"The book on Booky's Crush"
Maria Kuback

Booky's Crush might have been conceived as a nostalgia piece far removed from modern reality but given the current economic meltdown, CBC's Depression-era family drama suddenly seems strangely relevant.

The third in the series of made-for-TV Booky movies is a sweet little story about the everyday trials and tribulations of Beatrice "Booky" Thomson, a precocious 11-year-old girl played by young Toronto actress Rachel Marcus (who was nominated for a Gemini for last year's Booky and the Secret Santa).

But growing up in 1930s Toronto was a time of hardship and uncertainty — something audiences can relate to in 2009.

"When we started these films three years ago, nobody saw that the bottom was going to be ripped out quite as dramatically and quickly as it has," says Canadian icon Megan Follows, who plays Booky's mother, Francie (a role which garnered her Gemini nods in the two previous Booky films).

On the surface, Booky inhabits a simpler, gentler, sepia-toned time when kids played hopscotch and mothers darned socks and baked pies.

She's in the throes of her first crush, having fallen for the new boy at school. Like most 11-year-old girls, she's also concerned with looking good and is willing to suffer to be beautiful: she falls in love with a pair of to-die-for Mary Janes and wears them bravely, even though they're painfully uncomfortable.

But she has other, bigger worries as well.

The Thomson family is struggling to make ends meet and the stress is taking its toll on Booky's father, a harness maker who has been forced to take a factory job to keep food on the table and, well, shoes on his children's feet.

It's up to Booky's sensible mother to smooth over the rough edges and help the family cope with everything from boy problems and footwear to more serious issues — like keeping her husband Thomas from slipping into despair.

Follows' real-life partner Stuart Hughes plays her husband in the movie, and the dynamic between them is one of the quiet pleasures of the Booky films, which offer a low-key look at everyday life in a time both like and unlike our own. (A fourth Booky film is in the works).

"They're very subtle, gentle kind of points that seem to happen in these pieces," Follows observes in a telephone conversation from Los Angeles, where she lives when she's not in Toronto working in theatre.

"There's not a tremendous amount going on, obviously. It is somewhat a slice of life."

Still, there's plenty for kids to relate to, argues the 11-year-old Grade 6 student who plays Booky with a mixture of pluck and wide-eyed innocence.

After all, Rachel points out, Booky cares about the same things modern Canadian girls care about: "boys and boy problems."

Booky's Crush airs Feb. 15 on CBC TV at 8 ET.

Source: Canada.com via Canwest News Service