Book picks similar to
Catch Me Once, Catch Me Twice by Janet McNaughton
canadian
catch-me-once-catch-me-twice
school
middle-grade
Johnny Kellock Died Today
Hadley Dyer - 2007
Her no-nonsense, authoritarian mother has broken her ankle—and it’s all R osalie’s fault. But news that Johnny, her teenaged cousin, has vanished pushes the accident from everyone’s minds. As R osalie and David—her strange new neighbour— search the city for Johnny, R osalie discovers something about the love and the secrets that bind her family.A refreshing and talented new voice in young adult fiction, Hadley Dyer has received rave reviews, two awards and several nominations, as well as great sales for Johnny Kellock Died Today, her debut novel.
The Old Brown Suitcase: A Teenager's Story of War and Peace
Lillian Boraks-Nemetz - 1994
The novel narrates the absorbing story of Slava, a young girl who survived the Holocaust against all odds. At age fourteen, Slava comes to Canada with her parents and sister and a suitcase filled with memories of a lost childhood, memories that now haunt her new life. She cannot forget the hunger, stench and disease in the Warsaw Ghetto, nor the fear and humiliation of being incarcerated behind a high brick wall. She cannot forget her extraordinary escape from the Ghetto, leaving behind her beloved parents and sister. Nor can she forget being swallowed up in a strange and unknown place to survive under a hidden identity. The story juxtaposes heart-wrenching scenes from a child's life in war-torn Poland with the life of a teenager trying to adjust to a new country in time of peace. In Canada, it is not easy for Slava to build a bridge between two cultures; nor is it easy to live with the turmoil of her immediate past. At the same time she must face the new challenges involved in being an immigrant, a Jew and a teenage girl. Historical notes on the Warsaw ghetto and a bibliography for future reading have been appended for those who wish further insights.
A Desperate Road to Freedom: The Underground Railroad Diary of Julia May Jackson
Karleen Bradford - 2009
They have fled from their life of slavery on a tobacco plantation in Virginia and are making their way north, on foot, where they have heard that slaves can be free. The journey takes them through swamps, travelling by night and hiding by day. The diary that Julia May keeps is another act of bravery. Learning to read and write alongside her mistress at the plantation was her own secret and forbidden as a slave. Julia May’s diary records her fears and the extraordinary things she sees during her voyage and keeps her going through the hard times until they are finally free.
Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo Murders
Kevin Sylvester - 2010
What many of Neil's patrons don't know, however, is that he's also a budding detective, code-named "The Nose." It all started when he used his knowledge of cooking and his incredible sense of smell to acquit his mother's client of murder. Now, however, some of the best chefs in town are turning up dead, the cops are stumped, and the crime scenes aren't helping. The only real clues are a mysterious smell and some equally mysterious notes -- in Italian! -- that have something to do with the great explorer Marco Polo. As more and more chefs fall prey to the killer, and more and more notes turn up, Neil finds himself working not only to solve the murders, but to eliminate himself as the prime suspect!
Shampoo Planet
Douglas Coupland - 1992
Once a baby raised in a hippie commune, he is now an ambitious Reagan youth dreaming of a career with the corporation whose offices his mother once firebombed.
Cloud of Bone
Bernice Morgan - 2007
Now, hidden in a cave below St. Mary’s Church, the war-haunted young man remembers years of carefree friendship and petty crime in the narrow streets of St. John’s. Starving, disoriented and tormented by his own act of betrayal, Kyle hears a low, persistent murmuring, retelling a story of distant, far-reaching betrayals.Over a century earlier, Shanawdithit, a young Beothuk girl, spends her childhood in a place she thinks of as the safe centre of the world. As she grows into young womanhood, listening to stories, sharing secrets with friends and falling in love, she slowly becomes aware that Dogmen are taking over her world. Each season, her people are forced farther inland, away from their own hunting grounds, back from the rich seal beaches. Now the only witness that the Beothuk once walked the earth, Shanawdithit is forced to endlessly repeat the story of her doomed people.In 1998, Judith and Ian Muir are in Rwanda as part of the United Nations team investigating a genocide site. A shot rings out and Ian falls dead. Overwhelmed with grief, his widow returns to England and the abandoned cottage where she grew up. There, an unusual discovery takes Judith on a quest that will inextricably connect her life to the lives of Shanawdithit and Kyle Holloway. In Cloud of Bone, three stories come together to make both an intriguing mystery and a meditation on lost innocence, brutality and the power of memory.
Cloning Miranda
Carol Matas - 1999
Then when day her vision gets a little blurry - and the doctor tells her it's the first symptom of a fatal disease. Her parents are prepared to fight for her life with everything they have: wealth, connections, determination. Miranda won't lose her life, or her sight. Instead, she'll begin to see things about her parents - about her life - that surprise her. Shock her. Scare her. Save her.
