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Our stories, our songs: African children talk about AIDS
By Deborah Ellis. 2005
In the summer of 2003, author Ellis travelled to Malawi and Zambia and met with children and teens whose lives…
have been touched by AIDS. Ellis describes the poverty, child labour, sexual exploitation, and the signs and symptoms of the disease, but the children discuss their families, favourite pastimes, fears, and dreams. Some descriptions of sex and violence. Grades 5-8. 2006, c2005.Out of poverty: and into something more comfortable
By John Stackhouse. 2000
In a blend of travel writing and analysis, Stackhouse's eight-year journey results in the personal stories of some of the…
world's poorest people. While describing lives and communities destroyed by misplaced aid and government interventions, he also shows how individuals are finding the creativity and means to make their own lives better. Poverty is not an inevitable part of the human condition but a direct result of human actions - and something that can be remedied. Some descriptions of violence. 2000.One child at a time: the global fight to rescue children from online predators
By Julian Sher. 2007
The Internet has helped make child abuse terrifyingly common. The men perpetrating these crimes include lawyers, priests, doctors and politicians,…
while the police - from a crack image analyst with the Toronto police to an FBI agent who poses as a thirteen-year-old girl online - work desperately to nab the predators. Investigators are using cutting edge tools, turning the technology of the Internet against the perpetrators, as they race to find and rescue the victims. Descriptions of sex and violence. 2007.Behind the beautiful forevers: life, death and hope in a Mumbai slum
By Katherine Boo. 2012
Annawadi is a slum at the edge of Mumbai Airport, in the shadow of shining new luxury hotels. Its residents…
are garbage recyclers, construction workers and economic migrants, all of them living in the hope that a small part of India's booming future will eventually be theirs. But when a crime rocks the slum community and global recession and terrorism shocks the city, tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy begin to turn brutal. As Boo gets to know those who dwell at Mumbai's margins, she evokes an extraordinarily vivid and vigorous group of individuals flourishing against the odds amid the complications, corruptions and gross inequalities of the new India. Includes violence and strong language. 2012.All our sisters: stories of homeless women in Canada
By Susan Scott. 2007
Though they account for a small portion of the formal homeless statistics, there are many women living on insufficient funds,…
with violent partners, or in unacceptable dwellings that are often overlooked. Scott interviewed more than 60 women facing homelessness across Canada. She recounts their stories while highlighting the many underlying problems they face, including abuse, addiction, a paucity of affordable housing, and a lack of social services sensitive to women's needs. Explicit descriptions of sex, violence, and strong language. 2007.Frontier justice: the global refugee crisis and what to do about it
By Andy Lamey. 2011
An exploration of the world-wide refugee crisis, through such stories as the Yale law students who sued the U.S. government…
on behalf of a group of refugees imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay; a refugee family's journey from Saddam Hussein's Iraq to contemporary Australia via the world's most dangerous ocean crossing; and the case of Ahmed Ressam, the so-called Millennium bomber who filed a refugee claim in Canada before attempting to blow up the Los Angeles airport. Offers an original solution to the international asylum crisis, one which draws upon Canada's unique approach to asylum-seekers. c2011.Down to this: squalor and splendour in a big-city shantytown
By Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall. 2005
In November 2001 author Bishop-Stall entered Tent City, a lawless area in downtown Toronto claimed by a group of people…
with nowhere else to go. For 10 months, Bishop-Stall was welcomed, but also subjected to cruel realities: drunken brawls, crackheads, forgotten children, and the repeated broken promises of those who said they were leaving once and for all. Canada Reads 2012. 2005.Be the one: six true stories of teens overcoming hardship with hope
By Byron Pitts. 2017
Emmy Award-winning ABC News chief national correspondent and Nightline co-anchor, Byron Pitts shares the heartbreaking and inspiring stories of six…
young people who overcame impossible circumstances - abuse, bullying, war, drug addiction, mental illness and violence - with extraordinary perseverance. None of these should be realities for anyone, much less a young person. But for some it is the only reality they have ever known. In these dark circumstances, six teens needed someone to "be the one" for them--the hero to help them back into the light. For Tania, Mason, Pappy, Michaela, Ryan, and Tyton, that hero was themselves. For junior and senior high readers. 2017.After Daniel: a suicide survivor's tale
By Moira Farr. 1999
After Farr's boyfriend committed suicide she decided to write the story of his suicide and its consequences. Her own recovery…
involved examining our society's fascination with suicide, and talking to suicide survivors and the loved ones of people who committed suicide.What do women want?: bread, roses, sex, power
