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Love & courage: my story of family, resilience, and overcoming the unexpected : a memoir
By Jagmeet Singh. 2019
Jagmeet Singh Jimmy Dhaliwal. Every part of Jagmeet Singh's full name reflects a part of his identity. Jagmeet--the intelligent, warm…
"friend to the world." Singh--the great grandson of a Punjabi freedom fighter who defended his people against injustice. Jimmy--the kid who grew up on the hardscrabble streets of Windsor. Dhaliwal--the son of immigrants who chanced it and uprooted themselves in Canada for a better life. With wisdom, warmth, and compassion, Love & Courage tells the stories behind each of those names. The son of Indian immigrants, Jagmeet Singh grew up in Windsor, and he learned at an early age that the world was not always be kind. Early experiences with racism and prejudice made Jagmeet question his place in the society around him as he fought on the streets and in the classroom to carve out a safe space for himself. But while the society around him sought to bring him down, Jagmeet's family lifted him up. Whenever Jagmeet returned home bruised or battered by the outside world, his mother repeated the same words: "We are all one. We are all connected." Drawing on his heritage and history, Jagmeet began to see the world through a new lens. To prove to a world that said, again and again, that he didn't have value, Jagmeet worked hard to be the best at everything he did. Martial arts, school, sports--he excelled at everything he tried. Still, he didn't want to simply push past others. He wanted to connect to them. Slowly but surely, Jagmeet learned the truth of his mother's words. As he broke down the barriers around him, Jagmeet came to define his life in two words: love and courage. Bestseller. 2019.Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos
By Steven Heighton. 2020
"Searing ... the kind of book you won't forget."—Kirkus Reviews In the fall of 2015, Steven Heighton made an overnight…
decision to travel to the frontlines of the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece and enlist as a volunteer. He arrived on the isle of Lesvos with a duffel bag and a dubious grasp of Greek, his mother's native tongue, and worked on the landing beaches and in OXY-—a jerrybuilt, ad hoc transit camp providing simple meals, dry clothes, and a brief rest to refugees after their crossing from Turkey. In a town deserted by the tourists that had been its lifeblood, Heighton-—alongside the exhausted locals and under-equipped international aid workers—-found himself thrown into emergency roles for which he was woefully unqualified. From the brief reprieves of volunteer-refugee soccer matches to the riots of Camp Moria, Reaching Mithymna is a firsthand account of the crisis and an engaged exploration of the borders that divide us and the ties that bind.Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body
By Rebekah Taussig. 2020
A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to…
paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most.Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling.Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life. Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.Little Leaders: Bold Women In Black History (Vashti Harrison)
By Vashti Harrison. 2017
This beautifully illustrated board book edition of instant bestseller Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History showcases women who changed…
the world and is the perfect goodnight book to inspire big dreams. Featuring 18 trailblazing black women in American history, Dream Big, Little One is the irresistible board book adaptation of Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History. Among these women, you'll find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things - bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come. Whether they were putting pen to paper, soaring through the air or speaking up for the rights of others, the women profiled in these pages were all taking a stand against a world that didn't always accept them. The leaders in this book may be little, but they all did something big and amazing, inspiring generations to come.A Promised Land
By Barack Obama. 2020
A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power…
of democracy#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times • NPR • The Guardian • Marie Claire In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart: A Memoir in Halves
By Madhur Anand. 2020
“Wondrously and elegantly written in language that astonishes and moves the reader…This is an important book: an emotional and intellectual…
tour de force.” —Jane Urquhart An experimental memoir about Partition, immigration, and generational storytelling, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart weaves together the poetry of memory with the science of embodied trauma, using the imagined voices of the past and the vital authority of the present. We begin with a man off balance: one in one thousand, the only child in town whose polio leads to partial paralysis. We meet his future wife, chanting Hai Rams for Gandhiji and choosing education over marriage. On one side of the line that divides this book, we follow them as their homeland splits in two and they are drawn together, moving to Canada and raising their children in mining towns and in crowded city apartments. And when we turn the book over, we find the daughter's tale—we see how the rupture of Partition, the asymmetry of a father's leg, the virus of a mother's rage, makes its way to the next generation. Told through the lenses of biology, physics, history and poetry, this is a memoir that defies form and convention to immerse the reader in the feeling of what remains when we've heard as much of the truth as our families will allow, and we're left to search for ourselves among the pieces they've carried with them.Peace by Chocolate: The Hadhad Family’s Remarkable Journey from Syria to Canada
By Jon Tattrie. 2020
An Atlantic BestsellerA Hill Times' 100 Best Books in 2020 SelectionFebruary 2016. Antigonish, Nova Scotia.Tareq Hadhad was worried about his…
