Let’s Read brings parents, babies and books together to celebrate the joys of reading. This latest book in the popular Baby Steps series shows the many ways babies engage with books at different ages and stages, from looking and listening to pointing at pictures and choosing their bedtime books. See the foundation of reading build, from a newborn …

When fifteen-year-old Mutton is robbed at gunpoint while working in her mother’s Hamilton thrift store, the thief makes off with an item that she knows isn’t meant for him, hurling Mutton and her family into a summer of remarkable and heartbreaking events. From fighting unscrupulous developers to first loves to the anguish that comes from never …

Matt Simmons has two weeks left of summer before starting grade six. He wants to enjoy that time with his best friends, Danny and Emma, but has to include his younger cousin Adam who is visiting. Trapped on a sandbar in the middle of the night, Matt and Adam see a ghostly, burning schooner before a silent old man rescues them. Matt is determined to …

In this hilarious picture book written by Hackmatack Award-nominated author Kate Inglis and brilliantly illustrated by Eric Orchard, two best friends imagine ordinary life as classic monsters and mythical creatures. What would Evan the Zombie do for the school talent show? Who would Poppy the Muddy Wood Fairy have over for dinner? From an alien wit …

Carroll Aikins’s play The God of Gods (1919) has been out of print since its first and only edition in 1927. This critical edition not only revives the work for readers and scholars alike, it also provides historical context for Aikins’s often overlooked contributions to theatre in the 1920s and presents research on the different staging techni …

Matt, a white quarterback from Montreal, Quebec, flies to France (without his parents’ permission) to play football and escape family pressure. Freeman, a black football player from San Antonio, Texas, is in Paris on a school trip when he hears about a team playing American football in a rough, low-income suburb called Villeneuve-La-Grande. Matt …

Ellie is used to getting leading roles in her small-town school’s musicals, but her place at center stage disappears when her dad becomes the host of a breakfast TV show and they have to move to the big city. When Ellie auditions for—and lands—a spot with the Youth Works Theater Company, she comes up against a tight-knit group of talented, ex …

Basketball-crazy Jake Burnett is thrilled to be leaving home to attend the prestigious Centerville Prep.

It’s an opportunity to pursue his hoop dreams at the highest level. But things aren’t quite as advertised at his new school, and Jake soon finds himself struggling both on and off the court. At first, Jake is determined to play harder and ign …

The poet Li Bai has journeyed across the world and perhaps across centuries. When he comes across a bag of money in a downtown parking lot, we also meet the delinquent who lost the bag of money in the first place. The assemblage in Jack Hannan’s first novel are driven by wordsmithery, trickery, and flights of such fancy—for an instant, the sign …

"Who owns my life?" Sue Rodriguez was dying of a form of ALS (or Lou Gehrig's disease) when she asked this question of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1993. She was fighting for the right to a physician-assisted death before she became fully paralyzed. At the time, assisted suicide could result in jail time for the participating physician. In a narr …

Historian Jacques Pauwels applies a critical, revisionist lens to the First World War, offering readers a fresh interpretation that challenges mainstream thinking. As Pauwels sees it, war offered benefits to everyone, across class and national borders.

For European statesmen, a large-scale war could give their countries new colonial territories, im …

Every day, people make deals that matter. But very few of us benefit from the public scrutiny and analysis that have helped Canada's leading negotiation experts hone their craft. Hockey team executives, cabinet ministers, bank presidents and labour leaders are constantly under the microscope, and they have learned what it takes to build agreements …

A gentle, poetic lullaby for baby, filled with memories from a perfect day playing on the beach.

Castles, sand dollars, seals peering out of the waves and the beat of the ocean become sweet reminders of all the magical things that await baby tomorrow. A lyrical celebration of natural beauty and a soft, reassuring reminder for little ones being tuck …

When Blood Lies is the second novel in a series of mysteries featuring rookie reporter Nicole Charles.

Vancouver Post gossip columnist Nicole Charles is only slightly put out when she discovers she’s been downsized. She figures she’s lucky to still have a job. It just means she needs to get a desk so she can work out of her apartment. But the de …

Whether children are experiencing grief and loss for the first time or simply curious, it can be difficult to know how to talk to them about death.

Using questions posed in a child’s voice and answers that start simply and become more in-depth, this book allows adults to guide the conversation to a natural and reassuring conclusion. Additional que …

Spitball literary essays on the off-kilter joys, sorrows and wonder of North America’s national pastime.

