening by Dave Bidini and Guy Vanderhaeghe.
And now I need to soak in a hot bath for a really, really, really long time.

In which we attempt to get to Edmonton. . .

Just got a group e-mail from back at the office apologizing for the air conditioning being on the brink with promises it will be working soon. Sigh.
The snow has stopped in Calgary and so we're off to try and make it to our afternoon presentation in Edmonton. There's a bit of the highway closed due to a jack-knifed tractor trailer but I missed the bit on the news that said which side of the highway was closed. Anyways, if we're late, you'll know where we are. . .

A Winter's Tale. . .

Once upon a time there were three Dewey Divas who travelled around the country spreading the word about great books to librarians across the land. At the end of each day, the Divas were tired and all they really wanted was to crawl into bed with a good book, read for a few hours and then have a good night's sleep. In order to achieve this, they needed comfortable beds and lots of firm pillows for propping up backs against hard headboards. At the first hotel they came to, the pillows were too thin. At the second one, the pillows were a little firmer but too small. At the third hotel there were very firm pillows but not enough of them (one Diva had read about an author who, while on a book tour wrote that the ultimate in travelling luxury was seven frilly pillows in one bed, and she had coveted this experience ever since). In the Kingdom of Alberta the weather turned nasty and all roads to the Northern City of Edmonton were deemed too dangerous to travel on. The Divas were forced to find a castle in Calgary to seek shelter from the blowing snow and the frigid temperatures. Luckily, the good librarians of Calgary had given the Divas three trusty guides - the "Li-bear-ians" pictured above. They came with magical scrolls that read:

On a cold winter day,
I'm tucked in a nook;
I'm not hibernating,
I'm reading a book!

And these guides led the weary Divas to Castle Hyatt where they not only found food and shelter but large beds with EIGHT! firm if not frilly pillows. And the Divas rejoiced and were able to rest and read. Tomorrow they would continue their journey north but they would never forget the kindness and enthusiasm of the Calgary librarians.

Snowbound in Calgary. . .

Just wanted to say hello to my colleagues back in Toronto who are basking in summer sunshine. This is the view outside of our Calgary hotel where we arrived last night to minus 11 temperatures and blowing snow. We had lots of delays at the airport getting in and eventually got transferred to an earlier delayed flight 20 gates away (though to our delight we were upped to business class which got us a hot towel, free wine, more leg room, and a cheese and crackers plate with grapes). Unfortunately our luggage arrived an hour later on the original flight and so it was close to midnight before we checked in to our hotel. We didn't bring any winter boots with us, so we're essentially snowbound today. But we have all the essentials with us - lots of chocolate (courtesy of a raid we did on a Purdy's Chocolate shop in Richmond - we recommend the dark orange chocolate, the chocolate covered marshmallows and the blueberry & almond chocolate bars), high speed internet, and of course lots of books and manuscripts. It's really quite like a slumber party. The hotel doesn't have a restaurant or room service so we'll have to order in a pizza for dinner. There are very comfy beds though and the pillowcases are embroidered at the edges with the words "Firm" or "Soft"; we get two of each which is a nice touch. The snow has muffled any city noises and so if I squint or take out my contact lenses, I can almost believe I've escaped to a cabin in the woods. Almost.

I can recommend two recent YA novels with an Alberta connection. Afrika by Colleen Craig begins on an airplane as 13 year old Kim is excited to be leaving her hometown of Calgary en route to her mother Riana's birthplace - South Africa. Riana is a journalist covering the Truth and Reconciliation trials as the country tries to come to grips with its apartheid history. The tragic and graphic stories that she hears take a toll on Riana's mental health and Kim has to cope not only with her changed mother, but going to school in a new country with very different social and cultural codes. She becomes friends with a boy whose father's killer is soon to testify and together they embark on a quest to discover the truth about Kim's own father, who she has never met. There are many novels available that explore the immigrant experience in Canada, but not that many that focus on second generation Canadians going back to their parents' countries and reconnecting with their roots. This novel fills that void and also provides an interesting portrait of contemporary South Africa as it continues to grapple with its past.

In Porcupine by Meg Tilly, 12 year old tomboy Jack (short for Jacqueline), has to grow up fast when her father is killed fighting in Afghanistan and her mother crumbles under the grief. Jack and her two younger siblings are dumped at their great-grandmother's farm in Alberta. The children have to deal with feeling abandoned by their mother while continually worried that their prickly, elderly relative, who previously never even knew they existed, will turn her back on them as well. This book made me cry quite unabashedly (fortunately not in public). Jack's complicated relationships with her siblings are poignantly written, in particular her attempts to help her young brother Simon who has a reading disability. Childhood shouldn't be this tough and confusing and I think this novel is a very powerful reminder of how quickly and completely a tragedy can break down a family. And it offers hope in personal courage, integrity and love without being saccharine or tying everything up neatly with a pat ending. I don't know if there is a sequel in the works but Jack was definately one young female character I wanted to keep on cheering for.