father: Isam did not know what to do with his life. Before the war began in Syria, Isam had run a chocolate company for over twenty years. But that life was gone now. The factory was destroyed, and he and his family had spent three years in limbo as refugees before coming to Canada. So, in an unfamiliar kitchen in a small town, Isam began to make chocolate again.This remarkable book tells the extraordinary story of the Hadhad family — Isam, his wife Shahnaz, and their sons and daughters — and the founding of the chocolatier, Peace by Chocolate. From the devastation of the Syrian civil war, through their life as refugees in Lebanon, to their arrival in a small town in Atlantic Canada, Peace by Chocolate is the story of one family. It is also the story of the people of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and so many towns across Canada, who welcomed strangers and helped them face the challenges of settling in an unfamiliar land.Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion
By Tyler LeBlanc. 2020
A Hill Times' 100 Best Books in 2020 SelectionOn Canada's History Bestseller ListGrowing up on the south shore of Nova…
Scotia, Tyler LeBlanc wasn’t fully aware of his family’s Acadian roots — until a chance encounter with an Acadian historian prompted him to delve into his family history. LeBlanc’s discovery that he could trace his family all the way to the time of the Acadian Expulsion and beyond forms the basis of this compelling account of Le Grand Dérangement.Piecing together his family history through archival documents, Tyler LeBlanc tells the story of Joseph LeBlanc (his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather), Joseph’s ten siblings, and their families. With descendants scattered across modern-day Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the LeBlancs provide a window into the diverse fates that awaited the Acadians when they were expelled from their homeland. Some escaped the deportation and were able to retreat into the wilderness. Others found their way back to Acadie. But many were exiled to Britain, France, or the future United States, where they faced suspicion and prejudice and struggled to settle into new lives.A unique biographical approach to the history of the Expulsion, Acadian Driftwood is a vivid insight into one family’s experience of this traumatic event.Westray: Mon passage des ténèbres à la lumière
By Vernon Theriault. 2019
Dans ce livre, Theriault décrit son expérience dans la mine du comté de Pictou, ses combats personnels à la suite…
du désastre et la façon dont il a donné un sens nouveau à sa vie en participant à la campagne de lobbying de longue haleine du Syndicat des Métallos, qui a mené à l’adoption de la Loi Westray en 2004.The Ku Klux Klan in Canada: A Century of Promoting Racism and Hate in the Peaceable Kingdom
By Allan Bartley. 2020
Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion
By Tyler LeBlanc. 2020
Winner, 2021 Evelyn Richardson Award for Non-Fiction, 2021 Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical WritingShortlisted, 2021 Dartmouth Book Award…
for Non-Fiction, and the 2021 Margaret and John Savage Award for Best First Book (Non-fiction)A Hill Times' 100 Best Books in 2020 SelectionOn Canada's History Bestseller ListGrowing up on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Tyler LeBlanc wasn’t fully aware of his family’s Acadian roots — until a chance encounter with an Acadian historian prompted him to delve into his family history. LeBlanc’s discovery that he could trace his family all the way to the time of the Acadian Expulsion and beyond forms the basis of this compelling account of Le Grand Dérangement.Piecing together his family history through archival documents, Tyler LeBlanc tells the story of Joseph LeBlanc (his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather), Joseph’s ten siblings, and their families. With descendants scattered across modern-day Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the LeBlancs provide a window into the diverse fates that awaited the Acadians when they were expelled from their homeland. Some escaped the deportation and were able to retreat into the wilderness. Others found their way back to Acadie. But many were exiled to Britain, France, or the future United States, where they faced suspicion and prejudice and struggled to settle into new lives.A unique biographical approach to the history of the Expulsion, Acadian Driftwood is a vivid insight into one family’s experience of this traumatic event.Mrs. Beaton's Question: My Nine Years at the Halifax School for the Blind
By Robert Mercer. 2020
?Robert Mercer's life could have been very different. He was born with very low vision and, as a youngster, struggled…
in school. But through the intervention of a caring teacher and the support of his family, he found his way to the Halifax School for the Blind and into the classroom of Mrs. Beaton. It was there that he discovered his voice, a voice he uses to recount his remarkable journey from a shy little boy to a community leader.A Reluctant Search for Spiritual Truths
By Adrian McNally Smith. 2020
When Adrian McNally Smith was writing his family memoir Finding Forgiveness, he was struck by the number of times he…
had had spiritual encounters. The journey of writing the story of his life and his relationships brought home to him the fact that he had felt a sense of hubris before many important and life-changing moments in his life. Going through the process of forgiveness and the counseling he needed to forgive his father awakened in him the desire to dig deeper into these encounters and what it means to be embrace spirituality. This reluctant search changed his life and sparked a whole new awareness of spirituality.Shadow of Doubt: The Trials of Dennis Oland, Revised and Expanded Edition
By Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon. 2019
A national bestseller, now updated, expanded, and revised to tell an even bigger story.On July 6, 2011, Richard Oland, scion…
