The White Cat and the Monk
A monk leads a simple life. He studies his books late into the evening and searches for truth in their pages. His cat, Pangur, leads a simple life, too, chasing prey in the darkness. As night turns to dawn, Pangur leads his companion to the truth he has been seeking.
The White Cat and the Monk is a retelling of the classic Old Irish poem “Pangur B …
Watching Traffic
A stunning debut novel about that uncertain summer after high-school graduation.
Emily has finally finished high school in the small town where she has lived her whole life. At last, she thinks, her adult life can begin.
But what if you have no idea what you want your new life to look like? What then?
While Lincoln gets ready to go backpacking in Aust …
Flannery
A spellbinding story about chasing love, fighting family, losing friends and starting all over again, from the internationally acclaimed Lisa Moore.
Sixteen-year-old Flannery Malone has it bad. She’s been in love with Tyrone O’Rourke since the days she still believed in Santa Claus. But Tyrone has grown from a dorky kid into an outlaw graffiti a …
Go Home Bay
In 1914, Tom Thomson spent the summer at a family cottage on Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay, where he taught the ten-year-old daughter, Helen, how to paint. Author Susan Vande Griek and illustrator Pascal Milelli have imagined this time through Helen’s eyes, providing an intriguing glimpse into the famous painter’s life.
Helen and her father greet …
Tokyo Digs a Garden
Winner of the 2016 Governor General's Literary Award for Young People's Literature — Illustrated Books
Tokyo lives in a small house between giant buildings with his family and his cat, Kevin. For years, highways and skyscrapers have been built up around the family’s house where once there were hills and trees. Will they ever experience the natur …
Two White Rabbits
In this moving and timely story, a young child describes what it is like to be a migrant as she and her father travel north toward the US border.
They travel mostly on the roof of a train known as The Beast, but the little girl doesn’t know where they are going. She counts the animals by the road, the clouds in the sky, the stars. Sometimes she se …
Strange Light Afar
A bitterly jealous brother, a samurai who makes the ultimate sacrifice, a cold-hearted husband, a monk who mistakes desire for piety, a fraudulent merchant who meets his match in a supernatural river otter — the motives underlying these traditional Japanese folktale characters are explored with haunting results.
Prompted by the sometimes illogica …
P'ésk'a and the First Salmon Ceremony
It’s the day of the first salmon ceremony, and P'ésk'a is excited to celebrate. His community, the Sts'ailes people, give thanks to the river and the salmon it brings by commemorating the first salmon of the season.
Framed as an exploration of what life was like one thousand years ago, P'ésk'a and the First Salmon Ceremony describes the customs …
West Coast Wild
Celebrate the Pacific west coast with this gorgeous nature alphabet book.
This stunning nature alphabet book explores the fascinating ecosystem of the Pacific west coast — a magnificent area that combines an ancient rainforest, a rugged beach and a vast, open ocean, and where whales, bears, wolves, eagles and a rich variety of marine species thriv …
Grant and Tillie Go Walking
Grant Wood believed that to be a real artist, he had to live in Paris. But once he got there, he realized that to be a great painter he needed to return to the people and places—and even animals—that he knew and loved the best.
Inspired by the life of artist Grant Wood, this is the sensitively imagined story of the great American painter and a c …
All Year Round
A joyful look at the months of the year through the eyes of a young child.
From January through December, experience a world of color, wonder and silliness. March is for celebrating a birthday, July is for swimming upside down, September is for crunchy piles of leaves and December is for a kingdom all in white. Experience a whole year to play and ce …
The Slippers' Keeper
Born in 1914, Joe Purdon was one of North America’s early conservationists. After stumbling as a child upon a cluster of Showy Lady’s Slippers in bloom, Joe dedicated his life to protecting these rare orchids. In this picture book, award-winning author and illustrator Ian Wallace depicts how Joe Purdon became a steward of a fragile piece of lan …
Bright Sky, Starry City
A little girl and her father have an opportunity to appreciate the wonders of the night sky.
Phoebe helps her dad set up telescopes on the sidewalk outside his store. It’s a special night — Saturn and Mars are going to appear together in the sky. But will Phoebe be able to see them with all the city lights?
Raindrops begin to fall, followed by li …
The Mosquito Brothers
Accompanied by quirky line drawings by Spanish illustrator Erica Salcedo, this is a gently humorous and remarkably informative nature-adventure story about an unlikely pointy-nosed hero with big dreams and an even bigger heart.
After he nearly drowns in a parking-lot puddle, Dinnn Needles is fearful of many things, including flying. When his four hu …
The Tweedles Go Online
The Tweedles are back and ready to take another exuberant swing at going modern. When their neighbors the Hamms announce that they’ve “gone online” by buying a telephone, Mama excitedly follows suit. But will the lure of the telephone be too much of a distraction for this sweetly old-fashioned family?
