Life for early humans wasn't easy. They may have been able to walk on two feet and create tools 4 million years ago, but they couldn't remember or communicate. Fortunately, people got smarter, and things got better. They remembered on-the-spot solutions and shared the valuable information of their experiences. Clubs became swords, caves became huts …

When grade-eight science-project time rolls around, J.J. Murphy skips the beakers and the papiermâché and dives into research about jerks. And idiots. But mostly jerks.

By his own estimation, his science project, On a Scale from Idiot to Complete Jerk, is groundbreaking, exhaustive, highly scientific and seriously worthy of bonus marks. Beginning …

A book about media power, media ethics, media corporations and the need for reliable, unfiltered international news. An excellent introduction to the news for young adults.

Too many of us have no choice about the type of news we receive. Too many of us remain ignorant of major issues and diverse opinions because the news isn't providing them. Over t …

Unable to attend school while she battles cancer, fifteen-year-old Kaleigh Wyse tries to complete her classes online

Developing a science project on astrology, Kaleigh enlists other online learners as study participants. What starts as a collaborative and supportive project based on the scientific method, slowly becomes unwieldy and then flawed when …

What is genocide? Why does it happen, and what can be done to prevent it from happening again? These urgent questions are clearly and concisely explored for young adult readers.

Some view the systematic killing, rape and destruction of homes in Darfur as a grave humanitarian crisis. For others, it’s a clear example of the ultimate crime against hu …

It's 1965. Twenty-two-year-old Linda Wise despairs of escaping her overprotective parents and her hometown, where far too many know she was sexually assaulted as a teenager. Deliverance arrives in the form of marriage to the charismatic, twenty-six-year-old Ronald Brunson, a newly ordained Methodist minister who ignites her passion for social justi …

Fourteen-year-old Simone is having trouble making friends at her new school when her leadership studies class is paired with kindergarten students to mentor throughout the school year.

To her surprise, Simone enjoys the Kinderbuddy Project, and she develops a special friendship with her Kinderbuddy, Lily. But as the bond between Simone and her Kind …

In 1978, when workers at a nearby phosphate refinery learned that the ore they processed was contaminated with radioactive dust, Karen Messing, then a new professor of molecular genetics, was called in to help. Unsure of what to do with her discovery that exposure to the radiation was harming the workers and their families, Messing contacted senior …

Exploring Hamilton through its heritage museums.

Inside Hamilton’s Museums helps to satisfy a growing curiosity about Canada’s steel capital as it evolves into a post-industrial city and cultural destination. With an emphasis on storytelling and unsung heroes, the book identifies where Sergeant Alexander Fraser bayonetted seven enemy soldiers in …

Eating Fire follows in the steps of Riordon’s popular 1996 book Out our way, on gay and lesbian life in the country (BTL, 1996). This new set of tales examines the range in living patterns and relationships among queer families across Canada.

Eating Fire illuminates the rich diversity in which people negotiate their personal and public identities …

In Brink of Reality, Peter Steven examines the convergence of video-art and social-issue documentary, from the 1940s to the present. No other book has explored contemporary Canadian documentary so thoroughly, or provided as broad a view of the state of the art in the 1990s.

An exploration of the unique and unusual places in Ontario that are steeped in history and folklore.

Using updated and archival material from Discover Ontario, a popular radio show that ran from 1987 until 2004, author Terry Boyle invites you to explore the hidden, unusual, and unknown sites and stories from around Ontario.

Revisit an era of mobster …

The threat from above casts a dark shadow.

A man falls to his death from a cliff face in western Scotland. From a distance, another man watches. He approaches the body, tucks a book into the dead man’s pocket, and leaves.

When the Scottish police show visiting Detective Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune the book, he recognizes it as a call for help. …

Rarely a week goes by when juvenile delinquency or the Young Offenders Act are not discussed in the dominant media. Are we witnessing a moral panic over youth crime or a spate of “child-blaming” driven by the politics of law and order? Sangster traces the history of young women and crime and in so doing punctures dozens of myths surrounding the …

What options did Paul Bernardo’s lawyer have when his client directed him to retrieve hidden evidence? Where would David Milgaard be today if a lawyer hadn’t doggedly challenged his murder conviction? And what should a defence lawyer do when told her client is a danger to the public?

In this equally inspiring and troubling book, leading Canadia …

An in-depth study of European immigrants to Canada during the Cold War, Gatekeepers explores the interactions among these immigrants and the “gatekeepers”–mostly middle-class individuals and institutions whose definitions of citizenship significantly shaped the immigrant experience. Iacovetta’s deft discussion examines how dominant bourgeoi …

Even before September 11, 2001, Muslims were often framed by Western media and many non-Muslims as enemies of “freedom” and “progress.” Like other religions, Islam is not without its ongoing tensions and struggles. However, like other religions, there is a depth and richness to the Islamic faith that is too often overlooked because of stere …

Because fear can transform into confidence, recklessness, the kind of power you can't imagine until you're inside it. And then, once you've felt it, you can't feel alive when it's gone. Sophrosyne. You understood this feeling. I know you did, though you never said it. I saw it, instead, on your face when you danced.

