Service Alert
Website maintenance April 24 10pm ET
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
Showing 1 - 18 of 18 items
By Jonathan Auxier. 2018
Nineteenth-century England. After her father's disappearance Nan Sparrow, ten, works as a "climbing boy," aiding chimney sweeps, but when her…
most treasured possessions end up in a fireplace, she unwittingly creates a golem. Winner of the 2018 Governor General’s Award for Young People's Literature. Grades 4-7. 2018.By Tim Wynne-Jones. 2019
Fast-paced, evocative, and intensely suspenseful, Tim Wynne-Jones’s latest psychological thriller finds a teenager setting his wits against the frigid wilderness…
and a menacing crew of escapees.Four months after his best friend, Dodge, disappeared near their families’ camp in a boat accident, Nate is still haunted by nightmares. He’d been planning to make the treacherous trek to the remote campsite with a friend — his first time in winter without his survival-savvy father. But when his friend gets grounded, Nate secretly decides to brave the trip solo in a journey that’s half pilgrimage, half desperate hope he will find his missing friend when no one else could. What he doesn’t expect to find is the door to the cabin flung open and the camp occupied by strangers: three men he’s horrified to realize have escaped from a maximum-security prison. Snowed in by a blizzard and with no cell signal, Nate is confronted with troubling memories of Dodge and a stunning family secret, and realizes that his survival now depends on his wits as much as his wilderness skills. As things spiral out of control, Nate finds himself dealing with questions even bigger than who gets to leave the camp alive.By Regina M. Hansen. 2021
Music, myth, and horror blend in this romantic, “eerie…atmospheric” (Publishers Weekly) fantasy debut about a teen girl who must fight…
a powerful evil that’s invaded her Prince Edward Island home—perfect for fans of An Enchantment of Ravens.There’s a certain wild magic in the salt air and the thrum of the sea. Beet MacNeill has known this all her life. It added spice to her childhood adventures with her older cousin, Gerry, the two of them thick as thieves as they explored their Prince Edward Island home. So when Gerry comes up the path one early spring morning, Beet thinks nothing of it at first. But he is soaking wet and silent, and he plays a haunting tune on his fiddle that chills Beet to the bone. Something is very, very wrong. Things only get worse when Marina Shaw saunters into town and takes an unsettling interest in Gerry’s new baby. Local lore is filled with tales of a vicious shape-shifting sea creature and the cold, beautiful woman who controls him—a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Marina. Beet is determined to find out what happened to her beloved cousin, and to prevent the same fate from befalling the handsome new boy in town who is winning her heart, whether she wants him to or not. Yet the sea always exacts a price…By Theresa Meuse. 2022
It's early July, and for Matthew and his Auntie that means one thing: time to go sweetgrass picking. This year,…
Matthew's younger cousin Warren is coming along, and it will be his first time visiting the shoreline where the sweetgrass grows. With Auntie's traditional Mi'kmaw knowledge and Matthew's gentle guidance, Warren learns about the many uses for sweetgrass—as traditional medicine, a sacred offering, a smudging ingredient—and the importance of not picking more than he needs. Once the trio is back at Auntie's house, she shows the boys how to clean and braid the grass. This heartfelt story about the gifts we receive from Mother Earth and how to gather them respectfully offers thoughtful insight into a treasured Mi'kmaw traditionBy Kim Spencer. 2022
By Lori Weber. 2016
When a team in an all-girls’ hockey league comes to recruit players, twelve-year-old Lou’s dreams seem to be coming true.…
But the dreams hinge on one thing: never letting on that Lou is a boy. But the road to stardom is not easy, as Lou discovers that the competition is fierce, and that he’s got a lot of work to do to match the skills of the league’s star player and his chief rival, Albertine Lapensée. All the while, he has to keep his secret, and wrestle with the moral dilemma of taking a place on the team away from a deserving girl. Loosely based on a true story, Lightning Lou is a riveting and thought-provoking story for middle-grade readers.By Alexandra Latos. 2020
This heartfelt novel for fans of Jandy Nelson and Adam Silvera follows twins Audrey and Clare as they grapple with…