A collection of essays for ardent seamheads and casual baseball fans alike, The Utility of Boredom is a book about finding respite and comfort in the order, traditions, and rituals of baseball. It’s a sport that shows us what a human being mi …

The landlord, the husband, the wife, and the lover. Giulio di Orio, an assistant lecturer in Philosophy, brings one of his students, known as Torp—short for Torpedo—to the Vancouver flat he shares with his wife Nicole. Soon their landlord is convinced that Torp is the devil incarnate, and the police have arrested him for the street bombings tha …

A man who might be Erik Satie floats, a la Magritte, above Paris rooftops, thinking of a newly-extinct species of songbirds, "contemplating grief in the absence of song." By turns tender, wry, playful and fierce, the poems in Dean Steadman’s second collection, Apres Satie -- For Two and Four Hands, use surreal imagery, recurring characters and cy …

This great collection of stories strange but true is for every reader who loves history -- and mystery. Edward Butts weaves true tales -- the wreck of the Francis and the weird connection to Edward, Duke of Kent; the sea voyage of Charles Coghlan's coffin; Captain Jack Randell the rum-runner; Al Capone's gunman Bugs Moran and more!

This collection o …

This collection brings together representative work from Sina Queyras’s poetic oeuvre. Queyras is at the forefront of contemporary discussions of genre, gender, and criticism of poetry. Her influential blog-turned-literary-magazine, Lemon Hound, published up-and-coming writers as well as work by established literary figures in Canada and abroad. …

This book shows how human rights became the primary language for social change in Canada and how a single decade became the locus for that emergence. The author argues that the 1970s was a critical moment in human rights history—one that transformed political culture, social movements, law, and foreign policy. Human Rights in Canada is one of the …

Tabitha is thrilled to be attending a summer forensics camp, even if she has to go with her sort-of friend Mason. Soon she is learning to dust for fingerprints, photograph a crime scene and take footprint impressions. Even though the camp instructors have set up a “crime” for the kids to solve, Tabitha longs to use her newfound skills to solve …

Justine is back! She’s worried about what plastic is doing to the environment and to her classmates, so she sets out to ban bottled water school-wide. The only problem is, the new principal, Dr. Proctor, isn’t on board. Justine will have to convince him and persuade her classmates if Project Bottle Throttle is going to succeed!

Justine McKeen, B …

Just when Isabelle thinks her life can’t get any worse, something happens to her at school that makes her wonder how she can continue to look after her younger siblings, Evan and Maisie, work at the local mini-mart and deal with her alcoholic mother. It’s more than any sixteen-year-old should have to bear, but Isabelle can’t think of a way ou …

Key Selling Points

• Lost is the fourth adventure featuring Sam and Annabel following Stolen, Bones and Gold, also in the Orca Currents line.
• Enhanced features (dyslexia-friendly font, cream paper, larger trim size) to increase reading accessibility for dyslexic and other striving readers.

Can Randi find a way to make it all work out?

Randi wants to be an actress and is excited about practicing her craft in drama class. So she is devastated to learn the program has been cut. When her friends put together a successful proposal to have drama class taught as an extracurricular activity, Randi is thrilled—until reality sinks in. Extracu …

Alice doesn’t like noise, smells or strangers. She does like rules. Lots of rules.

Nobody at her new school knows she is autistic, and soon Alice finds herself in trouble because the rules here are different. When she meets Megan in detention, she doesn’t know what to make of her. Megan doesn’t smell, she’s not terribly noisy, and she’s no …

Will his big break kill his career before it even starts

Robin’s got everything it takes to be a principal dancer: the body, the feet, the strength and the passion. But his devil-may-care attitude plays havoc with discipline at the Premier Dance School. One more prank may be one too many. That’s why everyone is shocked when he’s the only stude …

Burqa of Skin is a dense collection of writings from Nelly Arcan, channelling harrowing disenchantment and indignation. From her very first novel, Putain (Seuil, 2001), Arcan shook the literary landscape with her flamboyant lyricism and her preoccupations with such recurring themes as our culture’s vertiginous obsession with youth, and its revers …

Hamsters have many places to go and lots of ways to get there!

Following the success of her previous board books on numbers, colors and opposites, Kass Reich once again presents her beloved, splayed-toed hamsters. This time, the adorable critters are on the move, demonstrating all the different ways they get from here to there. A lively and humorous …

Kat is a tough, independent woman who makes her living as a professional poker player. She is single, childless and happy about it. But when her best friend, Josie, commits suicide, she names Kat as the temporary guardian of her ten-year-old son, David, until his father can come for him. In the few weeks that David is with her, Kat finds herself ch …

Imagine you’re one of India’s most decorated athletes, a country of more than a billion people. You were largely responsible for your homeland’s first Olympic gold medal as an independent nation after a violent, murderous Partition, yet you walk the streets anonymously, and your contributions have been all but forgotten. What if your statisti …

When the daughter of the most powerful Mafia don in New York goes missing, the don’s right-hand man comes to Gulliver Dowd for help. Problem is, the right-hand man and Dowd despise each other. Plus, the don knows who murdered Dowd’s sister, Keisha, but refuses to share that knowledge with Gulliver. Still, Dowd makes a devil’s deal and hunts f …

The sixth volume in this award-winning graphic novel series features ten new mystery comics and two never-before-published short stories by OWL Magazine editor, Craig Battle. Each solve-it-yourself story stars amateur detective Max Finder and his best friend, aspiring journalist Alison Santos. Seventh graders at Central Meadows Junior High, these t …

Amelia’s world came crashing down when her parents separated and she was forced to relocate with her mother to a new part of town.

