- friendship (438)
- non-classifiable (296)
- mysteries & detective stories (252)
- self-esteem & self-reliance (244)
- humorous stories (239)
- law & crime (223)
- values & virtues (175)
- imagination & play (140)
- siblings (133)
- emotions & feelings (132)
- death & dying (115)
- bullying (98)
- school & education (98)
- crime (95)
- prejudice & racism (89)
- multigenerational (83)
- parents (81)
- survival stories (80)
- environment (79)
- music (76)
TJ and the Sports Fanatic
TJ Barnes is back, playing with his crazy cats, T-Rex and Alaska, helping out in his parents' hardware store and goofing around with his best friend, Seymour.
When Seymour announces that he has signed them both up for a football team, TJ fears the worst. Neither of them is huge or mean or able to tackle, catch, throw, run or kick a ball down a field …
The Dream Where Losers Go
No one knows why she hurt herself, least of all Skey. After five long months in treatment for self-destructive behavior, Skey continues to dream of dark tunnels with mysterious designs carved into their stone walls, a place where she is safe and alone. Then she encounters another dreamer, a boy her own age, dreaming the same dream, wandering the sa …
Kelly's Cabin
Kelly loves the cabin she has made from a refrigerator box. It has a window with curtains, pictures on the walls, a cabin-sized table and a wonderful view. It sits in the vacant lot next door, transformed into the rugged farm of a pioneer family. Now if only Kelly can find the right person to share it with.
All Sleek and Skimming
A collection of compelling short fiction for older teen readers.
Who's in Maxine's Tree
Maxine loves her giant tree in the Walbran Valley, but as she gazes at clearcuts from the car window, she worries. What if her tree is gone? Her family and friends trek through the old growth forest, and Maxine runs on ahead to check. Yes, her tree is there. She stands at its foot and listens, but it doesn't make its special sound, "Keer, keer." Sh …
Laggan Lard Butts
Sam Campbell's school team, the Laggan Lairds, always loses.
When someone suggests that their name be the Laggan Lard Butts, Sam thinks the team should change its name. What is a Laird anyway? The basketball coach agrees, and soon the whole school is involved in an election for a new team name. Sam and his friends nominate the name Lard Butts. When …
Dog Walker
Turk needs cash, but he's allergic to his own sweat, so getting a job is out of the question.
Then Turk makes an important discovery: Girls love dogs. And Turk's friends will do anything to meet girls. So Turk starts a dog walking business. His friends walk the dogs and Turk collects half the money. In an attempt to impress dog-loving Carly, Turk br …
Dragon Tide
A girl and a boy watch a stranger build a dragon in the sand. The dragon must wait for the night tide to set it free. But there is danger on the beach. As the sea crawls closer, other children come. They jump and play and the dragon begins to dissolve beneath their feet. The boy and the girl must keep the dragon safe until the sea can free him.
Chat Room
Linda joins her high school's private online forum and gains a following, but someone wants to take it offline.
Linda is shy and avoids getting involved at school. But when her high school sets up online chat rooms she can't resist the urge to visit them. Fuelled by interest in a student with the nickname Cyrano, Linda participates in online convers …
The Hemingway Tradition
Shaw Sebring is sixteen and trying to understand his father’s suicide. Moving with his mother halfway across the country to distance themselves from the awful truth, Shaw lands in a new school and finds that the ghost of his father, a best-selling author, has followed him. Shaw tries to chart his own course, until circumstances force him to accep …
Heart of the Hill
In Volume Three of The Summer of Magic Quartet, Adam's turn to lead the adventure has arrived. The Wise One, Myrddin, needs Adam to retrieve his staff from the Crystal Cave deep inside Glastonbury Tor. The quest grows more dangerous, however, and fear rises. Equus and Ava are far away, the Lady will not wake, and Myrddin is in human guise, unable t …
The Bonemender
Gabrielle is a bonemender of extraordinary talent. Between her work as a healer and her duties as one of the royal family of Verdeau, her life is busy, comfortable and predictable—until the day a stranger arrives at her gate, desperately seeking help for his injured friend. To Gabrielle's wonder, they are Elves, a people not seen in Verdeau in ma …
Alberta Alibi
Sheila, Rusty and Katie are on the road again. Fresh from their adventures in Barkerville, the trio is now in southern Alberta. Sheila has been anxiously anticipating her reunion with her father and is worried about how they will get along. Her fears are confirmed when they arrive at the Triple W Ranch and he is not there to greet them. When the p …
Yellow Line
Vince lives in a small town—a town that is divided right down the middle by race. An unspoken rule has been there as long as Vince remembers and no one challenges it. But when Vince's friend Sherry starts dating an Indigenous boy, Vince is outraged—until he notices Raedawn, a girl from the reserve. Trying to balance his community's prejudices w …
Flower Power
Callie's mother has chained herself to the neighbor's tree and is living inside the treehouse. She refuses to come down until the neighbor, Mr. Wilson, agrees to leave the tree standing. Soon reporters arrive to interview Callie about her mother's protest. Callie doesnít want to talk to anyone. More chaos ensues when Callie's grandmother invites t …
George Most Wanted
George Most Wanted is the second of three books in the George series
At the end of The True Story of George, George, a small plastic man, went for a ride on a rocket and flew apart. Now, with Katie and Mackenzie’s help, all his parts must find each other. But his head has been frozen deep in a bag of blackberries. Will he ever be whole again?
