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DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
General fiction, LGBTQ+ fiction, Indigenous peoples fiction
Human-narrated audio
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE*NATIONAL BESTSELLERAn urgent first novel about breaching the prisons we live inside from one…
of Canada’s most daring literary talents.An unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him: the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness.What ensues is a series of conversations, connections, and disconnections that reveals the texture of life in a town literature has left unexplored, where the friction between possibility and constraint provides an insistent background score.Whether he’s meeting with an auntie distraught over the imprisonment of her grandson, engaging in rez gossip with his cousin at a pow wow, or lingering in bed with a married man after a hotel room hookup, the narrator makes space for those in his orbit to divulge their private joys and miseries, testing the theory that storytelling can make us feel less lonely.Populated by characters as alive and vast as the boreal forest, and culminating in a breathtaking crescendo, A Minor Chorus is a novel about how deeply entangled the sayable and unsayable can become—and about how ordinary life, when pressed, can produce hauntingly beautiful music.
DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
School stories, General fiction
Human-narrated audio
After 15-year-old Zahabiya’s father remarries, she can’t wait to leave home and convinces him to send her away to boarding…
school. But will she fit in? She joins a clique of smart students but isn’t sure if she measures up or how to read the mixed messages from a guy she’s crushing on. Seventeen-year-old Leesa has been at Thornton since middle school after her parents’ messy divorce. She’s been climbing the school’s social ladder with equal measures of meanness and manipulation. She’s also guarding a big secret that she has to work overtime to keep from her friends. Fresh out of university, this is Nahla’s first real teaching job, and she’s drowning. She has her distractions though: the flirty art teacher and a cryptic notebook left behind by her deceased predecessor, Mademoiselle Leblanc. Zahabiya and her friends ― all racialized girls and victims of Leesa’s bullying ― uncover Leesa’s secret. But can they help Leesa? Nahla, too, is embroiled in her own mystery, assisted by Mademoiselle Leblanc’s ghost. Each is indelibly changed by what they learn.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Multi-cultural fiction, General fiction, Serious and literary fiction, Canadian authors (Fiction)
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Dreaming is a luxury that few can afford. And yet, however inadvisedly, Iman dreams. In an unnamed African country devoured…
by rampant urbanization and haunted by the mirages of Western prosperity, where for a few CFA francs a child can be bought and sold into slavery, Toumani's earliest education is in the tolerance of suffering. He endures one master then the next, holding his survival—his very self—with open hands. For Iman, a black and white biracial boy with an elusive presence, the only viable option appears to be an escape to bountiful Europe, where everything must be easier. Obsessed with this idyllic elsewhere to the point of losing himself completely, he remains, for those close to him, an object of fascination difficult to define. When Iman reaches out his hand to rescue Toumani from certain death, he sets in motion a friendship that may satisfy their need for connection but cannot fundamentally change their circumstances. What is the point of survival without hope for a more livable future? And what happens to them when they both love the same girl? In this stunning translation of Ryad Assani-Razaki's award-winning debut novel, dreaming is a luxury that few can afford. And yet, however inadvisedly, Iman dreams
DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Multi-cultural fiction, General fiction, Serious and literary fiction, Indigenous peoples in Canada fiction, Canadian authors (Fiction)
Human-narrated audio
Queenie meets Frying Plantain in this courageous coming-of-age story, set in the 1990s, about a mixed-race Black girl fighting for…
recognition in a South Carolina Cherokee community that refuses to accept her ancestry as legitimate. On the rain-swollen banks of the River Etsi in South Carolina, Ophelia Blue Rivers—six years old in 1992—catches frogs and stretches to reach the swaying sunflowers. She's an orphan raised in a rustic cabin by her Grandma Blue, a descendent of the Black Cherokee Freedmen. Caught in deep currents of history that she doesn't understand, she is, as her grandma says: "half Black, half Cherokee, and all mixed up." While Ophelia may not always understand where she came from, there's no mistaking where she'd rather be: caught in the warmth of Grandma Blue's cabin, listening to bedtime Cherokee legends as collard greens hiss in the frying pan. But one day, a tall stranger with a black denim jacket and a charming smile appears, and his arrival shatters Ophelia's world. She finds herself whisked away from all she knows to live with her Auntie Oba, the boisterous woman she had only met in rumours. So begins Ophelia's spirited, at times harrowing, search for home and family—a journey that takes her from a majority-white high school to the inner sanctum of a Black evangelical church to the throbbing dance floors of underground Southern clubs and to a final, devastating encounter with the scion of a wealthy, white family. She must ask herself: What does it mean to belong when the terms of that belonging come at such a high price? With dazzling language, keen insight, and an unforgettable voice, Black Cherokee is not only an astonishing novel but a profound meditation on race, identity, and coming of age from a major literary talent
DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
General fiction, Mysteries and crime storiesGeneral non-fiction
Human-narrated audio
"In this high-interest accessible novel for teen readers, sixteen-year-old Jesse wonders how far he'll go for a cool new pair…
of sneakers when an older teen entices him into petty theft."-- Provided by publisher
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Multi-cultural fiction, General fiction, Serious and literary fiction
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Queenie meets Frying Plantain in this courageous coming-of-age story, set in the 1990s, about a mixed-race Black girl fighting for…
recognition in a South Carolina Cherokee community that refuses to accept her ancestry as legitimate.On the rain-swollen banks of the River Etsi in South Carolina, Ophelia Blue Rivers—six years old in 1992—catches frogs and stretches to reach the swaying sunflowers. She&’s an orphan raised in a rustic cabin by her Grandma Blue, a descendent of the Black Cherokee Freedmen. Caught in deep currents of history that she doesn&’t understand, she is, as her grandma says: &“half Black, half Cherokee, and all mixed up.&” While Ophelia may not always understand where she came from, there&’s no mistaking where she&’d rather be: caught in the warmth of Grandma Blue&’s cabin, listening to bedtime Cherokee legends as collard greens hiss in the frying pan. But one day, a tall stranger with a black denim jacket and a charming smile appears, and his arrival shatters Ophelia&’s world. She finds herself whisked away from all she knows to live with her Auntie Oba, the boisterous woman she had only met in rumours. So begins Ophelia&’s spirited, at times harrowing, search for home and family—a journey that takes her from a majority-white high school to the inner sanctum of a Black evangelical church to the throbbing dance floors of underground Southern clubs and to a final, devastating encounter with the scion of a wealthy, white family. She must ask herself: What does it mean to belong when the terms of that belonging come at such a high price? With dazzling language, keen insight, and an unforgettable voice, Black Cherokee is not only an astonishing novel but a profound meditation on race, identity, and coming of age from a major literary talent.
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Multi-cultural fiction, LGBTQ+ fiction, General fiction
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
&“An ode to the courage it takes to live with authenticity.&” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) An intensely brave, beautifully honest,…
and wryly funny story about a gay Muslim teen who has to choose between being true to himself or his faith—and his realization that maybe they aren&’t as separate as he thought.Ramin Abbas has spent his whole life obeying his parents, his Imam, and, of course, Allah—no questions asked. But when he starts crushing on the ridiculously handsome captain of the soccer team, so many things he&’d always been so sure about are becoming questions: 1. Music is haram. But what if the Wicked soundtrack is the only thing keeping you sane because you&’re being forced to play on the soccer team? With Captain Handsome?! 2. A boy crush is double haram, and Ramin&’s parents will never accept it. But can he really be the only Muslim on Earth who feels this way? 3. Allah is merciful and makes no mistakes. Then isn&’t Ramin just the way Allah intended him to be? And so why should living your truth but losing everything—or living a lie and losing yourself—have to be a choice?!
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY Audio (Direct to Player), DAISY Audio (Zip), DAISY text (Direct to player), DAISY text (Zip), Word (Zip), ePub (Zip)
Multi-cultural fiction, General fiction, Ghost and horror stories
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Jordan Peele&’s Us meets The School For Good Mothers in this horror-tinged intergenerational saga, as a single mother&’s doppelganger forces…
her to confront the legacy of violence that has shaped every woman in their family. Single mother Alice Chow is drowning. With a booming online cloth diaper shop, her resentful teenage daughter Luna, and her screen-obsessed son Luca, Alice can never get everything done in a day. It&’s all she can do to just collapse on the couch with a bottle of wine every night. It&’s a relief when Alice wakes up one morning and everything has been done. The counters are clear, the kids&’ rooms are tidy, orders are neatly packed and labeled. But no one confesses they&’ve helped, and Alice doesn&’t remember staying up late. Someone–or something–has been doing her chores for her. Alice should be uneasy, but the extra time lets her connect with her children and with her hard-edged mother, who begins to share their haunted family history from Alice&’s great-grandmother, a comfort woman during WWII, through to Alice herself. But the family demons, both real and subconscious, are about to become impossible to ignore. Sharp and incisive, The Hunger We Pass Down traces the ways intergenerational trauma transforms from mother to daughter, and asks what it might take to break that cycle.