of the Moosehead brewing family, was bludgeoned to death in his Saint John office. In a shocking turn, the multimillionaire’s only son, Dennis, was arrested for second-degree murder. Found guilty by a jury in 2015, Dennis Oland successfully appealed his conviction and was retried three years later.In this new revised and expanded edition, MacKinnon takes readers inside every stage of one of Canada’s most gripping murder trials. She addresses the issues with the original police investigation, Oland’s appeal and his subsequent appearance at the Supreme Court of Canada, new evidence and witnesses brought forward at the retrial, and the sensational final verdict.A reporter for the CBC, Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon covered the Oland case from the very beginning to the judge ’s final verdict. In this definitive account of a series of trials for a horrific crime, she lays bare the tribulations of a prominent family and the inner workings of the justice system that led to Dennis Oland’s contentious conviction, retrial, and acquittal.Amazing Atlantic Canadian Kids: Awesome Stories of Bravery and Adventure
By John Boileau. 2019
Celebrate the amazing accomplishments of kids from across the East Coast in this book, the first in a new illustrated…
series about Amazing Atlantic Canadians. Learn about incredible young people excelling as athletes and inventors, overcoming adversity and even saving lives. Includes over 50 amazing, diverse youth from history to present day and shows young readers that greatness has no age limit.The Metamorphosis: The Apprenticeship of Harry Houdini
By Bruce MacNab. 2015
Winner, Best Atlantic Published Book AwardShortlisted, Canadian Regional Design Awardmet-a-mor-pho-sis: a complete change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation…
by magic or witchcraft. In May of 1896, a young magician from New York City joined the cast of the Marco Magic Company and embarked on a summer-long tour of eastern Canada, including New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It was during this excursion that Handcuff Harry AKA Harry Houdini first showcased the talent that transformed him from a small-time conjurer, who performed for pennies in dime museums, into the world's most celebrated escape artist. When he wasn't performing on stage, Houdini was barnstorming through the streets of every town and city he visited, astounding onlookers in police stations, hardware stores and hospitals by freeing himself from the clutches of every restraining device strapped or wrapped around him. In this absorbing book, enriched by rare, period photographs, Bruce MacNab recounts a fascinating but shockingly untold chapter in the career of the man whose name is still synonymous with the word magic.The Lynching of Peter Wheeler
By Debra Komar. 2014
At 2:21 am on September 8, 1896, authorities in Nova Scotia killed an innocent man. Peter Wheeler — a "coloured"…
man accused of murdering a white girl — was strung up with a slipknot noose. The hanging was state-sanctioned but it was a lynching all the same. Now, a re-examination of his case using modern forensic science reveals one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Canadian history. On the night of January 27, 1896, 14-year-old Annie Kempton found herself home alone in the picturesque village of Bear River, Nova Scotia. She did not live to see the morning. Shortly after midnight, Annie was assaulted and bludgeoned with a piece of firewood. Her killer slit her throat three times with a kitchen knife then coldly sat and ate a jar of homemade jam before fleeing into the night. The senseless and brutal slaying devastated the town and plunged her parents into a near-suicidal abyss of guilt and grief. At trial, the prosecution's case focused on the inconsistencies in Wheeler's statements, the testimony of two children who placed Peter near the house on the night in question, and the detective's novel analysis of the physical evidence. It was one of the first trials in Canada to use forensic science, albeit poorly. Wheeler's defense team called no witnesses and did little to challenge the evidence presented. The jury deliberated less than two hours before declaring Peter Wheeler guilty of murder. The trial itself was a media sensation; every word was front page news. Several papers each ran their own version of "Wheeler's confession," an admission of guilt supposedly authored by the condemned man. Each rendition tried and failed to make sense of the conflicting timeline. With every new iteration, it became clearer that the case against Wheeler was not as airtight as the detective in charge, Nick Power, and the media had proclaimed. The Lynching of Peter Wheeler is a story of one town's rush to judgment. It is a tale of bigotry and incompetence, arrogance and pseudoscience, fear and misguided vengeance. It is a case study in media distortion, illustrating how the print media can manipulate the truth, destroy reputations, and so thoroughly taint a jury pool, that the notion of a fair trial becomes a statistical impossibility. At the height of the Victorian era, the media created a super villain in the mold of Jack the Ripper, the perfect foil for its other creation, super-sleuth Nick Power. The masterfully constructed narrative was perfect, save for one glaring detail: Peter Wheeler did not kill Annie Kempton.Where Beauty Survived: An Africadian Memoir
By George Elliott Clarke. 2021
A vibrant, revealing memoir about the cultural and familial pressures that shaped George Elliott Clarke’s early life in the Black…
Canadian community that he calls Africadia, centred in Halifax, Nova Scotia.As a boy, George Elliott Clarke knew that a great deal was expected from him and his two brothers. The descendant of a highly accomplished lineage on his paternal side—great-grandson to William Andrew White, the first Black officer (non-commissioned) in the British army—George felt called to live up to the family name. In contrast, his mother's relatives were warm, down-to-earth country folk. Such contradictions underlay much of his life and upbringing—Black and White, country and city, outstanding and ordinary, high and low. With vulnerability and humour, George shows us how these dualities shaped him as a poet and thinker. At the book’s heart is George’s turbulent relationship with his father, an autodidact who valued art, music and books but worked an unfulfilling railway job. Bill could be loving and patient, but he also acted out destructive frustrations, assaulting George’s mother and sometimes George and his brothers, too. Where Beauty Survived is the story of a complicated family, of the emotional stress that white racism exerts on Black households, of the unique cultural geography of Africadia, of a child who became a poet, and of long-kept secrets.