Fresh from their adventure with their new …
Sidewalk Flowers
Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Illustrated Book
A New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book of the Year
In this wordless picture book, a little girl collects wildflowers while her distracted father pays her little attention. Each flower becomes a gift, and whether the gift is noticed or ignored, both giver and re …
The Amazing Discoveries of Ibn Sina
Born in Persia more than a thousand years ago, Ibn Sina was one of the greatest thinkers of his time — a philosopher, scientist and physician who made significant discoveries, especially in the field of medicine, and wrote more than one hundred books.
As a child, Ibn Sina was extremely bright, a voracious reader who loved to learn and was fortunat …
Rosario's Fig Tree
Every spring the little girl who lives next door to Rosario helps him plant vegetables. One spring, Rosario plants a fig tree, which soon bears sweet purple fruit. But when fall comes, he bends it over and buries it in the ground. What kind of magic is Rosario performing?
The next spring, on planting day, the little girl and Rosario make holes for t …
Blue Mountain
When young Tuk is born on the mountain, life is simple for a young bighorn. Run, jump and play with his bandmates, eat and grow strong. But soon it will be up to Tuk to lead the herd to a new mountain he has seen far to the west. It will be a long journey filled with dangers. Wolf, bear, wolverine, puma — and man.
The responsibility to lead the he …
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 …
Pick-Up Sticks
Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award
Polly loves her life. Her small but cozy bedroom by the stained glass window made by her artist mother, the nutty schemes of her best friend Vanessa, the Protheroes who live downstairs -- it all seems so right that Polly hardly notices that she's never known her father.
But when the house is suddenly …
The Cat at the Wall
A remarkable and thought-provoking new novel set on Israel’s West Bank, by the author of The Breadwinner.
On Israel’s West Bank, a cat sneaks into a small Palestinian house that has just been commandeered by two Israeli soldiers. The house seems empty, until the cat realizes that a little boy is hiding beneath the floorboards.
Should she help him …
Why Are You Doing That?
Chepito is full of questions. Why is his mother cooking eggs and frying beans? Why is Manuel digging around the corn? Why is Ramón milking the cow? Why is Maria slapping dough between her hands? In this simply told story, a little boy learns all about food and where it comes from.
Following on the success of What Are You Doing? Elisa Amado and Manu …
Outside In
Lynn’s life is full — choir practice, school, shopping for the perfect jeans, and dealing with her free-spirited mother. Then one day her life is saved by a mysterious girl named Blossom, who introduces Lynn to her own world and family — both more bizarre, yet somehow more sane, than Lynn’s own.
Blossom’s family is a small band of outcasts …
Skim
A New York Times Book Review choice as one of the 10 Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2008.
Skim is Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a not-slim, would-be Wiccan goth stuck in a private girls' school in Toronto. When a classmate's boyfriend kills himself because he was rumoured to be gay, the school goes into mourning overdrive, each clique trying to find …
From There to Here
A little girl and her family have just moved across the country by train. Their new neighborhood in the city of Toronto is very different from their home in the Saskatchewan bush, and at first everything about “there” seems better than “here.”
The little girl’s dad has just finished building a dam across the Saskatchewan River, and his new …
Lost Girl Found
In war-torn Sudan, a girl must make heart-rending choices as she fights for survival and a chance at a future.
“This short, quickly paced narrative will stay with readers for the rest of their lives.” School Library Journali, STARRED REVIEW
“Moving and necessary.” Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW
For Poni, life in her small village in southern Sudan is …
Tales from Gold Mountain
Winner of the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, the IODE Violet Downey Book Award and the IODE National Chapter Award
Drawing on the real background of the Chinese role in the gold rush, the building of the railway and the settling of the west coast in the nineteenth century, noted historian and children’s author Paul Yee has created ei …
The Secret Life of Owen Skye
Winner of the Mr. Christie's Book Award and the Hackmatack Children's Choice Book Award
Owen Skye is skinny and quiet and has big ears. He does everything (just about) his older brother, Andy, says, while trying to stay one step ahead of little brother Leonard, who has now started school and is becoming smart at an alarming pace. The Skye brothers l …
Jane, the Fox and Me
A graphic novel about bullying, body image and the transformative power of fiction.
Hélène has been inexplicably ostracized by the girls who were once her friends. Her school life is full of whispers and lies — Hélène weighs 216; she smells like BO. Her loving mother is too tired to be any help. Fortunately, Hélène has one consolation, Charl …
Looks Like Daylight
Author Deborah Ellis travels across the continent, interviewing more than forty Native American kids and letting them tell their own stories.
They come from all over the continent — from Iqaluit to Texas, Haida Gwaii to North Carolina. Their stories are sometimes heartbreaking; more often full of pride and hope.
You’ll meet Tingo, who has spent m …
Lily and Taylor
After her older sister is murdered in a horrific incident of domestic abuse, Taylor begins a new life in a new town. She meets Lily, whose open, warm manner conceals a difficult personal life of her own, coping with her brain-injured mother. The two girls embark on a tentative friendship. But just when life seems to be smoothing out, Taylor's abusi …
Jane, the Fox and Me
A graphic novel about bullying, body image and the transformative power of fiction.
