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Giant is a story of an eleven year old Polish girl, Gosia, who is big for her age. She is
a self proclaimed giant and she grows up in Gdansk in the 1980's during the solitary movement
in Poland with her grandparents and a mother who is away in Toronto being a nanny and a
housekeeper. Gosia wants to reunite with her mother but does so in really unlikely circumstances.
Once she is in Toronto, it leads to a new life for her.
North York and specifically Willowdale plays a vital role in Giant. It is the place that
Gosia comes to reunite with her mother. It becomes the place where she finds herself,
finds her identity. She was bullied in Poland in her school for being big and awkward. She
is bullied in her school in Toronto when she first comes here but it's also a place where
she finds people who are like her. They maybe not of the same culture or race but they are
like her in many other more important ways and Toronto becomes home for her.
The idea for the book came from my own family's experiences emigrating from Poland to Toronto.
I would like readers to take away from Giant I think a sense of empathy. I remember one
early reader telling me when she finished the book the scenes and memories in Giant
were her own. That's how she felt. With that kind of intimacy comes a real understanding
of what somebody leaves her children behind for two years to take care of other peoples
kids in Toronto must feel like, and those kids are left behind. So I want readers to
take away a feeling of empathy for people who come to this City.
I definitely see myself as a Toronto writer. Toronto is home. This is where I've spent
nearly three-quarters of my life. This is where I write my stories. My stories seem
to all centre around Toronto somehow or about characters who grow up in Toronto or came
to Toronto. I see myself as a Polish-Canadian writer, also I see myself as just a writer
sometimes but definitely one whose roots are in this City.