Grace Marks, the Victorian servant who inspired Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace ... Elizabeth Workman, a Sarnia housewife who turned on her abusive husband and paid the price for it ... Evelyn Dick, a glamourous 1940s party girl who Hamiltonians still talk about ... These are just some of the murderers featured in Lethal Ladies, a collection of accou …

Alecia is about to be adopted by a new stepfather, her soccer team, the Burrards, is preparing for the championship game, and a cute new boy has arrived on the scene. But there are even more changes on the horizon. The team's game is suffering as the players get distracted by other interests. If the Burrards are to make it to the finals, they must …

When Vicky and her mom pack up and move across the city to a new neighborhood, it means switching schools and leaving behind her best friend and her soccer team. Now she'll have to try out for goalkeeper with her former rivals, deal with racism at her new school, and struggle to maintain loyalty to her old friends while making new ones. Vicky is aw …

Murder, the Mob, and a 1964 1/2 Mustang set the stage for this debut crime novel
Dominic DiPietro paints cars in his brother's auto body shop in Hamilton by day. By night, he moonlights chopping cars for a brutal Romanian mobster, Bela Nastasi. Painting wrecked cars is easy for Dominic, but his true passion lies in classic cars. So when a friend d …

While visiting her grandparents' farm, city girl Anna decides she wants a pet. A cow? A snake? Anna realizes that these creatures won't be happy in the city, and she doesn't want a pet unless it's happy. Grandma and Grandpa have just the right thing for Anna.
Short chapters and easy-to-read text make this story perfect for beginning readers.

Michael Strike is captain of both the school soccer and chess teams. He's got his eye on fellow soccer player and overachiever Miriah, the founder of the youth organization War Orphans of the World. Miriah is quick to befriend a new student, Zahir Jamiat, who has recently moved from the Middle East, but Michael sees the newcomer as a rival. When M …

"Those darn cows!" said Tod. "I wish they'd just get lost!"
But when the cows do get lost, it's up to Tod Bean, his sister Jen Bean, and their black dog Zip to find them and bring them home. Tod and Jen learn that on a farm, everyone helps.
Short chapters and easy-to-read text make this story a perennial favourite.

Noah Brusso was small in size, but feisty. After winning a bare-knuckle boxing tournament at age ten, he found his way out of poverty. Noah changed his name to Tommy Burns, a tough Irish fighting name, and boxed his way to the top. In 1906, he won both the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship and the fame he longed for. At a time when few other bo …

When the Grade Four teacher at Trillium Elementary in Toronto assigns a new project, Jude Bhandari is sure that he'll be paired up with his best friend Sanjay. Everyone knows they both love everything to do with outer space. But instead Jude is paired up with the tough new kid from England who likes to pick fights. Will Jude be able to find common …

Hockey is all Tyler ever wanted to do. But when he finally makes the Select team, things aren't how he imagined it. Tyler divides his time between playing for fun in house league and playing high-stakes hockey in Select. But trying to succeed at both is wearing him down: the house league team accuses him of holding back, and the pressure to win dur …

Nothing seems to be going right for Jane's soccer team this year. Then, to make things worse, some of the girls' stuff starts going missing. Everyone points the finger at the new girl, but Jane is determined to find the real culprit . . . and get her team back on track.

Trapped is a story that shows how tiny rumours can have huge consequences, and h …

The Brunswick Valley School soccer team are not just bad -- they're terrible. They haven't won a game all season and they bicker endlessly amongst themselves. They're such a disaster that their coach resigns in disgust. When, by an administrative anomaly, they qualify for the season playoffs, the only person they can find to act as coach is their f …

Zach and Zoe are camping with their parents in a British Columbia forest when a girl at another campsite wanders off. It takes all of the twins' smarts and know-how to rescue the lost camper and get back to their campsite safely. From the fear of wild fires to the fear of wild bears, the twins are in for one wild, wet ride.

Birch Hill Swim Club has a new coach and the team's star swimmer, eighth-grader Lasha Boyko, couldn't be more excited. Even though the lanky swimmer comes from an immigrant Ukrainian family of modest means, she dreams big. The coach has a track record of producing Olympians and Lasha wants to be her next star. The hitch is that she's one of the fie …

Goalkeepers don't wear glasses...

Lately, the star goalkeeper on Linh-Mai's soccer team has been acting a little strange -- missing easy saves, passing to the wrong teammates, not noticing Linh-Mai's new glasses... Linh-Mai thinks the goalkeeper needs glasses of his own, but the problem may turn out to be more serious.

Shortlisted for the Hackmatack …

Sable Island has indelibly marked all who have come into contact with it - by accident or by choice. Since 1583, 350 ships have wrecked against its shape-shifting shores as if lured into a trap by a whispering siren wind. This exciting collection casts explorers, castaways, pirates, settlers, and the quintessential symbols of survival - the Sable I …

Alecia's soccer team, the Vancouver Burrards, is the one stable thing in her life. Everything else is new or changing: a new school, a new stepfather.