Hélène has been inexplicably ostracized by the girls who were once her friends. Her school life is full of whispers and lies — Hélène weighs 216; she smells like BO. Her loving mother is too tired to be any help. Fortunately, Hélène has one consolation, Charl …
Me in the Middle
One day Isabel finds a box in her mother's closet and, inside, a photograph of a girl dressed in old-fashioned clothes. Ten-year-old Bel is enchanted to discover that the girl is her great-grandmother Beatrice, her Bisa Bea, and that she and her great-grandmother look very much alike.
Bel convinces her mother to let her borrow the treasured photo pr …
After Sylvia
Nominated for the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award and the TD Children's Literature Award
As the new school year unfolds, the magic of the Skye brothers' antic adventures is replaced by a different kind of magic — of stillness, when Owen visits the haunted house in the dead of winter, and of insight, as he begins to …
Once Upon a Northern Night
Once Upon a Northern Night has received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal.
In this exquisite lullaby, the beauty and wonder of a northern winter night unfold, with images of a soft snowfall, the wild animals that appear in the garden, the twinkling stars, the gentle rhythm of the northern lights and the etchi …
The Servant
Faten’s happy life in her village comes to an abrupt end when her father arranges for her to work as a servant for a wealthy Beirut family with two spoiled daughters. What does a bright, ambitious seventeen-year-old do when she is suddenly deprived of her friends, family, education and freedom? Could the mysterious, wealthy young man who lives in …
I dreamt...
Children whose daily lives are afflicted by violence dream of a different world in this powerful book created by Mexican artists as a fundraiser for the IBBY Fund for Children in Crisis.
In many parts of the world, including North America, children are living with violence. Wars, gangs, guns, crime, bullying, harassment and fear keep many kids from …
What a Party!
If it is just a few days until your birthday, and your mother says you can invite anyone you like to come over to play, be careful! If you don't watch out, you might soon be having the craziest party ever, with people and food from around the world. Before you know it, night could come and go and a new day could begin, and the dancing might still b …
I See the Promised Land
African American writer, griot and blues singer Arthur Flowers and Indian scroll painter Manu Chitrakar combine their very distinctive storytelling traditions in an extraordinary jam session, creating this stunning graphic narrative-style biography of Martin Luther King Jr.
Loon
A gorgeously illustrated, lyrical non-fiction picture book about loons.
It’s summertime, and as darkness falls there is a haunting sound from the lake — Ooh-hoo-oo, ooh-hoo-oo. It is a loon calling to its family across the water.
This lyrical story follows the life cycle of two loon chicks. We see them breaking out of their eggshells, then learni …
My Book of Life By Angel
Winner of the CLA Young Adult Book Award, selected for the CCBC Choices List, selected for the Bankstreet College of Education's Best Children’s Books of the Year 2013, and honoured with the Horn Book Fanfare
It starts when Call sees sixteen-year-old Angel stealing shoes at the mall. He just buys her Chinese food at first, but before long Call is …
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 …
Tecumseh
Two hundred years after his death, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh is still considered one of the greatest leaders of North America's First Peoples. This richly illustrated biography tells the story of his remarkable life, culminating in the War of 1812.
Tecumseh lived during turbulent times, when the thirteen colonies that were to become the United Sta …
A Troublesome Boy
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book About the Past, and selected as an Honor Book by the Society of School Librarians International
Teddy can't believe how fast his life has changed in just two years. When he was twelve, his father took off, and then his mother married Henry, a man Teddy despises. But Teddy has no control over his life, and adults make all t …
Out of the Way! Out of the Way!
Selected for the USBBY Outstanding International Book List
A young boy spots a baby tree growing in the middle of a dusty path in his village. He carefully places rocks around it as the local mango seller rushes past shouting, "Out of the way! Out of the way!" As the tree grows bigger, people and animals traverse the path until it becomes a lane, fl …
The Big Swim
When Ethan arrives at summer camp for the first time, he has just three modest goals. First, to survive. Second, not to be hated. Third, not to be the worst at anything. But these goals turn out to be relatively easy to achieve. Instead, his real challenge comes in the form of a new cabin mate. Zachary arrives at camp late, surrounded by a cloud of …
Gangs
A Booklist Editors’ Choice and a Society of School Librarians International (SSLI) Honor Book
Street gangs have exploded worldwide. Tattoos, baggy pants, tagging, gangsta style, the unspoken threat -- it's all just around the corner in most of the world's major cities. From the streets of Los Angeles to the shantytowns of Cape Town, hundreds of th …
A Few Blocks
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2011 and a finalist for the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Award
"It was time for Ferdie and Viola to go to school. But Ferdie had eleven cars to wash, the highest tower ever to build and a snake drawing that wasn't done . . ."
Ferdie doesn't want to go to school, but go to school he must, and fortunately his imaginative …
No Ordinary Day
Shortlisted for the SYRCA 2013 Diamond Willow Award, selected as an American Library Association 2012 Notable Children's Book, a Booklist Editors' Choice, nominated for the OLA Golden Oak Tree Award, and a finalist for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Awards: Young Adult/Middle Reader Award, the Governor General's Literary Awards: Child …