their brother's death and their changing relationships-with each other and themselves. Audrey&’s best friend was always her twin, Clare. But as they got older, they grew apart, and when their brother Adam died, Clare blamed Audrey for the accident. Now, Audrey&’s attending an alternative school where she feels more isolated than ever. Tired of being seen as different from her neurotypical peers, Audrey&’s determined to switch to the public high school, rebuild her friendship with Clare, and atone for Adam&’s death . . . but she&’ll need to convince her parents, and her therapist, first. Clare knows her sister thinks she&’s the perfect twin, but Audrey doesn&’t realize that Clare&’s &“popular&” status is crumbling—she&’s begun to question old friendships, dress in Adam&’s clothes, and wonder what feelings for a nonbinary classmate, Taylor, might mean. As she grapples with not only grief but also her gender fluidity, Clare wonders where she&’ll belong if she sheds her carefully constructed image and embraces her true self. Will first crushes, new family dynamics, and questions of identity prove that Audrey and Clare have grown too different to understand each other-or that they've needed each other all along?By Joan Donaldson-Yarmey. 2015
On his sixteenth birthday Phillipe Chabot is told that his brother-in-law has hired him to be a voyageur. He will…
be paddling west from Montreal to Grade Portage to trade supplies with the Indians for furs. He is overjoyed and receives all the appropriate clothing from his family as birthday gifts, even a tobacco pouch. As the loaded canoe brigade gets ready to leave, his cousin, Jeanne, accepts the proposal of marriage yelled at her by the clerk who is going along to keep track of the trading. Unfortunately, disaster strikes the brigade as the men paddle the rivers, make their portages, and get onto the sometimes violent and unforgiving Lake Superior. In Montreal, the city is ravished by a fire and death is everywhere.By Regina M. Hansen. 2021
Music, myth, and horror blend in this romantic, atmospheric fantasy debut about a teen girl who must fight a powerful…
evil that&’s invaded her Prince Edward Island home—perfect for fans of An Enchantment of Ravens.There&’s a certain wild magic in the salt air and the thrum of the sea. Beet MacNeill has known this all her life. It added spice to her childhood adventures with her older cousin, Gerry, the two of them thick as thieves as they explored their Prince Edward Island home. So when Gerry comes up the path one early spring morning, Beet thinks nothing of it at first. But he is soaking wet and silent, and he plays a haunting tune on his fiddle that chills Beet to the bone. Something is very, very wrong. Things only get worse when Marina Shaw saunters into town and takes an unsettling interest in Gerry&’s new baby. Local lore is filled with tales of a vicious shape-shifting sea creature and the cold, beautiful woman who controls him—a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Marina. Beet is determined to find out what happened to her beloved cousin, and to prevent the same fate from befalling the handsome new boy in town who is winning her heart, whether she wants him to or not. Yet the sea always exacts a price...By Michel Noel. 2001
Winner of the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction The year is 1959, and fifteen-year-old Nipishish returns to his reserve…
in northern Quebec after being kicked out of residential school, where the principal tells him he's a good-for-nothing who, like all Indians, can look forward to a life of drunkenness, prison and despair. The reserve, however, offers nothing to Nipishish. He remembers little of his late mother and father. In fact, he seems to know less about himself than the people at the band office. He must try to rediscover the old ways, face the officials who find him a threat, and learn the truth about his father's death.By Brian Doyle. 1982
Winner of the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award Young Tommy and Baby Bridget, the girl with the…
trillium-shaped eyes, discover that living, healing and dying are not always what they seem. And they make that discovery with the help of a wonderful cast of characters, including Crazy Mickey, Frank and the Hummer. Award-winning author Brian Doyle spent the summers of his boyhood in the Gatineau Hills, the setting for Up to Low.By Martha Brooks. 1997
Alexandra's beloved grandfather was fond of saying, Life is full of surprises, and sometimes the good and the bad get…
all bunched up together. However, he could not have prepared her for the death of her father, a man she never knew, and his legacy -- a cabin on prairie land formerly owned by the LaFreniere family. Lonny LaFreniere's stepfather is the kindest man Lonny has ever known. But Lonny, tormented by guilty memories and visions he can't shake, rejects the land Pop always wanted to pass on to him. How could he have known it would end up in the hands of a city girl like Alexandra Sinclair? Acclaimed author Martha Brooks tells an unforgettable story about two teens and their quest to understand the land and each other.By Jen Ferguson. 2022
In this complex and emotionally resonant novel about a Métis girl living on the Canadian prairies, debut author Jen Ferguson…
