Work and More Work
Tom lives in the countryside in the mid 1800s and he’s curious — what is it like in the town, the city and the world beyond? It’s all “work and more work,” everyone tells him. Determined to find out for himself, Tom sets off with a bit of bread and cheese in a bundle…
He encounters crowded marketplaces, bustling wharves and storms on the …
Until the Day Arrives
A fast-moving middle-grade novel set in the seventeenth century about two Portuguese orphans who are sent to Brazil where they encounter slaves from Africa. Together with their new friend, an aboriginal boy, they work towards reuniting the slaves with their families and helping them escape to freedom.
The novel opens when Bento is wrongly thrown int …
Northwest Passage
Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Illustration
Award-winning artist Matt James takes the iconic song "Northwest Passage" by legendary Canadian songwriter and singer Stan Rogers and tells the dramatic story of the search for the elusive route through the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific, which for hundreds of years and once ag …
Applesauce
Nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Prize and listed as one of the Best Children's Books of 2012 by Kirkus
Johnny's daddy has smooth cheeks, an apple in his throat and sounds like a mom when he sings in the bath. At other times a cactus grows out of his chin and his breath smells like cauliflower. At times he has warm hands and his fingers taste like …
My Name Is Parvana
The fourth book in the internationally bestselling series that includes The Breadwinner, Parvana’s Journey and Mud City.
In this stunning sequel, Parvana, now fifteen, is found in a bombed-out school and held as a suspected terrorist by American troops in Afghanistan.
On a military base in Afghanistan, after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, America …
Tilt
Nominated for the Ottawa Book Award
Stan is an intense sixteen-year-old loner who desperately wants to make the junior varsity basketball team. And it seems that he may be about to do so, until he’s blindsided by the unexpected attentions of Janine Igwash. Suddenly Stan is no longer thinking about jump shots. Instead he is obsessed with Janine’s …
I'll Be Watching
Shortlisted for the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize
In a small prairie town like Argue, Saskatchewan, everyone knows everybody else’s business. Everyone knows that the Loney family has been barely hanging on -- the father, George, reduced to drink and despair since the loss of his farm and the death of his wife, Margaret. That the fo …
The Force of Law
This book examines the meaning of law from a global perspective and the many connections between law and law enforcement. An excellent introduction to the subject for young adults.
Most of us in liberal democratic countries think that we live under the rule of law. Governments make the rules, we live by them and the police enforce them if we try to …
Slavery Today
An introduction to slavery in the world today, in rich and developing nations alike. Clearly and concisely written for young adult readers.
Twenty-seven million people — young and old, men and women — are locked in bondage worldwide. Slavery Today traces the products created by this inhuman system from the jungle and farm through the global mark …
Rex Zero and the End of the World
It's the summer of 1962, and to twelve-year-old Rex the world is starting to look like a pretty scary place. On TV there are reports about the Russians and a nuclear war. Some people in his new neighborhood are even building bomb shelters in their backyards. Rex learns that there's trouble closer to home as well. A black panther has escaped from a …
The Mzungu Boy
Winner, Children's Africana Book Award - Best Book for Older Readers
For young Kariuki, life in a small village in central Kenya is one great adventure. And when he meets Nigel life becomes even more interesting. Nigel is from England and he has come to visit his great grandfather, the fearsome Bwana Ruin who owns the farm where all the villagers wo …
A Thief in the House of Memory
It has been six years since sixteen-year-old Dec's free-spirited mother, Lindy, disappeared. Dec feels so trapped in the present that he has avoided examining his past. But when an intruder dies in the museum-like family home, the man's death sends forth tremors that reawaken forgotten memories. Suddenly Dec is flooded with visions of his mother so …
Far From Shore
Faced with instability on many sides, and living in an outport community in Newfoundland, fifteen-year-old Chris gropes for direction in a family broken apart by unemployment. Even his easy-going, humorous attitude fails to steady him as he stumbles through the summer after grade ten. He's failed his year, he can't find a summer job, and he's incre …
Skud
Four guys -- Tommy, Brad, Andy and Shane -- are all making their way through the jungle that is the last year of high school. Tommy, model student, is heading for the military to learn to fly fighter jets, something that will please his doting grandmother and free him once and for all from his abusive parasite of a mother. His best friend, Brad, is …
George Johnson's War
George's cloistered life in New York changes as the War for American Independence looms and he must struggle with what it means to be half Mohawk.
Young George Johnson lives in an extraordinary family in extraordinary times. His father is Sir William Johnson, one of the richest and most powerful men in colonial New York. His mother is Molly Brant, s …
Dead Man's Gold and Other Stories
These ten original ghost stories dramatize the history of Chinese immigration to North America -- from the poor village men who first came searching for gold in the late 1850s to the new immigrants who arrived from Hong Kong in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. These stories describe the resilience and struggle of people trying to make new lives …
The Boy in the Burning House
Two years after his father mysteriously disappeared, Jim Hawkins is coping -- barely. Underneath he's frozen in uncertainty and grief. Then Ruth Rose crashes into his life. A sixteen-year-old misfit whose manic moods have to be managed by drugs, she tells Jim that her stepfather is a murderer. Every instinct tells Jim to walk away, to get back to t …
Drive
In a shiny new pickup packed with camping equipment and guitars, and with a $5,000 debt hanging over their heads, Jens and his musician brother, Daniel, take off on an unusual kind of road trip. Little do they know that they are embarking on the longest weekend of their lives -- a weekend in which far more than money is at stake.
A gritty and unforg …