CORE: STORIES AND POEMS CELEBRATING THE LIVES OF ORDINARY PEOPLE WHO CALL TORONTO THEIR HOME Collected by Ruth Johnson. Toronto, Core, c1982. Distributed by Core, Box 186, Station H, Toronto, ON, M4C5J2. 111pp, paper, $8.95. ISBN 0-9691146-0-5. Grades 6 and up. Reviewed by Joan McGrath. Volume 11 Number 2. 1983 March. This loving tribute to author Ruth Johnson's "home territory," Cabbage-town, is a glowing example of the celebration of the neighbourhood, proof, if it were needed, that the qualities of pride, generosity, neighbourliness, and general warm-heartedness sometimes pronounced to be lost to big-city life, flourish exuberantly if you know where to look for them. The people who write about Cabbage-town, past and present, are the same people who give it the richness and flavour that still sets it apart from the rest of Toronto. This book is dedicated to the most famous of the storytellers, Hugh Garner, the literary patron saint of Cabbagetown. Some others of the writers and artists may one day match his fame; meanwhile, their combined efforts have produced a handsome work honouring that most important and necessary of all groups, "the ordinary people" who become less and less ordinary, the closer you look. Joan McGrath, Toronto Board of Education, Toronto, ON.