When Anne, Alecia's friend and the Burrards' best player, decides to quit playing, Alecia decides to fight to keep the team together. She soon learns, however, that life's hardest matches are fought o …

Canada's political leaders tirelessly proclaim it the best country on earth in which to live, a land of plenty and of boundless opportunity for all. Canada's Aboriginal peoples view things differently: after decades of living in legislatively determined Third World conditions, many are demanding the tools with which to develop their communities and …

Written by a respected western Canadian writer, Debts to Pay offers a fresh point of view on the perennial questions of Quebec's place in the Canadian federation.
Rejecting the hardline positions of both sovereigntists and federalists, Conway attempts to understand Quebec's demands by understanding its history. Through a discussion of relations be …

Alecia's Vancouver soccer team, the Burrards, are a good, hard-fighting squad--her teammates are her friends and her coach is her loving step-dad.
When Lexi, a new kid, joins the team, her bad attitude makes things fall apart fast. Alecia decides to find out what makes Lexi so difficult, and to hold the team together, on the field and off.
Offsid …

Fourteen-year-old Daisy Howson is a take-charge kind of girl, maybe even something of a control freak. She means well--she just wants everything to run smoothly, especially on her relay team. But when someone tries to sabotage the boys' relay team Daisy suspects her own team may be involved. Can she sort it all out and fix everything up again befor …

Toby's always had a weight issues, thanks in part to the free food his team gets from his friend Maddie's dad's restaurant and their soccer team's sponsor, Vinnie's. But Vinnie's sponsorship also provides the kids with team shirts, equipment, even cleats for some of the players. So when a city-wide ban is placed on sponsorship of teams by companies …

Jeff is not impressed when his family moves from Toronto to small-town Nova Scotia. He doesn't know anyone and there isn't much to do--until he joins his new school's basketball team.
Jeff is fast on the court and has a sharp jump shot, and soon he's hanging out with with his new teammates. Some of them are pretty rough, though, and when they sta …

Lizzie's just been named captain of the soccer team -- the boys' soccer team -- but some of her teammates aren't playing nice. Will it be boys vs. girls forever, or can Lizzie think of a way to settle the score, once and for all?

Lizzie's Soccer Showdown is the story of a strong young woman who, when faced with prejudice, reacts with grace under pre …

Nobody loves nuclear weapons--except their powerfully placed defenders in government, their supporters in the military, and terrorists. When President Barack Obama brought his vision of a nuclear weapons-free world to the White House, he re-energized the peace movement. Today the historical momentum to rid the world of nuclear weapons is once again …

First published in 1990, this book charts the emergence and rapid growth of Canada's powerful seniors' movement.

Seniors' political clout has been increasingly evident since the mid-eighties, when their protest convinced Brian Mulroney to drop his efforts to limit pension benefits. Gifford's book provides a short history of seniors' organizing and t …

Economic integration is one of the key issues of the 1990s. In this book, Bob Chodos, Rae Murphy, and Eric Hamovitch consider the implications of globalization for Canada. While they believe the move to integration is inevitable, they argue for building alliances that are alternatives to the models offered by the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, t …

This is a story not of military campaigns and grand strategy, but the joys and sorrows of life on a more intimate battlefield--the battlefield of the French resistance.
Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Gladys Arnold was sent to Paris by Canadian Press in October 1939, and was the only Canadian reporter to experience the invasion of France by the G …

The arrival of Europeans in the New World forever changed the fate of the Beothuk. As more settlers arrived, the Beothuk were forced inland. They were tracked, abducted, and even murdered. Their plight was epitomized by the tragic story of Shanawdithit - the last of the Beothuk.

Published in 1989, The Modern North examines the experience of the peoples of the Yukon and Northwest Territories from the Berger inquiry of 1975 and on-wards.

Untangling the varied strands that make up the Northern tapestry--its resourceful peoples, its awesome physical landscape, its political and economic agenda in the late 1980s--they portray in …

Canada and Reagan Challenge, first published in 1982, has gained wide acclaim for its analysis of the crisis of 1981 - when Ottawa and Washington went head-to-head over the economic nationalism of the National Energy Program and the Foreign Investment Review Agency. Stephen Clarkson's study demonstrated that the crisis extended to a great many fro …

First published in 1983, this book reports from the middle of the nuclear arms race, when the world's two superpowers, the US and the USSR, were adding increasingly sophisticated weapons to their arsenals, reaching a point where they could effectively wipe each other out many times over. Some of Canada's most distinguished critics of the nuclear ar …

Written in the early 80s, this book brings to life the fascinating story of pipeliners, politicians and the chase for the big energy dollars.

Fran?ois Bregha discusses the implications of the federal Liberal government's 1980 decision to support the prebuild of a section of the Alaska Highway pipeline project, permitting the export of Alberta gas to …

Canada has always been known as a good place to live: a tolderant, prosperous, stable country that treats its citizens fairly and protects the weakest in society. Yet during the past seven years, it has started to change into a harder, more mean-spirited place. What is going on?

