The year is 1935 and Maggie Sullivan's world has fallen apart. Maggie has grown up in a close-knit mining community perched atop a mountain in British Columbia. But now her father has been killed in a mine explosion and she is being forced to leave the only home she has ever known. To make matters worse, she must also leave behind her best friend L …

It's all aboard! for mystery when Dinah Galloway takes the cross-country train from Vancouver to Toronto, to appear on a TV talent show. But will she make it-or be permanently derailed? Along with her sister Madge, and her fellow junior musicians, tree fanatic Pantelli Audia and history buff Talbot St. John, Dinah is shadowed by someone who wants t …

Sable wears only black and has always felt that doom is near. Lacey wears pink and seeks beauty everywhere.

A sadistic art teacher pairs Sable and Lacey together for their final project. The girls have to get to know one another and select a suitable poem for the back of each other's decorative mirror. Sable is less than thrilled at having to spend …

George stood up in the saddle and waved his hand in the air. He went up and down, up and down. The lights of the night sky glittered in his eyes. He would get himself a hat. He would get himself a pair of silver spurs to match his silver saddle. He would blaze a new trail clear across the country! George is back, more popular than ever. And Katie a …

The four volumes of Andrea Spalding's Summer of Magic Quartet are among her most exciting work. The White Horse Talisman was nominated for the Silver Birch, Hackmatack and Manitoba Readers' Choice Awards. Dance of the Stones was also a Silver Birch nominee. Heart of the Hill left one of her four characters in grave danger. Now, as the Dark Being di …

When Dylan Kowolski agrees to create a display for her high school library, she has no idea of the trouble it's going to cause -- for the school principal, her family, her boyfriend Cam and his jock friends, and her best friend Jocelyn. And for Dylan herself. If only her English class had been studying a normal, run-of-the-mill, mundane book like L …

Katie and Rusty are heading East.

Fresh from their thrilling adventures in Alberta, facing down devious developers, the cousins have made their way to Aunt Margaret's farm in Saskatchewan. After rescuing her aunt when she is trapped under a piece of farm equipment and learning of other acts of possible sabotage, Katie decides that she has found anot …

Reg and Keely and Burt and Shawna are back, and ready for new adventures from hunting for treasure to sledding together and building fearsome creatures in the snow.

Asia has lived with elderly Ira and his wife Maddy on their farm for as long as she can remember. When Ira has a heart attack Asia's world is turned upside down. Faced with the possibility of losing the only family she has ever known, Asia is frightened but fascinated by the appearance of a ghost that only she can see and hear.

Voice of the Valley is a poetic, multi-layered, coming-of-age story inspired by the controversial flooding of Saskatchewan's Souris Valley.

Onja Claibourn is almost fifteen. Her world is one of sage, buffalo bills, brown-eyed susans, cactus, flax, buckbrush, foxtail and orange moss—the world of the valley just beyond the family farm. Old roads tw …

The Depression has ruined Henry Dafoe's life: his father has left the family farm to look for work, his mother is sick and now she's decided to send Henry to Nova Scotia to work on his uncle's fishboat. But Henry has other ideas. He runs away from home to join his father, which proves more difficult than he imagined. Alone and scared in a strange c …

Ray Hockaday plays center for the Medicine Hat Tigers in the Western Hockey League. He's spent his hockey career hiding something from the world. When his new Russian room-mate shows up, Ray is assigned to help Vlad get used to life in Canada. What Ray doesn't know is that Vlad is also hiding something. And that secret could get both of them killed …

Chill has always been different, but the way he deals with his disability and his art have given him the power to survive the horrors of high school. When a new teacher arrives, determined to crush his students' spirit, Chill decides to fight back and risk everything. A story of doing the right thing and standing up for yourself—and your friends.

Googol and Googolplex are back from space, ready to continue their scavenger hunt.

Pippa and Troy are eager to help, but runaway bulls and disappearing rainbows make their task difficult. And dangerous!

Over the Rainbow with Googol and Googolplex is the third book in the Googol and Googolplex series.

Northern Ireland. In 1999, one year after the Good Friday peace accord, sectarian violence still runs rampant in Belfast and the hatred between Protestant and Catholic runs deep. Liam O'Donnell's father is a peacemaker to the Catholic community. When twelve-year-old Liam's parents are brutally murdered in front of him, he is frozen in place. But wh …

Yossi Mendelsohn works hard to help his family survive after they flee Russia to find a better life in Montreal. He sells newspapers and carries bundles from the garment factory. Yossi longs to play "le hockey" with the French boys, but he has no skates. When his father falls ill and his sister and her fiancé organize a walkout at the factory, Yos …

The Howling Timberwolves series of Orca Echoes early chapter books offer lots of sports action and humour that will appeal to young boys.

