Tales from Shakespeare


Charles Lamb - 1807
    Presents an introduction to Shakespeare's greatest plays including Hamlet Othello, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and Pericles.

365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne's Book of Precepts


R.J. Palacio - 2014
    Browne and his love of precepts. Simply put, precepts are principles to live by, and Mr. Browne has compiled 365 of them—one for each day of the year—drawn from popular songs to children’s books to inscriptions on Egyptian tombstones to fortune cookies. His selections celebrate kindness, hopefulness, the goodness of human beings, the strength of people’s hearts, and the power of people’s wills. Interspersed with the precepts are letters and emails from characters who appeared in Wonder. Readers hear from Summer, Jack, Charlotte, Julian, and Amos.   There’s something for everyone here, with words of wisdom from such noteworthy people as Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., Confucius, Goethe, Sappho—and over 100 readers of Wonder who sent R. J. Palacio their own precepts.

New Beginnings


Victoria Schwab - 2014
    Bold rising star, Victoria Schwab, makes her whimsical, inspiring, and clever middle-grade debut.At a first glance, Aria seems like your average twelve-year-old girl. She has coppery hair, colored shoelaces, and a passion for cupcakes. But there's more to Aria than meets the eye. She can dream things into existence, use her own shadow like a door, and change the world in small, important ways. Aria is a guardian angel. She's been sent here to earn her wings. But to do that, she'll have to help three different girls.Aria's first mission is Gabby Torres. Gabby's always been quiet, but ever since her brother got sick, she's barely said a word.When a new school offers her a fresh start, Gabby wants badly to be someone new, but she quickly learns it's hard to make friends while keeping half her life a secret.And then Aria shows up. Aria, who knows exactly what to say and do to make Gabby feel better. Will she be able to help Gabby find her voice? And will Gabby still trust Aria when she finds out exactly what she is?

I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912


Lauren Tarshis - 2010
    The ship is full of exciting places to explore, but when George ventures into the first class storage cabin, a terrible boom shakes the entire boat. Suddenly, water is everywhere, and George's life changes forever.Lauren Tarshis brings history's most exciting and terrifying events to life in this new fictional series. Readers will be transported by stories of amazing kids and how they survived!

Blood and Iron: Building the Railroad, Lee Heen-gwong, British Columbia, 1882


Paul Yee - 2000
    Duty. Danger. Fear. Canada's past comes alive through the eyes of young men caught up in the danger, drama and excitement of defining historical events. Written by some of Canada's finest authors, I Am Canada is a new series that offers riveting action-packed stories sure to engage and inspire young readers. From the creators of the bestselling Dear Canada series, the I Am Canada books will include an images and documents section, map, glossary, historical notes and About the Author pages. The facts are vetted by some of Canada's best historians Blood and Iron By Paul Yee The incredible sacrifices made by Chinese workers building the transcontinental railway are revealed in this powerful new novel. Heen's father and grandfather have brought their family in China to the brink of ruin by gambling away their earnings. To solve their money troubles, Heen and his father come to Canada to build the railroad - a decision plagued by challenges and desperation. The living conditions provided for workers are wretched and work on the railroad is excruciating. Transporting tons of gravel and working in tunnels about to be dynamited proves to be deadly for many of Heen's co-workers. The friction between the Chinese workers and the whites, who barely acknowledge these deaths, soon reaches a fevered pitch. Heen's chilling observations of the injustice and peril heaped upon the workers serve as an important testament to this dramatic era in Canadian history.

Record Breaker


Robin Stevenson - 2013
    Adrift in his own life, Jack is convinced that setting a world record will bring his father back to his senses and his mother back to life. But world events, including President Kennedy's assassination, threaten to overshadow any record Jack tries to beat--from sausage eating to face slapping. Nothing works, and Jack is about to give up when a new friend suggests a different approach that involves listening to, not breaking, records.

Frankie vs the Pirate Pillagers


Frank Lampard - 2013
    

A Place Called Sorry


Donna Milner - 2015
    Addie-as her grandfather Chauncey Beynon Beale affectionately calls her- believes that everything she could ever want or need is to be found on his cattle ranch, the place her family calls home, or in the little town twelve bush miles away, a place called Sorry. After tragedy strikes her family, Addie holds her sorrows close to her heart. Only later will she learn that her grandfather too has lived with his own secret torment for more than seventy years. It will take his slipping into blindness and dementia before the dark spectre from his past emerges, leaving her the one responsible for its consequences. And when that day arrives, when Chauncey Beale's past intersects with Addie's present, it will change her future in ways that she, and those she loves, could never have imagined.