According to political scientist Christian Nadeau, this transformation …

How did the son of Irish immigrants outrow blueblood scullers from Oxford and Cambridge to become one of the most famous athletes of his time? Award-winning author Wendy A. Lewis recounts the compelling story of the "Boy in Blue," from his childhood on the Toronto Islands, where he rowed himself to school on the mainland every day, to laurels won a …

Lionel Conacher excelled at football, hockey, baseball, boxing, wrestling, and lacrosse. He taught himself how to play and he worked hard, and it paid off. He supported his struggling family, never giving up or letting people down. He was given the nickname Big Train because he was unstoppable on the football field when he ran through the oppositio …

Until a mere generation ago, black football players were largely unproven as quarterbacks since they were excluded from a position that demanded strategic thinking instead of brute force. So, talented players headed north, rising to stardom in Canada. John Danakas profiles the pioneering athletes who donned new team colours and changed their sport. …

In November 2008 the opposition came very close to replacing Stephen Harper with a new government. It was an astonishing few days for Canadian politics; opposition party leaders came together, announcing a formal coalition of the Liberals and the NDP, while the Bloc offered guaranteed support for the new government in the House of Commons.
This ca …

All C.J. has ever wanted is to play basketball--one day pro basketball. Already in grade nine she's the captain of her high school team in Naskup, British Columbia.
But her success comes at a price: her teammate Debi can't accept someone so young as captain, and is making C.J.'s life as difficult as possible. To make matters much worse, one morni …

The Cape Breton Grizzly Bears are a bad news basketball team--they haven't won a single game all season. But the rules say a team from their region has to play in the Nova Scotia Invitational Tournament in Halifax, and they're it.
Their "star" player is the harebrained Chip Carson, whose constant scheming and practical jokes keep his coach and te …

Matthew Eagletail can't wait until his online friend John Salton flies from San Francisco to Bragg Creek, Alberta for a summer visit. John is almost as big a basketball fan as Matt is, and dreams of being the first coach in the NBA to use a wheelchair.
When Matt's sister Jazz tells them about the upcoming Rocky Mountain Summer Basketball League i …

When Jeff Lang lands in Halifax for summer basketball camp, he's ready for red-hot, pumped-up, on-court action. Above all he wants to impress the coaches and make the all-star team.
Soon, however, he's confronted with bizarre roommates, science nerds, and tough rivals determined block him hard at every turn. Struggling to the top proves much toug …

In October 1993, Robert Latimer, a Saskatchewan farmer, decided to end the life of his chronically ill daughter rather than subject her to another painful surgery. Tracy, who had the mental capacity of a five-month-old infant, was twelve at the time of her death. She had already endured multiple operations to correct conditions caused by her severe …

It should be the best week of Jay's life: he's attending a Basketball Nova Scotia Summer Camp and rooming in a real university dorm with his best friend, Mike. But then Mike's older brother, Chad, turns out to be less than the coach Jay expected and the brother Mike had always known. Luckily for Jay, a new teammate and friend has figured out how to …

For nearly 250 years the people who built, defined, and defended Canada relied on horses to help get their job done. One breed stood out during that period for its outstanding role in Canadian life. It's known as "The Canadian, Le Canadien." In 2002, Parliament officially declared The Canadian to be Canada's national horse. The origins of the breed …

A lively book illustrated with archival photos, Secrets of Lake Simcoe is a valuable addition to local history collections and provides a refreshing way for anyone to view what some consider to be Canada's sixth Great Lake.

At the heart of central Ontario, Lake Simcoe has played an important role in the province's history for hundreds of years. Toda …

Renna Rashad is not only captain, she's also de facto coach of her basketball team. But when a rival from an opposing team takes a vacant spot on the team, Renna faces some tough choices she wasn't prepared for. It starts with a shove in the hall, then a slight on the team's on-line blog, followed by exclusion from a team social event, and finally …

Katie plans to win the junior girls' barrel race at her Alberta town's Heritage Days Rodeo. She has a good chance on her fast, sure-footed trail horse Fudge.

As the day approaches, however, her older brother John claims he needs to ride Fudge, and their parents back him up. Katie scrambles to locate another mount. When she finally finds an all-black …

D'Arcy is a 16-year-old overachiever and a budding newshound. When her classmate Zania's mother goes missing, D'Arcy thinks she's found the mother of all scoops. She's determined to solve the mystery and capture it all on film. But Zania's troubles are no game. She suspects her mother's drug-dealing boyfriend may be behind her sudden disappearance …

In this sequel to Lightning Rider, January and her family have taken in an RCMP summer student as a boarder. When Willow Whitecloud pulls up on her Kawasaki ZX-10R, January takes an instant liking to her. Willow becomes both a friend and a spiritual guide, who helps January connect with her Native heritage. But January is shocked when a number of c …