Johnny Maverick and his friends play for the Timberwolves peewee hockey team in the small town of Howling. Tom Morgan has just moved from Toronto and is a talented player. Tom is also very competitive and seems de …

Evie was pregnant and forced to give up the baby. But she can't just leave the child with strangers, especially when she thinks the baby is being neglected. With her boyfriend waiting in the truck, Evie snatches the baby and convinces him to drive her to Montreal where she plans to start a new life with her child. But when the baby won't eat and sh …

Kip's only friends are the members of the Daredevil Club, a club whose mission is to complete seven dangerous dares before their rivals, the Wildmen, complete their list of dares.

Before the cliff-diving accident in which he lost the use of his leg, Kip had been the leader of the Daredevil Club. Now he has difficulty completing the dares and suspect …

Every year, Radim's family has a delicious carp for Christmas dinner, selected from the huge wooden barrels that line the streets of Prague in December. But this year, when Radim sits by the bathtub feeding breadcrumbs to the fish that his father has chosen, he sees more than a delectable meal.

In Carl the Christmas Carp, Ian Krykorka writes a story …

Jay, Kelvin and Cia are The Lunar Ticks, a dedicated band who are convinced they are on their way up. They hope to win an upcoming battle of the bands where the first prize is a full day in a recording studio. Jay is struggling to write new material but finds he lacks the experience to come up with a truly original song. Going up against Indigo Daz …

Dan is not sure he'll survive the boring field trip to a remote heritage farm.

How could a place with no running water, telephone or electricity be anything but dull? The farmer knows nothing about farming and seems angry about having to conduct the tour. And what's with his tattoo? The teacher requests a private word with the farmer and then myster …

When Shawn and Daniel witness a gang beating behind the local mall they flee the scene, terrified that they've been seen.

They recognize one of the attackers as a locally infamous gang member. When they learn that the kid who was attacked is in critical condition, Shawn wants to go to the police, but Daniel convinces him that they are in more danger …

"Slow and steady," that's how you make a grandfather clock. Grandpa should know. He and Cayley have made nineteen clocks together. Now they are making Cayley's very own, a Lord Nelson. Then, one night, Cayley awakes to the sound of a siren. Grandpa is gone. Cayley is scared by what she sees when she is allowed to visit him in the hospital. But scar …

No one knows why she hurt herself, least of all Skey. After five long months in treatment for self-destructive behavior, Skey continues to dream of dark tunnels with mysterious designs carved into their stone walls, a place where she is safe and alone. Then she encounters another dreamer, a boy her own age, dreaming the same dream, wandering the sa …

Jim, Mickey and Lisa belong to a secret club called the Sewer Rats. Every Saturday the Sewer Rats reign supreme in paintball wars held in the city's storm drain system. The new kid, Carter, wants to join, but Lisa doesn't want him in the club. When Carter is hurt in his first paintball war, Jim and Mickey suspect that Lisa planned the accident. The …

When Kyle finds a young dog almost drowned in a heap of seaweed on the beach, he claims the dog as his own and is happy for the first time in a while. He knows that his dog loves him, but whenever they walk on the beach, the dog swims out to sea and doesn't come back until Kyle calls and calls. Then one day, they run into an old man and it turns ou …

Because of a moment of indiscretion, Hope's parents send her to New York to spend the summer with her hipster sister while they travel to Thailand. Miserable, Hope ends up meeting Nat, and developing a powerful crush. The only problem is that Nat is a girl. Hope is pretty sure she isn't gay. Or is she? Struggling with new feelings, fitting in and a …

Key Selling Points

• The author has written many books in the Orca Soundings line, including Overdrive and Tagged.
• Eric Walters founded the I Read Canadian Day movement, and the day is now celebrated annually on February 17th.
• Enhanced features (dyslexia-friendly font, cream paper, larger trim size) to increase reading accessibility for dyslexic …

In behind the raspberry bushes is a special place, a place Abby doesn't trust to just anyone. Then she looks through a knothole in the fence and right into a blue, blue eye. A toy tractor appears on her side of the fence and she pokes her little brother's stuffed blue monkey into the hole. The next morning she finds it with its tail ripped off. Who …

Julie is tired of being tormented at school, tired of not fitting in and being the butt of jokes. When her brother brings home a camera with images of her chief tormentor in a compromising situation, she sees a way to level the playing field. When her attempt at turning the tables goes wrong, she is left even more on the outside and struggling to d …

Logan always takes the easy way out. After a night of drinking and driving he wakes up to find he has been involved in a senseless car accident and is dead. With the help of his guide, Wade, and the spirit of his grandmother, he realizes he has taken the wrong exit—he wasn't meant to die. His life had a purpose—to save his sister—but he took …

Beauty is afraid to sleep—her dreams are haunted by the Shadow Lady who stalks and threatens her.