Sophrosyne is one of only four …

Real and imagined encounters among Aboriginal peoples, European colonists, Chinese migrants, and mixed-race populations produced racial anxieties that underwrote crossracial contacts in the salmon canneries, the illicit liquor trade, and the (white) slavery scare in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century British Columbia. Colonial Proximities …

Francis Pegahmagabow (1889–1952), a member of the Ojibwe nation, was born in Shawanaga, Ontario. Enlisting at the onset of the First World War, he became the most decorated Canadian Indigenous soldier for bravery and the most accomplished sniper in North American military history. After the war, Pegahmagabow settled in Wasauksing, Ontario. He ser …

It’s the 1960s – the time for equal rights, peace, and love. But for Ellen Manery, it’s the time to work hard and finish high school early. She’d rather be helping out at the university’s medical lab than listening to rock and roll and hanging out with the kids at her high school. Isolated and driven, Ellen feels like she was born an outs …

In 2008 the Canadian government apologized to the victims of the notorious Indian residential school system, and established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose goal was to mend the deep rifts between Aboriginal peoples and the settler society that engineered the system.

Unsettling the Settler Within argues that in order to truly participat …

John Lutz traces Aboriginal people’s involvement in the new economy, and their displacement from it, from the arrival of the first Europeans to the 1970s. Drawing on an extensive array of oral histories, manuscripts, newspaper accounts, biographies, and statistical analysis, Lutz shows that Aboriginal people flocked to the workforce and prospered …

When Mia, a Jewish teenager from Ontario, goes to Israel to spend the summer studying at a yeshiva, or seminary, she wants to connect with the land and deepen her understanding of Judaism.

Once in Israel, Mia's summer plans go astray when she falls in love with a non-Jewish tourist, Andrew. Through him, Mia learns about the Israeli occupation of Pal …

This new edition of this best-selling book presents updated results of over twenty-five years of killer whale research in British Columbia and Washington. Intended for both whale enthusiasts and researchers, it contains the latest information on killer whale natural history and presents a catalogue of close to 300 photographs of "resident" killer w …

The first comprehensive history of the Aboriginal First World War experience on the battlefield and the home front. When the call to arms was heard at the outbreak of the First World War, Canada’s First Nations pledged their men and money to the Crown to honour their long-standing tradition of forming military alliances with Europeans during time …

In the fight against zombies, our most important weapons are our brains. It's time to unleash them. Think you know a thing or two about zombies? Think again. If you’re going to keep your wits – and your brains – about you during a zombie attack, you need expert advice. Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies gathers together an irreverent …

As Tammy Armstrong rode horseback on a one-month sojourn in Iceland, up rose the ley lines that crosshatched the landscape — ancient tracks rife with saga, myth, and human history. In this collection, her poems both respond to W.H. Auden's poetic travelogue, Letters from Iceland, and evoke her raw relationship to the native natural world of North …

At 2:21 am on September 8, 1896, authorities in Nova Scotia killed an innocent man. Peter Wheeler — a "coloured" man accused of murdering a white girl — was strung up with a slipknot noose. The hanging was state-sanctioned but it was a lynching all the same. Now, a re-examination of his case using modern forensic science reveals one of the grea …

Generations of practical and ingenious Maritimers have given the word great things. Since the mid-nineteenth century, scientists have fanned out into the world from colleges and universities that are among the oldest in North America. Great Maritime Achievers in Science and Technology brings together the achievements of more than 30 of these trail- …

This oral autobiography of two remarkable Cree women tells their life stories against a backdrop of government discrimination, First Nations activism, and the resurgence of First Nations communities. Nellie Carlson and Kathleen Steinhauer, who helped to organize the Indian Rights for Indian Women movement in western Canada in the 1960s, fought the …

The Sámi—Indigenous people of northernmost Europe—have relied on Traditional Healing methods over generations. This pioneering volume documents, in accessible language, local healing traditions and demonstrates the effectiveness of using the resources local communities can provide. This collection of essays by ten experts also records how anci …

Is it possible to live forever? People have been trying to figure out a way to escape mortality since, well, forever. This book takes readers on a fast-paced tour of several wacky and wise methods humans have used to try prolonging their lives, from ancient immortality elixirs and quests for a fountain of youth to modern-day research into cryogenic …

A compelling, harrowing, but ultimately uplifting story of resilience and self-discovery.

A Two-Spirit Journey is Ma-Nee Chacaby’s extraordinary account of her life as an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian. From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community riven by poverty and alcoholism, Chacaby’s story is one of endurin …

The current Status criteria of the Indian Act contains descent-based rules akin to blood quantum that are particularly discriminatory against women and their descendants, which author Pamela Palmater argues will lead to the extinguishment of First Nations as legal and constitutional entities. Beginning with an historic overview of legislative enact …

Mythologizing Norval Morrisseau examines the complex identities assigned to Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau. Was he an uneducated artist plagued by alcoholism and homelessness? Was Morrisseau a shaman artist who tapped a deep spiritual force? Or was he simply one of Canada’s most significant artists?

Carmen L. Robertson charts both the colon …