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Showing 1 - 20 of 24 items
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.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.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.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.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.By Susan Krieger. 2005
Krieger, a sociologist and writer who is also losing her vision to a rare eye disease, goes bird watching in…
New Mexico, learns to use a white cane, revisits an old love, and returns to the summer camp of her youth, while reflecting on the nature of blindness and sight. She explains that that while outer landscapes may change, the inner visions persist, giving meaning and jarring the senses with a very different picture from what appears before the eyes. Some descriptions of sex. 2005.By Daphne B., Alex Manley. 2021
A nuanced, feminist, and deeply personal take on beauty culture and YouTube consumerism, in the tradition of Maggie Nelson’s Bluets…
As Daphné B. obsessively watches YouTube makeup tutorials and haunts Sephora’s website, she’s increasingly troubled by the ways in which this obsession contradicts her anti-capitalist and intersectional feminist politics. In this poetic treatise, she rejects the false binaries of traditional beauty standards and delves into the celebrities and influencers, from Kylie to Grimes, and the poets and philosophers, from Anne Boyer to Audre Lorde, who have shaped the reflection she sees in the mirror. At once confessional and essayistic, Made-Up is a meditation on the makeup that colours, that obscures, that highlights who we are and who we wish we could be. The original French-language edition was a cult hit in Quebec. Translated by Alex Manley—like Daphné, a Montreal poet and essayist—the book’s English-language text crackles with life, retaining the flair and verve of the original, and ensuring that a book on beauty is no less beautiful than its subject matter. “The most radical book of 2020 talks about makeup. Radical in the intransigence with which Daphne B hunts down the parts of her imagination that capitalism has phagocytized. Radical also in its rejection of false binaries (the authentic and the fake, the futile and the essential) through the lens of which such a subject is generally considered. With the help of a heady combination of pop cultural criticism and autobiography, a poet scrutinizes her contradictions. They are also ours.” —Dominic Tardif, Le Devoir “[Made-Up] is a delight. I read it in one go. And when, out of necessity, I had to put it down, it was with regret and with the feeling that I was giving up what could save me from a catastrophe.” —Laurence Fournier, Lettres Québécoises, five stars "Made-Up is a radiant, shimmering blend of memoir and cultural criticism that uses beauty culture as an entry point to interrogating the ugly contradictions of late capitalism. In short, urgent chapters laced with humor and wide-ranging references, Daphné B. plumbs the depths of a rich topic that’s typically dismissed as shallow. I imagine her writing it in eye pencil, using makeup to tell the story of her life, as so many women do." —Amy Berkowitz, author of Tender Points "A companion through the thicket of late stage capitalism, a lucid and poetic mirror for anyone whose image exists on a screen." —Rachel Kauder Nalebuff "Made-Up is anything but—committed to the grit of our current realities, Daphné B directs her piercing eye on capitalism in an intimate portrayal of what it means to love, and how to paint ourselves in the process. Alex Manley has gifted English audiences with a nuanced translation of a critical feminist text, exploring love and make-up as a transformative social tool." —Sruti Islam "The book will leave you both laughing in recognition and wincing at the reality of the beauty world’s impact on our collective psyche." —Chatelaine d"[Made-Up] examines the intersection of beauty culture and consumer culture... Aided by the work of writers like Anne Carson, Anne Boyer, Amanda Hess, and Arabelle Sicardi... B. makes sharp observations about the ideologies behind both beauty [...] and consumerism." —Bitch Media "Made-Up: A True Story of Beauty Culture under Late Capitalism is well worth reading." —Literary Review of Canada "[Made-Up], newly translated by writer/poet Alex Manley from its original French, puts an iBy Lindsay Ruck, James Bentley. 2021
By Josée Boileau, Chantal Bilodeau. 2019
Telling stories specific to Columbia Plateau farmers and farmland, this journalist puts the lives and difficulties of individual farmers into…
national and global contexts. He interweaves family narratives, historical episodes and his own experience as a young harvest hand to illuminate the transformation of rural America from the 19th to 21st centuryBy Elizabeth MacLeod. 2023
Meet Buffy Sainte-Marie, music legend, activist and teacher!Buffy Sainte-Marie is not exactly sure where or when she was born, but…
it was likely the Piapot Reserve in the Qu’Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan. As a baby she was adopted out to a white family in the United States. But nothing would stop Buffy from connecting to her roots and sharing the power and the beauty of her heritage with the world.As a musician, Buffy’s songs have inspired three generations of fans, garnering international acclaim and many awards. She’s a peace activist, an advocate for Indigenous-focused education, and a tireless supporter of Indigenous rights.After an incredible career lasting more than 60 years, Buffy’s music and message are as uplifting and important today as they ever were. Now is the right time to introduce young readers to this fascinating change-maker, with this accessible, engaging book.The Scholastic Canada Biography series is an award-winning collection of titles focused on fascinating people who have shaped Canada’s past and present. Written by acclaimed non-fiction author Elizabeth MacLeod, each book also features comics-inspired illustrations by Mike Deas, which appeal to today’s readers and help bring the story to life.By Mickaël Bergeron. 2023
Mickaël Bergeron nous arrive avec un cri de ralliement pour ses semblables, dans lequel il plaide pour un véritable leadership…
au sein de la masculinité, qui contribuerait à remettre en question des normes, comportements et politiques sociales. Il estime que les féministes se tapent tout le boulot et que les hommes ne font pas leur part. Une question le guide : "Vous n'êtes pas tannés, les gars, de tout ce bordel ?"By Tim F Flannery. 2011
