The stories in this collection emerged from weekly sessions when women and children from the east side of Vancouver met to tell, read and write stories.

The sessions, facilitated by established storytellers, were part of a project called Spreading the Word that took place at the MacDonald Elementary School and Britannia Community Centre between September 1995 and June 1996. Spreading the Word was designed to make clear the connections between the telling, writing and publishing of stories, for both first-time and established storytellers.

I had to leave Vietnam in 1986. 1 went by boat. My boat came to Hong Kong Island but we could not get to the island because the wind was so strong, we could not row the boat. My boat had no engine. My boat floated on the sea one month and six days. But the first six days we had food and one month we were without food. We were lucky we had a lot of water. That's why we did not die. The time in the sea I was very hungry and cold.

One morning we heard engine sound from another boat. We were very happy and stood up to call them to come to help but they didn't come and ran away.

From The Boat, by Sau Thi

A copy of change is available for borrowing from Literacy B.C.

The easy-to-read information in this book is designed to help parents with learning disabilities break the cycle of low literacy within their families.

The book is the product of a series of workshops held by Project Literacy Victoria.

Topics covered in the book include:

• Understanding learning disabilities
• Going to bat. helping your child at school
• Managing anger
• Learning together.

Breaking the Cycle is available from Literacy B.C.