When Duke and Gabriella move into the suite downstairs with their menagerie of exotic animals, Amelia feels like she’s been thrown a lifeline. Helping care for the animals gives Amelia a sense of purpose, and she’s …

Franny is close to her parents, adores her horse and is head over heels in love with her girlfriend, Leah. But Franny’s parents are abortion providers at the local hospital, and an anonymous stranger is prepared to do whatever it takes to stop them. A stranger who phones at all hours. Who knows where they live. Who knows Franny’s name. When Lea …

The fourth volume in this award-winning graphic novel series contains ten mystery comics by OWL Magazine editor Craig Battle, plus three never-before-published short mystery stories by series creator Liam O’Donnell. As always, storylines are intriguing, age-appropriate, and relevant; illustrations are detailed and compelling; and dialogue is snap …

A fun-for-all-ages collection of over thirty spooky stories in settings across Western Canada.

When friends and family gather around a campfire, good times and scary stories are sure to follow. In Campfire Stories of Western Canada, Barbara Smith, the author of twenty books of true ghost stories from across Canada, presents a creepy collection of ta …

Along the Red Road is the personal story of a Metis man, who gave up the drugs and alcohol that were destroying his life and began to follow the road to sobriety. These stories represent the author's personal experiences and interpretations as he traveled the Red Road and searched for the connection between himself, the Creator, his ancestors and h …

★ "A quiet loveliness, sense of gratitude, and—yes—happiness emanate from this tender celebration of simple pleasures."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

The sun on your face. The smell of warm bannock baking in the oven. Holding the hand of someone you love. What fills your heart with happiness? This beautiful board book, with illustrations …

Laughter is fifteen-year-old Paige Larsson’s currency in life. It takes the sting out of life’s tough stuff. It eases the pain of nasty comments, agonizing moments in gym class and awkward pauses at parties. She likes it even more when others laugh with her, so she’s become a YouTube comedy vlogger.

Now Paige is about to step out of her comfor …

During Passover, Jews are reminded of how, more than three thousand years ago, their ancestors emerged from slavery to become free men and women.

Bestselling author Monique Polak explores her own Jewish roots as she tells the Passover story, which reminds us that the freedom to be who we are and practice our religion, whatever it may be, is a great …

Clara Hughes has won multiple medals in both summer and winter Olympic Games. As a cyclist and speed skater, Clara pushed through pain to get to the finish line, trying to have her best race every day. Few knew that the same determination and focus were also needed to fight her own personal battles. Abusing drugs and alcohol from her early teens, C …

After a girl she knows from school goes missing and is found dead in the Red River, Feather is shocked when the police write it off as a suicide. Then, it's Feather's best friend, Mia, who vanishes but Mia's mom and abusive stepfather paint Mia as a frequent runaway, so the authorities won't investigate her disappearance either. Everyone knows that …

Marcus has it all: charm, good looks, successful parents, endless opportunities and anything money can buy. Along with his best friend, Tom, and Tom's crush, Yasmin, he escapes to his parents' resort condo during a school trip to Whistler, B.C. And he can't refuse when drinking makes Yasmin determined to hook up with him instead of Tom. The three d …

The inner-city Blues baseball team is having a lousy year. Shortstop Nash and the Blues can't seem to win. They especially hate losing to their archrivals, the rich kids of the Parkhill Pirates. When all-star player Jock joins the team, it looks like the Blues might be able to turn the season around. The only problem? When the Pirates find out that …

Olivia is living a double life -- high-school student by day, drummer by night. Olivia doesn't know when hanging out in clubs and drinking to appear older and enjoy the music scene became a habit, but she finds herself hungover at school and sneaking alcohol at home. Her bandmates Eddie and Lucas think she is older, and Olivia keeps up the pretence …

Bullied at school and ignored at home, Travis has a secret: cutting himself with a razor blade is the only thing that lets him control the pain in his life and find some peace. When he becomes friends with Chyvonne, a new girl at school, he doesn't know how to get close to her without revealing his secret and making himself even more vulnerable. Sp …

Darren Dirkowitz thought his life was over when his tippity-top-secret alter ego, Dirk Daring, Secret Agent, was outed to the entire Preston Middle School student body. If only he’d been so lucky. Now the Wolf Lords—a gang of teen thugs bent on wringing every last penny out of Preston students—are breathing down his neck. There’s only one s …