Just for You to Know


Cheryl Harness - 2006
    Can it get any worse than this? Carmen imagines she's been kidnapped -- how else did she wind up as one of the Cathcarts. . . . At almost thirteen she's the oldest, with five noisy little brothers, a dreamy mom, and a sometimes reckless dad.When she's a famous artist, she'll get away from them all!This wonderfully honest and bighearted first novel mirrors life. Carmen Cathcart becomes a friend as, with a voice that is deeply moving yet often funny, she shares the importance of holding on to your dreams and what it means to be a family.

Half-Breed


Maria Campbell - 1973
    At 15 she tried in vain to escape by marrying a white man, only to find herself trapped in the slums of Vancouver—addicted to drugs, tempted by suicide, close to death. But the inspiration of her Cree great-grandmother, Cheechum, gives her confidence in herself and in her people, confidence she needs to survive and to thrive.Half-Breed offers an unparalleled understanding of the Métis people and of the racism and hatred they face. Maria Campbell's story cannot be denied and it cannot be forgotten: it stands as a challenge to all Canadians who believe in human rights and human dignity.

Yellow Dog


Miriam Körner - 2016
    When peer pressure leads Jeremy into a bad prank, he is immediately struck with guilt—and that’s when his life changes forever. Trying to make amends, Jeremy befriends Yellow Dog—and in the process meets a curious old man who introduces him to the adventures of sled dogging. Soon Jeremy is forming his own old-time dog team that includes Yellow Dog and discovers more about himself—and the old man—than he ever thought possible.

Trudeau: The Education of a Prime Minister


John Ivison - 2019
    A must-read as we head into the 2019 federal election.Canadians are becoming increasingly skeptical about their chameleon prime minister. When he entered politics, Justin Trudeau came across as a person with no fixed principles. Now, he presents himself as a conviction politician. What motivated his metamorphosis--belief or opportunism?Either way, in 2019's election he will be judged on results--results that have so far been disappointing for many, even those in his own party. From the ballooning deficit to the Trans Mountain purchase to the fallout of his disastrous trip to India to the unpopular implementation of a carbon tax, Justin Trudeau has presided over his share of controversy. Most damaging, his egregious missteps during the SNC-Lavalin scandal and the subsequent resignation of two top ministers, his principal secretary, and the clerk of the Privy Council have raised serious questions about Trudeau's integrity.As a political columnist for the National Post since 2003and Ottawa bureau chief for Postmedia for the past three years, John Ivison has watched Trudeau evolve as a politician and leader, a fascinating transition that has not been fully captured by any writer. Trudeau traces the complexities of the man himself, now barely visible beneath the talking points, virtue signalling, and polished trappings of office. Ivison concludes that while Trudeau led a moribund Liberal Party to victory in the 2015 election, the shine of his leadership has been worn off by a series of self-inflicted wounds, broken promises, and rookie mistakes.One of the central contentions of Trudeau is already apparent: the prime minister's greatest strengths are also his greatest weaknesses; the famous name, high-handedness, and impulsiveness are as liable to hurl him from office as they were to get him there in the first place.With unprecedented access and insight, John Ivison takes us inside one of the most contentious first terms of any prime minister in our history.

Bearskin Diary


Carol Daniels - 2015
    Carol Daniels adds an important perspective to the Canadian literary landscape.Taken from the arms of her mother as soon as she was born, Sandy was only one of over twenty thousand Aboriginal children scooped up by the federal government between the 1960s and 1980s. Sandy was adopted by a Ukrainian family and grew up as the only First Nations child in a town of white people. Ostracized by everyone around her and tired of being different, at the early age of five she tried to scrub the brown off her skin. But she was never sent back into the foster system, and for that she considers herself lucky.From this tragic period in her personal life and in Canadian history, Sandy does not emerge unscathed, but she emerges strong--finding her way by embracing the First Nations culture that the Sixties Scoop had tried to deny. Those very roots allow Sandy to overcome the discriminations that she suffers every day from her co-workers, from strangers and sometimes even from herself.

I Can Make This Promise


Christine Day - 2019
    All her life, Edie has known that her mom was adopted by a white couple. So, no matter how curious she might be about her Native American heritage, Edie is sure her family doesn’t have any answers.Until the day when she and her friends discover a box hidden in the attic—a box full of letters signed “Love, Edith,” and photos of a woman who looks just like her.Suddenly, Edie has a flurry of new questions about this woman who shares her name. Could she belong to the Native family that Edie never knew about? But if her mom and dad have kept this secret from her all her life, how can she trust them to tell her the truth now?

This Place: 150 Years Retold


Kateri Akiwenzie-DammSonny Assu - 2019
    Beautifully illustrated, these stories are an emotional and enlightening journey through magic realism, serial killings, psychic battles, and time travel. See how Indigenous peoples have survived a post-apocalyptic world since Contact.This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter initiative. With this $35M initiative, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.