By Erica Jong. 1999
Feminist Erica Jong contemplates women of the 1990s--what they want and what society expects from them. Considers issues such as…
work, power, sex, and relationships. Essays discuss such public figures as Princess Diana and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and muse on "the perfect man." Some strong language and some descriptions of sex.The way forward is with a broken heart
By Alice Walker. 2000
This collection opens with a passionate account of Alice Walker's early marriage to a Jewish lawyer and their life in…
racist Mississippi, giving voice to idealism, lost love and hope. This is followed by tales of sisters, of family, of love for men and for women. These stories consider issues of racism and slavery, politics and sex.The Penguin book of twentieth-century protest
By Brian MacArthur. 1998
A selection of protest texts of the 20th century, from Ellen Wilkinson on the Jarrow hunger marches and Jack London…
on the East End, through the key documents of the Black power and anti-Apartheid movements, right up to Earl Spencer's speech at Diana's funeral.Enlightenment now: the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress
By Steven Pinker. 2018
Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this assessment of the human condition, cognitive…
scientist Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment has worked, but more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. Bestseller. 2018.Brown: what being brown in the world today means (to everyone)
By Kamal Al-Solaylee. 2016
Brown is not white. Brown is not black. Brown is an experience, a state of mind. Historically speaking, issues of…
race and skin colour have been interpreted along black and white lines, leaving out millions of people whose stories of migration and racial experiences have shaped our modern world. The book takes a global look at the many social, political, economic and personal implications of being a brown-skinned person in the world now. Brown people have emerged as the source of global cheap labour (Hispanics or South Asians) while also coming under scrutiny and suspicion for their culture and faith (Arabs and Muslims). Packed with personal narratives and on-the-street reporting conducted over two years in ten countries from four continents. Winner of the 2016 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. 2016.Firewater: how alcohol is killing my people (and yours)
By Harold Johnson. 2016
Drawing on his years of experience as a Crown Prosecutor in Treaty 6 territory, the author challenges readers to change…
the story we tell ourselves about the drink that goes by many names—booze, hooch, spirits, sauce, and the evocative “firewater.” Confronting the harmful stereotype of the “lazy, drunken Indian,” and rejecting medical, social, and psychological explanations of the roots of alcoholism, Johnson cries out for solutions, not diagnoses, and shows how alcohol continues to kill so many. Bestseller. 2016.Race against time (CBC Massey lectures)
By Stephen Lewis. 2005
Stephen Lewis advances real solutions to help societies across the globe achieve the Millennium Goals, established by the UN in…
2000, a series of 8 goals to lay the foundation for a prosperous future. He shows how dreams such as universal primary education, a successful war against the AIDS pandemic, and environmental sustainability are within the grasp of humanity. 2005. (CBC Massey lectures series)Between the world and me
By Ta-Nehisi Coates. 2015
Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race", a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily…
on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? In a letter to his adolescent son, the author shares the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Bestseller. Winner of the National Book Award. 2015.Too fat, too slutty, too loud: the rise and reign of the unruly woman
By Anne Helen Petersen. 2017
A popular BuzzFeed columnist examines the phenomenon of popular provocative womanhood to discuss the rise of such counterculture stars as…
Amy Schumer, Nicki Minaj, and Caitlyn Jenner, exploring why they are popular in spite of nonconforming behaviors. 2017.One day we'll all be dead and none of this will matter: essays
By Scaachi Koul. 2017
In suburban Calgary, at a young and impressionable age, Scaachi Koul learned what made her miserable. Not just uncomfortable, not…
just mild irritants, not just the long commute you have in the morning: things that make you doubt your humanity. And it turns out, everything did. Scaachi shares her observations, fears and experiences as a woman of colour growing up in Canada. These are stories ranging from shaving her knuckles in grade school, to a shopping trip gone horribly awry, to internet garbage, to parsing the trajectory of fears and anxieties that pressed upon her immigrated parents and bled down a generation. Stories of returning to India where her parents grew up, and ultimately about trying to find her place in the world. 2017.Smoking (H wise guides)
By Matthew Whyman. 2000
Drawing on real teenagers' experiences and statistics, this guide discusses smoking. It includes advice on coping with peer pressure and…
resisting temptation. It also provides practical strategies for giving up smoking and hard-hitting information on its effects.