{"id":25433,"date":"2019-12-18T19:13:21","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T00:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25433"},"modified":"2019-12-18T19:13:30","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T00:13:30","slug":"make-way-for-the-christmas-hush-is-timely-tale-by-aurora-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/make-way-for-the-christmas-hush-is-timely-tale-by-aurora-author\/","title":{"rendered":"Make Way for the Christmas Hush is timely tale by Aurora author"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You know them all \u2013 they are all around is: that one\nfriend who is the life and soul of the holiday party, almost to the point where\nit\u2019s just a bit too much; that one friend who is a veritable whirlwind as they\ncheck things off their holiday to-do list; the one friend who, for one reason\nor another, finds themself down as the holiday approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, if you haven\u2019t had time to take a moment and reflect\non the spirit of the Christmas season, it might be time to \u201cMake Way for the\nChristmas Hush.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMake Way for the Christmas Hush\u201d, the latest book\nwritten and illustrated by local author Tim Huff incorporates all these\ncharacters and more as \u201cThe Christmas Hush\u201d takes \u201ca wild journey through a\npanorama of festive scenarios\u201d while bringing the season into perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, the titular \u201cChristmas Hush\u201d is not necessarily a\n\u201cwhat\u201d but a \u201cwho\u201d as they travel the heady world into the holidays, learning\nthings from the different moods and personalities encountered along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the fifth children\u2019s book written by Mr. Huff,\nwho has previously tackled the issues of homelessness, disabilities, Truth\n& Reconciliation, and fear and anxiety in his works for children and adults\nalike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Huff first felt the spark of writing as a teen\ngrowing up in Toronto. A member of a band, they often played in prisons and\ndetention centres where they formed \u201ca love for kids who needed a second\nchance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His philanthropic work began in his early 20s working at\na drop-in centre for homeless youth in Downtown Toronto, a sector in which he\nworked for more than 20 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Balancing this drive for social justice with a passion\nfor art and animation, his plate was even fuller working with kids with varying\ndegrees of ability including summer camps and other programs, all of which\nhelped inform his work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He now dedicates his time with The Compassion Series, a\nroster of programs intended to create a \u201cunique hub of creative, interactive,\nrelational and live resources addressing complex Canadian social justice and\nhumanitarian issues\u201d for kindergarten-aged kids all the way through adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proceeds from \u201cMake Way or the Christmas Hush\u201d will go\ndirectly back into the Compassion Series. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are things as a person who committed themselves to\nsocial justice issues since I was a teenager that inspire my writing,\u201d Mr. Huff\nexplains. \u201cThe things that I am compelled by and feel led to, those are the\nthings I want to write about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce you know someone is actually going to hear your\nvoice in what you have written, there\u2019s something more electric about that in\nwriting diaries for yourself. You speak your heart, but you speak to touch\nother people. It\u2019s one thing to write for your family and friends, but to think\ntotal strangers might think, \u2018Wow, this is speaking to me,\u2019 is inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Mr. Huff first started writing adult fiction \u2013\nand continues to do so to this day \u2013 he made a conscious decision to take the\nissues that were important to them and tailor them to children. But there was\nalso a conscious decision to not write a traditional children\u2019s book; he wanted\nsomething that would be visually appealing to children, with a message they\ncould understand, but would also be a book from which adults could get\nsomething in equal measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps above all, he wants readers to have fun with the\nstories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMake Way for the Christmas Hush was written with the goal to write a multigenerational book,\u201d he says. \u201cWhether you\u2019re four-years-old or 84-years-old, by the time you finish the book, I want you to say, \u2018Oh, this book was just for me\u2019 and that there was no age limit. My adult books are definitely for the 16+ because some of the stories are a little bit more intense coming from the streets and the worlds of everything from drug dealers, to sex trafficking, and everything in between. They are more faith-based adult books, meaning it is not a hard press, but, as a Christian, [thinking about] where is God in all this mess? Does he really exist, or is it just blowing smoke? My kids books, the Compassion Series, they are multi-denominational. Perhaps in a little bit of the way when you watched the Charlie Brown Christmas Special as a kid, you just loved it, but it wasn\u2019t until you were adult that you realised the depth of it. It\u2019s that same type of sense that could be in here for everybody. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I first started as a writer, I was a bit anxious\nthinking total strangers were going to read my work, but over time you become\nsmart while you\u2019re being vulnerable in what you might think or feel. I need to\nspeak the truth and not offend people \u2013 the mission to be that kind of writer,\nI think is really cathartic. In one sense it helps you to be a better person on\nyour own but it also proves that we can have that kind of language. The idea is\nto invite people to a better place and not guilt people to a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Huff\u2019s \u201cMake Way for the Christmas Hush\u201d is available from retail booksellers and online platforms like Chapters Indigo and Amazon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know them all \u2013 they are all around is: that one friend who is the life and soul of the holiday party, almost to the point where it\u2019s just a bit too much; that one friend who is a veritable whirlwind as they check things off their holiday to-do list; the one friend who, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/2019-12-18-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Cd","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 13:53:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}