During her waking hours, Beauty's life is safe, safer than she wants it to be. Since her mother's death, her father has become so over-protective that he has locked away all the knives in the house. Her mother's death, the accident, is never discussed …

Fresh from a thrilling basketball season playing for the varsity team, Matt is looking forward to a new challenge: baseball. The South Side team seems to be strong this year—if only Matt can control his fear of being hit by an errant pitch. But when Matt's friend, Jake, the team's star, falls in with the wrong crowd, the entire season—not to me …

TJ Barnes is back, playing with his crazy cats, T-Rex and Alaska, helping out in his parents' hardware store and goofing around with his best friend, Seymour.

When Seymour announces that he has signed them both up for a football team, TJ fears the worst. Neither of them is huge or mean or able to tackle, catch, throw, run or kick a ball down a field …

Kelly loves the cabin she has made from a refrigerator box. It has a window with curtains, pictures on the walls, a cabin-sized table and a wonderful view. It sits in the vacant lot next door, transformed into the rugged farm of a pioneer family. Now if only Kelly can find the right person to share it with.

Turk needs cash, but he's allergic to his own sweat, so getting a job is out of the question.

Then Turk makes an important discovery: Girls love dogs. And Turk's friends will do anything to meet girls. So Turk starts a dog walking business. His friends walk the dogs and Turk collects half the money. In an attempt to impress dog-loving Carly, Turk br …

A girl and a boy watch a stranger build a dragon in the sand. The dragon must wait for the night tide to set it free. But there is danger on the beach. As the sea crawls closer, other children come. They jump and play and the dragon begins to dissolve beneath their feet. The boy and the girl must keep the dragon safe until the sea can free him.

Shaw Sebring is sixteen and trying to understand his father’s suicide. Moving with his mother halfway across the country to distance themselves from the awful truth, Shaw lands in a new school and finds that the ghost of his father, a best-selling author, has followed him. Shaw tries to chart his own course, until circumstances force him to accep …

Josh had been living in a group home after being ratted out by Scott, his one-time best friend.

Now Josh has moved in with his brother and overbearing sister-in-law and has been sent to a class designed to teach him to deal with his anger. When an old enemy continues to push his buttons and Scott appears to be up to his old tricks, Josh struggles to …

Vince lives in a small town—a town that is divided right down the middle by race. An unspoken rule has been there as long as Vince remembers and no one challenges it. But when Vince's friend Sherry starts dating an Indigenous boy, Vince is outraged—until he notices Raedawn, a girl from the reserve. Trying to balance his community's prejudices w …

In the final months of World War II, ten-year-old Peggy shelters with her mother and baby brother in a London butcher's shop during an air raid. They survive, but their home and everything in it are lost, including Peggyís most treasured possession, a biscuit tin of letters from her father. Their lives change dramatically and Peggy makes friends w …

George Most Wanted is the second of three books in the George series

At the end of The True Story of George, George, a small plastic man, went for a ride on a rocket and flew apart. Now, with Katie and Mackenzie’s help, all his parts must find each other. But his head has been frozen deep in a bag of blackberries. Will he ever be whole again?

The …

Fourteen-year-old Libby didn't want to go on a year long sailing adventure with her mother and her stepfather, Duncan, and she isn't about to let them forget it. Traveling through the Red Sea, Libby causes them to be late and make a dangerous crossing alone. When modern-day pirates attack, Duncan is killed and Libby's mother is left seriously injur …

Matt is desperate to fit in at summer camp. One night he gets lost when he goes off on his own to retrieve a forgotten life preserver. A wolf appears and Matt overcomes his fears and follows it. He finds a half-wolf, half-dog pup whose mother is dead. Is the big wolf who guides him the same wolf that his father rescued years before from a trap?

Key Selling Points

• New, enhanced features (dyslexia-friendly font, cream paper, larger trim size) to increase reading accessibility for dyslexic and other striving readers.

Lawrence hates being teased about his dimples, but nothing he does seems to make any difference. Joe goes right on teasing him, and the teasing gets meaner and meaner. Finally, Lawrence notices something about his friend Stewart that may provide the tool he needs to tease-proof himself once and for all.

Josh is less than thrilled that he has a new stepfather, and finds his personal habits—and his personality—irritating. When his mother leaves town, Josh is left to spend a week alone with Clay. Resenting his new living arrangements and his unorthodox home life, Josh finds himself drawn to the idea of a "regular" family and, on a whim, sneaks in …

Everything changes when Hattie Tamblyn's much-adored older brother, Will, enlists in the Canadian army in 1916 and is sent to fight in France.

Hattie lives for Will's letters from the front, but her mother retreats into depression, her younger brother, Johnny, becomes violent and her father despairs of running the family farm without Will's help. T …

Reg and Keely are twins. Keely loves painting and bugs. Reg loves rocks. Keely sings crazy rhymes. Reg plays softball. Shawna and Burt are their friends. In this series of linked stories, the childrenís deep involvement with their daily activities never falters, from a bug walk, through incidents flying a kite and dividing labor at clean up time, …