- friendship (170)
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- general (see also headings under social themes) (35)
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Flight From Bear Canyon
In this sequel to Flight from Big Tangle, Kaylee is furious about being left to spend the summer with a girl her own age, Jaz, and Jaz's uncle, Jack. All she wants is time alone with her dog, Sausage. Things change quickly, though, when Jack is injured after his helicopter goes down near a group of grizzly bears. Kaylee and Jaz must team up to save …
No More Pranks
Pete's pranks have gotten him in plenty of trouble, but they might be the only way to bring justice to a seaside town.
Pete likes to play pranks. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it gets a laugh. When he impersonates his vice-principal on a radio call-in show, he goes too far and is suspended from school. Pete's parents send him to spend the …
My Time as Caz Hazard
Caz thinks she has a pretty good reason when she punches her boyfriend in the face, but she gets expelled anyway. Moving to a new school, she is told she is dyslexic and sent to special education classes. Caz tries to fit in and get by while suffering the taunts and abuse that others throw at the students in her class. Her friendship with Amanda le …
Discovering Emily
Young Emily Carr has no interest in learning to be a lady. She loves animals and the outdoors, and she is beginning to discover that what she loves most of all is drawing and painting. Will she find a way to develop her talent in the straitlaced world of nineteenth-century Victoria, British Columbia? Discovering Emily is the first of two books in a …
The Beckoners
A chilling portrait of the bullying and violence that is all too common in schools, The Beckoners illustrates the lure of becoming tormentor rather than victim, and the terrible price that can be exacted for standing up for what is right.
When her mother suddenly moves them to a new town, Zoe is unhappy about leaving behind what passes for a normal …
Grind
Philip lives for skateboarding. School is merely the break between trying to land a difficult jump and outrunning the security guards. When he and his best friend Wally meet a professional skateboarder who videotapes himself for his website, Philip thinks they can do it too—and make money at the same time. When they start getting hits on their we …
Charmed
Izzy's mother works far away and leaves Izzy at home, alone with Rob the Slob. Angry at her mother and trying to deal with school, friends and the attentions of charismatic Cody Dillon, Izzy finds her life swirling out of control. Coerced into putting out to help Cody, Izzy finds she is one in a long line of girls ensnared in prostitution, with no …
Belle of Batoche
Belle, an 11-year-old Metis girl, and Sarah both want the coveted job of church bell ringer.
An embroidery contest is held to award the position, and Sarah cheats. Before Belle can expose her, the two are caught up in the advancing forces of General Middleton and his troops as they surround Batoche in the 1885 Riel Rebellion. The church bell disappe …
Zee's Way
Zee and his friends are angry that their old haunt has been replaced by stores that are off-limits to them and storekeepers who treat them with distrust. To let the merchants know what he and his friends think, Zee paints graffiti on the wall of the hardware store. After the wall is repainted, Zee decides to repeat the vandalism, but this time with …
Flux
Several years earlier Nellie and her mother fled the Interior and its hated security police for the Outbacks, a loose-knit resistance of small cities, towns and rural areas. Since then her mother has disappeared and twelve-year-old Nellie is on her own, scrounging a living where she can find it. When loneliness opens her mind to flux, the ability t …
Blue Moon
Bobbie Jo didn't set out to buy a limping blue roan mare—she wanted a colt she could train to barrel race.
But the horse is a fighter, just like Bobbie Jo. Now all she has to do is train the sour old mare that obviously has a past. While she nurses the horse back to health, Bobbie Jo realizes that the horse, now called Blue Moon, may have more his …
Barkerville Gold
This time the trio is in historic Barkerville, a gold rush town with a secret.
Rusty, Katie and Sheila are sent out of town with Rusty's grandparents to keep them out of trouble. After witnessing what they take to be a ghost in the night, the three friends find themselves involved in a mystery from the past that seems to have a few other people inte …
The Birthday Girl
Nell makes two wishes on her birthday, but the next day they show little sign of coming true. Everyone in her household is busy and wants her out from underfoot and no one is willing to help her find her lost cat. In the end she finds more than a cat and she makes her own wishes come true with the help of a row of tall, bright, smiling sunflowers.
Thunderbowl
Jeremy's band is hot--really hot. Thunderbowl is on the way up and they have had their first big break--a long-term gig at a local bar. The only problem is that while Jeremy should be doing his homework and keeping up in school, he is spending most nights in a rowdy club, trying to keep the band together while his life is falling apart. Trying to b …
Catching Spring
The year is 1957, and Bobby lives on the Tsartlip First Nation reserve on Vancouver Island where his family has lived for generations and generations.
Bobby loves his weekend job at the nearby marina. He loves to play marbles with his friends. And he loves being able to give half his weekly earnings to his mother to eke out the grocery money, but he …
Overdrive
A street race ends in a tragic accident. Jake's friends tell him to run, but he doesn't know if he can—or should—run from the truth.
Jake has finally got his driver's license, and tonight he has his brother's car as well. He and his friend Mickey take the car out and cruise the strip. When they challenge another driver to a street race, a disast …
Kat's Fall
Darcy's mother is getting out of jail.