The …
Breathless
Beverly is in Hawaii, helping her uncle at his dive shop, learning how to dive and trying to lose weight and get a boyfriend. When Garth, an accomplished diver, shows an interest in her, Beverly is ecstatic, until it turns out Garth is only interested in one thing. Struggling with failing strength from her self-imposed starvation diet, Beverly find …
Snitch
Josh had been living in a group home after being ratted out by Scott, his one-time best friend.
Now Josh has moved in with his brother and overbearing sister-in-law and has been sent to a class designed to teach him to deal with his anger. When an old enemy continues to push his buttons and Scott appears to be up to his old tricks, Josh struggles to …
Under a Living Sky
Mary is certain that her parents are giving her new shoes for Christmas, but the Depression has hit her Saskatchewan farming family hard. Mary tries to hide her disappointment when she receives a crude homemade doll instead. She ends up liking the doll much more than she expects, but the doll fuels the rivalry between Mary and her older sister, Jud …
Peggy's Letters
In the final months of World War II, ten-year-old Peggy shelters with her mother and baby brother in a London butcher's shop during an air raid. They survive, but their home and everything in it are lost, including Peggyís most treasured possession, a biscuit tin of letters from her father. Their lives change dramatically and Peggy makes friends w …
Red Sea
Fourteen-year-old Libby didn't want to go on a year long sailing adventure with her mother and her stepfather, Duncan, and she isn't about to let them forget it. Traveling through the Red Sea, Libby causes them to be late and make a dangerous crossing alone. When modern-day pirates attack, Duncan is killed and Libby's mother is left seriously injur …
Ghost Wolf
Matt is desperate to fit in at summer camp. One night he gets lost when he goes off on his own to retrieve a forgotten life preserver. A wolf appears and Matt overcomes his fears and follows it. He finds a half-wolf, half-dog pup whose mother is dead. Is the big wolf who guides him the same wolf that his father rescued years before from a trap?
Sudden Impact
Key Selling Points
- New, enhanced features (dyslexia-friendly font, cream paper, larger trim size) to increase reading accessibility for dyslexic and other striving readers.
Spoiled Rotten
Jessica loves her yearly backpacking trip with her father, but this year everything has changed. This year Jessica has to share her vacation with her new stepmother and her spoiled new stepsister, Amy. Jessica tries to salvage her holiday by sneaking off for a day hike alone, but Amy follows. Jessica is certain that Amy will ruin the day. Amy rises …
Dimples Delight
Lawrence hates being teased about his dimples, but nothing he does seems to make any difference. Joe goes right on teasing him, and the teasing gets meaner and meaner. Finally, Lawrence notices something about his friend Stewart that may provide the tool he needs to tease-proof himself once and for all.
Home Invasion
Josh is less than thrilled that he has a new stepfather, and finds his personal habits—and his personality—irritating. When his mother leaves town, Josh is left to spend a week alone with Clay. Resenting his new living arrangements and his unorthodox home life, Josh finds himself drawn to the idea of a "regular" family and, on a whim, sneaks in …
The Big Tree Gang
Reg and Keely are twins. Keely loves painting and bugs. Reg loves rocks. Keely sings crazy rhymes. Reg plays softball. Shawna and Burt are their friends. In this series of linked stories, the childrenís deep involvement with their daily activities never falters, from a bug walk, through incidents flying a kite and dividing labor at clean up time, …
A Kind of Courage
Everything changes when Hattie Tamblyn's much-adored older brother, Will, enlists in the Canadian army in 1916 and is sent to fight in France.
Hattie lives for Will's letters from the front, but her mother retreats into depression, her younger brother, Johnny, becomes violent and her father despairs of running the family farm without Will's help. T …
Forward, Shakespeare!
Seeing-eye pup, Shakespeare, conquered many fears in Rescue Pup. Now he is back, about to be matched up with a blind boy, ready to begin his working life. Tim is enraged by his blindness and wants nothing to do with a guide dog. But he is no match for Shakespeare.
Once Upon a Time
In Once Upon a Time: My Life with Children's Books Sheila Egoff tells the story of her working life, from her early voracious reading, through all her significant contributions to libraries in Canada and to our national understanding of our own literature for children. She brings both a critical eye and a personal touch to this book, which reads as …
Ben's Big Dig
If you dug a hole to the other side of the earth, where do you think you would end up? In this wordless picture book, pictures tell Ben's story of a midnight journey through the center of the earth and the surprising journey home. Ben's mother has dropped him off for a visit with his grandmother, a woman with a penchant for baking. Ben feels lost a …
Puppies on Board
When eleven puppies are born on Mollie's family's boat, chaos ensues. Mollie's mother wonders what to do, but Mollie has an idea. She will host a tea party in order to find homes for Charlotte, Heidi, Stuart, Margalo, Max, Pippi, Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, and Tigger. But Wilbur…Wilbur is special. Not just any home will do for him.
Peek a Little Boo
Who better to introduce babies to the alphabet than Sheree Fitch? In Peek-a-Little Boo twenty-six babies and toddlers from all over the world romp and revel in the twists and turns of language, real and imagined. The story is as multicultural as the alphabet will allow it to be. The pictures are big, bright and bold. And the language is guaranteed …
The Summer of the Spotted Owl
After a hang glider crashes into the pool of the house where Dinah and Madge are house-sitting, the hapless pilot creates more than a splash of suspicion in Dinah’s mind. Why does this itchy intruder make off with Dinah’s inflatable turtle? Why is someone trying to drive their cat-mad neighbor away? And what is the connection with the balding s …
Home Before Dark
Erik and his friends spend all their time on the water, exploring the shoreline and islands off British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. While they all have experience with boats and the outdoors, the unpredictable weather and fickle seas often manage to test their courage and abilities. While exploring a burned-out homestead on a remote island, the teen …