Lullabies for Little Criminals
Heather O'Neill - 2006
Motherless, she lives with her father, Jules, who takes better care of his heroin habit than he does of his daughter. Baby's gift is a genius for spinning stories and for cherishing the small crumbs of happiness that fall into her lap. But her blossoming beauty has captured the attention of a charismatic and dangerous local pimp who runs an army of sad, slavishly devoted girls—a volatile situation even the normally oblivious Jules cannot ignore. And when an escape disguised as betrayal threatens to crush Baby's spirit, she will ultimately realize that the power of salvation rests in her hands alone.
White Jade Tiger
Julie Lawson - 1993
Egoff Children’s Literature Prize — Winner1994 Candian Library Association Book of the Year Award — Runner-up1995 Silver Birch Award — ShortlistedCCBC’s Best Books for Kids Teens (Spring 2017) SelectionJasmine is not sure she likes the idea of being stuck in Victoria while her father goes to China. But on a field trip to Chinatown, she changes her mind. Passing through a doorway in Fan Tan Alley, she mysteriously finds herself in the early 1880s. Adventure begins with a new friend, a journey to the Fraser Canyon during the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and a search for an ancient amulet. But Jasmine is not the only one searching for the white jade tiger…
Jolted: Newton Starker's Rules for Survival
Arthur Slade - 2008
They’ve been chronicled on blogs, profiled on TV and researched by paranormal investigators. They appear to be cursed: everyone of Starker blood has died after being struck by lightning. Fourteen-year-old Newton Starker is the last of his line—except for his great-grandmother, Enid, a woman as friendly as a pickled wolverine—and he’s determined to survive.Newton has spent all of his life surviving, following a list of rules for self-preservation, guidelines passed down through generations of Starkers. But Newton wants to try something new. He has enrolled at Jerry Potts Academy of Higher Learning and Survival in Moose Jaw with the hope that he’ll be able to beat the odds—he has a dream of becoming a great chef someday. If he wants to go beyond just getting by, Newton is going to need more than rules. He’s going to need friends. From the creative mind of award-winning writer Arthur Slade—author of Dust, Tribes and Megiddo’s Shadow—comes a quirky, laugh-out-loud story about dreaming big, standing out and knowing when you need help.HIGHLIGHTS FROM NEWTON STARKER'S RULES FOR SURVIVAL• Do not take a bath during a thunderstorm.• When thunder roars, go indoors. Fast!• Beware of cumulonimbus clouds.• Check the weather before exiting any building.• Remember not to get angry. Anger has been the downfall of many a Starker.• If your hair stands on end, you are about to be struck by lightning.• Lightning travels down telephone wires. Use only cordless phones.• Check the weather. Recheck the weather. Check it again.
Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself
Judy Blume - 1977
Freedman is full of wild ideas. She's got her eye on handsome Peter Horstein, the Latin lover of her dreams . . . on old Mr. Zavodsky, who looks suspiciously like Hitler in disguise . . . and on her father, who Sally misses terribly. There are so many things to worry and wonder about--but what ever happens, Sally's school year will certainly be exciting--and unforgettable.
The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business/The Manticore/World of Wonders
Robertson Davies - 1975
Luring the reader down labyrinthine tunnels of myth, history, and magic, The Deptford Trilogy provides an exhilarating antidote to a world from where "the fear and dread and splendour of wonder have been banished."
Carrie's War
Nina Bawden - 1973
Carrie and Nick are billeted in Wales with old Mr Evans, who is so mean and cold, and his timid mouse of a sister, Lou, who suddenly starts having secrets. Their friend Albert is luckier, living in Druid's Bottom with warm-hearted Hepzibah Green and the strange Mister Johnny, who can talk to animals but not to human beings. Carrie and Nick visit him there whenever they can for Hepzibah makes life exciting and enticing with her stories and delicious cooking. Gradually they begin to feel more at ease in their war-time home, but then, in trying to heal the rift between Mr Evans and his estranged sister, and save Druid's Bottom, Carrie does a terrible thing which is to haunt her for years to come. Carrie revisits Wales as an adult and tells the story to her own children.
A Complicated Kindness
Miriam Toews - 2004
Left alone with her sad, peculiar father, her days are spent piecing together why her mother and sister have disappeared and contemplating her inevitable career at Happy Family Farms, a chicken slaughterhouse on the outskirts of East Village. Not the East Village in New York City where Nomi would prefer to live, but an oppressive town founded by Mennonites on the cold, flat plains of Manitoba, Canada.This darkly funny novel is the world according to the unforgettable Nomi, a bewildered and wry sixteen-year-old trapped in a town governed by fundamentalist religion and in the shattered remains of a family it destroyed. In Nomi's droll, refreshing voice, we're told the story of an eccentric, loving family that falls apart as each member lands on a collision course with the only community any of them have ever known. A work of fierce humor and tragedy by a writer who has taken the American market by storm, this searing, tender, comic testament to family love will break your heart.
Run
David Skuy - 2017
Then he discovers something about himself: he's a fast runner. He joins the running group and is recruited for the school track team. But being on the track team and getting more attention brings Lionel closer to the bullies he's been avoiding and makes him a target.