Ten years ago Darcy's mom was convicted of throwing Darcy's baby sister off a fifth-floor balcony. Kat survived, but Darcy has spent the last decade raising his sister, giving her the love and support she has been denied by an absent mother and an uncaring father. Now, with their mother about to be released, th …
Down the Chimney with Googol and Googolplex
Googol and Googolplex are on a mission to learn about Earth.
The alien robot duo begin by collecting a number of items including a blackbirdís song, snowballs and a chocolate bar. Pippa and Troy are happy to help, especially when they get to ride to the North Pole in a spaceship. But when they return, Martin, the bully next door, sees something tha …
The Puppet Wrangler
Telly Mercer is shy and quiet, used to living in the shadow of her older sister, Bess. Then she finds herself on the set of a puppet show, staying out of the way of her overstressed aunt Kathleen. One evening she makes a surprising discovery that launches her on an adventure with an unpredictable and angry puppet.
The Hippie House
The "summer of love" is a time of idealistic freedom and experimentation for Emma, her cousin Megan, and the young people of Pike Creek. While her brother Eric's band practices in what Uncle Pat has dubbed the Hippie House, the girls suntan on their small lake and hitchhike into town to hang around the Drop-In Center. They find the growing crowd of …
Underdog
It's a new season for Nick and Kia and once again they have to prove they've got what it takes to make the Mississauga Magic rep team.
There is no free ride on Coach Barkley's team. The tryouts are tough but fair and it looks like the nucleus of last yearís team will be together once again. But there is one new player who seems to have the skills t …
TJ and the Rockets
TJ overcame his fear of cats in TJ and the Cats and his fear of ghosts in TJ and the Haunted House. Now, he's not so keen on facing his fear of failure. His best friend Seymour is determined to come up with the latest greatest invention and TJ's gran expects TJ to build a rocket. The kittens, T-Rex and Alaska, are eager to get involved. When the fi …
Cougar Cove
Eleven-year-old Sam's first visit to the remote west coast of Vancouver Island is nothing like she'd expected.
Her older cousins tease "the city kid" mercilessly when they're not ignoring her altogether. She often finds herself left to her own devices. Still, the woods and beaches around Brackenwood Point offer plenty of room to explore. Then, one d …
A Noodle Up Your Nose
Kate has decided on a pirate theme for her party. She thinks that seven is going to be the best age to be. Her friend Jake is going to teach her to ride a two-wheeler. And her party is going to be fabulous. That is, until Violet starts spreading stories. Kate goes right on with her planning, but she is worried. When Violet is the only one to show u …
Runaway
Max is horrified when he sees Sam Black, a new neighbor, strike a boy who is in his charge, but Max still shouts, "Thief," and tries to catch the boy when he sees him steal from the General Store in The Landings. When the abused boy runs away and takes refuge in Max’s secret fort in the woods, Max must decide where his loyalties lie.
Just Call Me Joe
The year is 1909 and Joseph has just immigrated to the United States from Russia. He thinks that life in New York City will be wonderful, but he has not bargained for the challenges of learning English and of resisting the pressures to skip school, steal and fight to earn a place among the boys in his neighbourhood. Just Call Me Joe presents a full …
Torn Away
Thirteen-year-old Declan lives only for revenge. His mother, father and sister were all killed on the streets of Belfast, and Declan will stop at nothing to settle the score. When he is torn away from his native soil and sent to live with relatives in Canada, he is disgusted by their efforts to welcome him into their lives, and determined to make t …
The Scream of the Hawk
Lissa is the new kid in town. She is lonely and she blames her mother and her mother's new husband for her troubles. To make matters worse, she has to look after a boy who believes that his dead mother's spirit lives on in the red-tailed hawk that he secretly keeps captive. Ironically, the resulting adventure takes Lissa's mind off her own troubles …
My Name is Mitch
Mitch MacLeod may be the smallest kid in grade six, but he has a great sense of humor and a strong backbone. He can read, sometimes, but never at school when he has to. "You don't know what humiliation is until you have a grade one reading buddy who reads better than you do," he says. But things start to change for Mitch when he creates an opportun …
Tough Trails
When Ambrose is forced to sell his horse because of an injury, he must find a new animal that can handle the rigors of the mountains while packing for his uncleís trail-riding outfit.
To save an old lady's beloved companion from the meat-buyers, Ambrose buys a horse who would be better off in retirement than climbing the treacherous trails of the R …
Truth
When an adult neighbor is brutally murdered during a high-school house party, everyone in school seems to have an idea who did it, but no one will go to the police.