serves up a powerful story about rage, secrets, and all the spectrums that make up a person—and the sweetness that can still live alongside the bitterest truth. Lou has enough confusion in front of her this summer. She’ll be working in her family’s ice-cream shack with her newly ex-boyfriend—whose kisses never made her feel desire, only discomfort—and her former best friend, King, who is back in their Canadian prairie town after disappearing three years ago without a word.But when she gets a letter from her biological father—a man she hoped would stay behind bars for the rest of his life—Lou immediately knows that she cannot meet him, no matter how much he insists.While King’s friendship makes Lou feel safer and warmer than she would have thought possible, when her family’s business comes under threat, she soon realizes that she can’t ignore her father forever.The Heartdrum imprint centers a wide range of intertribal voices, visions, and stories while welcoming all young readers, with an emphasis on the present and future of Indian Country and on the strength of young Native heroes. In partnership with We Need Diverse Books.By Jennifer Maruno. 2014
Jonny must travel to the distant past to understand the present As an orphaned white boy in a…
school full of Native students fourteen-year-old Jonny Joe isn t like any of the others at the island Redemption Residential School off the west coast When the advances of Father Gregory disturb Jonny he joins another boy in an escape to a mountain cave But when they leave the cave the world as they knew it no longer exists The boys travel to a native village in a sheltered bay where Jonny becomes skilled in the art of carving When a steamship enters the cove the party of sightseers brings a disease that annihilates most of the people in the village Meanwhile Jonny has learned the secret of his past and when he returns to the present Jonny carves a totem pole to honour the members of the villageBy Maureen Hull. 2006
An “ambitious and well-written” novel of a teenage girl who struggles to overcome medical and family challenges on Cape Breton…
Island during the 1970s (Quill & Quire).I must admit that when I first started losing weight I was pleased. I dropped from a pudgy hundred and twenty-five down to one-eighteen in a month, and kept on going. One hundred and five, and my breasts disappeared. By the time they hauled me off to the Sanatorium, a feverish, weepy, ninety-pound weakling, I was out of love with elegant bones and scared that I was coming out through my skin.A teenager in the 1970s, Gwen is stuck in a tuberculosis sanatorium with only her journal and the occasional illicit cigarette to keep her sane. Her twisted sense of humor helps her deal with invasive medical procedures, oversensitive friends, and dictatorial nurses, but nothing can spring her from prison.Not that life outside would be much better. Gwen is haunted by the dark and violent turn her life took just before she got sick. Her family has been shattered, and Gwen is fighting hard—with all the stubbornness and humor she can muster—not to be shattered too.“Expansive, deep and nourishing.” —The Globe and Mail“Beautifully written prose, humorous events, and a character who grows to appreciate the gift of being alive.” —School Library Journal“Compelling.” —Booklist“A challenging novel . . . an appealing and admirable character dealing with enormous challenges, yet never losing her sense of humor or her determination to overcome the difficulties and make her life matter.” —CM MagazineBy Jo Hammond. 2005
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 teens find themselves involved in a decades-old crime and realize that danger still lurks in the coastal rainforest. After befriending Gary, a retired logger who lives alone, Erik and the others learn of the death of Gary's aunt and uncle in a suspicious fire years before. They are then shocked to find they have aroused the interest of a shadowy stranger who seems to have designs on Gary's home and boat, and perhaps, most terrifyingly, his life. Frantically trying to unravel the web of secrets, the teenagers are in a race to save Gary and ultimately themselves.By David A. Robertson. 2019
Mysterious murders, shadowy figures, and high school. Life can be hard; death can be harder.Cole Harper is dead. Reynold McCabe…
is alive and free. Mihko Laboratories has reopened the research facility and works to manufacture and weaponize the illness that previously plagued Wounded Sky. People are missing, and the community has been quarantined. What deal did Eva strike with Choch? Who will defeat Reynold and Mihko? Time is running out.By David A. Robertson. 2019
Mysterious murders, shadowy figures, and high school. Life can be hard; death can be harder.Cole Harper is dead. Reynold McCabe…
is alive and free. Mihko Laboratories has reopened the research facility and works to manufacture and weaponize the illness that previously plagued Wounded Sky. People are missing, and the community has been quarantined. What deal did Eva strike with Choch? Who will defeat Reynold and Mihko? Time is running out.