Jen was there and saw the body and she has her own ideas about who is responsible. As a reporter for the school TV show, she decides to try and uncover the truth and discover if a classm …
Fastback Beach
Miles Derkach is in trouble. Along with two friends, he stole a car and went joyriding. When the dust clears, he is all alone and his friends have left, leaving him to take the blame—and the punishment—while maintaining his silence. Placed on probation and sentenced to community service, Miles begins working for a man who after suffering a stro …
Hit Squad
This is Mickey's first year at Grandview High. After transferring, all he wants to do is keep his head down, work hard and fit in with the upscale crowd. He is approached, because of his tough reputation, to join a group of students to take back the school from the bullies. Mickey finds himself caught up in a shadowy world of violence and retributi …
Dance of the Stones
Chantel, Adam, Holly and Owen are eager to begin the next stage of their adventure. "The Stones have stirred," Ava, Hawkwoman and Wise One, tell Owen, "The time is near for the Circle Dance." The stones are the ancient stone circle of Avebury in England. But the Dark Being approaches, and her servant, a wraith, blocks the children’s progress. Whe …
Bull Rider
Layne wants nothing more than to follow in his father's footsteps and to be a bull rider.
His dad was one ride away from a National Championship when he got trampled to death. Layne wants to be able to give his dad that championship—by winning it for him. What he doesn't want, though, is to end up like his father and die in the rodeo arena. When t …
The Trouble with Liberty
Liberty Hayes has just moved to Sutter's Crossing and is the talk of the town. She has plenty of money and everyone wants to be her friend. When Liberty accuses a male teacher of sexually assaulting her, the rumors start. Val, her new best friend, is torn between believing Liberty and trusting her old friend Ryan when it comes to the truth. What is …
Flight from Big Tangle
Kaylee used to love to fly. With two pilots for parents, how could she not? But when her father's plane goes down and neither the wreckage nor his body is found, she develops a terror of flying. She is too afraid to convince her mother to take her back to the Caribbean to search for her father. And she is haunted by fear whenever her mother goes up …
Waiting for Sarah
Mike's parents and sister are dead and his legs are gone. The horrific accident that shattered his life continues to haunt him. When he grudgingly returns to school and a life that he no longer understands, Mike is bitter and unwilling to participate in school life. To avoid one of his classes Mike agrees to put together a 50th Anniversary history …
No Problem
Curt seems to have it all--a girlfriend, friends, a good summer job and a guaranteed position on the baseball team with the promise of a professional career. Then, one misstep causes his world to unravel and his life to plummet into the depths of depression and addiction. A bleak yet ultimately hopeful story about one teen's struggle with the press …
Dinosaurs on the Beach
Josie is fascinated with the secrets of the prehistoric world. She and her grandfather, an amateur paleontologist, explore the beaches and cliffs near Stone Trees Cottage in Nova Scotia. Tiny bones have been discovered, but what are they from? As Josie searches for the answer, she is forced to cope with an accident and competition from an unpleasan …
TJ and the Haunted House
TJ does not believe in ghosts, so when he agrees to create a haunted house in his own home as a fundraiser, he does not anticipate problems...
...at least not until it turns out that a ghost may inhabit the spare room in his century-old house. The ghost, real or imagined, leads TJ to some fascinating family history. TJ finds a way to bring that hist …
Off Season
Readers of Hoop Crazy will remember Ned as the bug-loving beanpole who lives in an isolated national park out West, three hours from the nearest basketball court. But Ned's participation in the three-on-three tournament when he visited Nick has sparked his interest in the game and now he and his father have built their own basketball court in the w …
Who Owns Kelly Paddik?
Kelly Paddik is locked up. Sent to a secure facility because she is a "danger to herself," Kelly wants only to escape. But her painful past continues to haunt her until she is forced to face up to the most painful memory of all. A searing look at one girl's struggle for self respect.
Kicked Out
Dime is fifteen and angry all the time. Her parents don't like the way she dresses, her boyfriend, her attitude. Her older brother Darren was paralyzed in an accident she walked away from, and Dime is sure her parents wish she were the one in the wheelchair. When the fights and accusations finally become too much, Dime moves in with her brother. At …
The Lottery
Every student at Saskatoon Collegiate knew that all the most important aspects of school life were controlled by a secret club called Shadow Council.
Each fall, Shadow held a traditional lottery during which a single student's name was drawn. The rest of the student body called the student the lottery winner. But Shadow Council knew better; to them …
One More Step
Fourteen-year-old Julian's parents separated when he was a baby and he is still angry and hurt.
His mother has had relationships since--all of which have ended disastrously—but this time it seems serious. Jean-Paul looks like he might be the real thing. Julian is wary—and critical—as he comes to terms with the fact that he and his brother may …
Refuge Cove
Greg is an avid sailor. On a solo trip off the rugged Newfoundland coast, he stumbles upon a family of desperate refugees stranded in a lifeboat. Fearing for their lives if they are deported to their homeland, the family convinces Greg to help them, and keep their existence secret. He promises not to call the authorities and takes the family home. …
Birdie for Now
Dickon wasn't happy in his old home or his old school. He hopes that in his new neighborhood he will meet children who never knew his old, hyper self, who will like him for who he is now. And he hopes for a dog of his own. Dickon's mother calls him Birdie. She feeds him milk from a teddy bear mug. She worries if he's out of her sight for a moment a …