Twenty-five years ago, a young curator of mammals from the Australian Museum in Sydney set out to research the fauna…
of the Pacific Islands. Starting with a survey of one of the most inaccessible islands in Melanesia - Woodlark, in the Trobriands Group - that young scientist found himself ghost-whispering, snake wrestling, Quadoi hunting and plunged waist-deep into a sludge of maggot-infested faeces in search of a small bat that turned out not to be earth-shatteringly interesting. With accounts of discovering, naming and sometimes eating new mammal species; being thwarted or aided by local customs; and historic scientific expeditions, Tim Flannery takes us on an enthralling journey through some of the most diverse and spectacular environments on earth.By Bruce Elder. 2003
Remember when tomatoes tasted like tomatoes and the bank manager knew you by name? Do you ever wonder what happened…
to the Aussie hamburger, backyard chooks, your local soft drink factory or that yellow fat around the edge of your steak? Life for the average Autralian has changed enormously over the past 50 years. There was once a time when family life revolved around the backyard, and every town and suburb was a real community. It was a time of milk bars, local cordial factories, billycart derbies and Saturday nights at the pictures. Life is very different now. Where have all the general stores and friendly banks gone, and why have they disappeared? And what of Aussie mateship and uniquely Australian language? Or Australian larrikinism and disrespect for pretension? Do they still exist, or have the changes to Australian life completely transformed our society? What has been gained, and, more importantly, what has been lost? Bruce Elder - travel writer, music commentator and social historian - reflects poignantly, and often humourously, on how Australian life has changed since the 1950s.By Clare Alice Wright. 2013
The Eureka Stockade. The story is one of Australia’s foundation legends, but until now it has been told as though…
only half the participants were there. What if the hot-tempered, free-wheeling gold miners we learnt about in school were actually husbands and fathers, brothers and sons? And what if there were women and children inside the Eureka Stockade, defending their rights while defending themselves against a barrage of bullets? As Clare Wright reveals, there were thousands of women on the goldfields and many of them were active in pivotal roles. The stories of how they arrived there, why they came and how they sustained themselves make for fascinating reading in their own right. But it is in the rebellion itself that the unbiddable women of Ballarat come into their own.By Paul Kennedy, Chrissie Foster. 2010
An Australian mother's love. The power of the Catholic Church. A fight for justice over child sexual abuse. Chrissie and…
Anthony Foster were like any other young family, raising their three daughters in suburban Melbourne with what they hoped were the right values. Chrissie could not have known that the stranger-danger she feared actually lurked in the presbytery attached to the girls' Catholic primary school. Father Kevin O'Donnell, a long-term paedophile, lived and worked there. Two of their young daughters became victims of O'Donnell. And once the truth was revealed, the Fosters began a battle to find out how this could have happened. The Church offered silence, lies, denials and threats. Meanwhile, their daughters tried to piece together their fractured lives.This is the chilling true story that made national and international headlines. Chrissie Foster's heartbreaking account of her family's suffering, and their determination to stand up for themselves against the might of the Catholic Church, is testament to the strength of a mother's love, and the resilience of the human spirit.By John Berendt. 1995
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or…
self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. Life in this isolated remnant of the Old South is interspersed with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case, peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters. There are the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle, the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight.By Kate Holden. 2006
"I watched the glaze of headlights, the windscreens of oncoming cars: a series of trapezoids with the silhouette of a…
single male driver. One pulled up in front of me; I reached over and opened the door, slid in. The smell of an unfamiliar car. A middle-aged man looking at me. 'Hi', I said. 'How are you?"...There was no single moment when someone looked at Kate Holden and said, 'Why don't you have some?' No one made her try heroin. There was only the sense, with her friends setting out on this forbidden adventure, that she would lose something if she didn't. Just once: to know. So this book is the story of a journey. From a loving family home to the streets of St Kilda; from a shy, bookish life to the ambivalent glamour of an inner-city brothel, Kate Holden describes with breathtaking lyricism and poignancy her travels in an unknown world. Contains explicit sexual scenes.By Alice Pung. 2008
Asian-Australians have often been written about by outsiders, as outsiders. In this collection they tell their own stories with verve,…
courage and a large dose of humour. These are not predictable tales of food, festivals and traditional dress. The food is here in all its steaming glory - but listen more closely to the dinner-table chatter and you might be surprised by what you hear. Here are tales of leaving home, falling in love, coming out and finding one’s feet. A young Cindy Pan vows to win every single category of Nobel Prize. Tony Ayres blows a kiss to a skinhead and lives to tell the tale. Benjamin Law has a close encounter with some angry Australian fauna, and Kylie Kwong makes a moving pilgrimage to her great-grandfather’s Chinese village. Here are well-known authors and exciting new voices, spanning several generations and drawn from all over Australia. In sharing their stories, they show us what it is really like to grow up Asian, and Australian. Contributors include: Shaun Tan, Jason Yat-Sen Li, John So, Annette Shun Wah, Quan Yeomans, Jenny Kee, Anh Do, Khoa Do, Caroline Tran and many more.By Heather Tyler. 2003
This book documents the impact that Australia's policy of mandatory detention of asylum-seekers is having on the physical and emotional…
well-being of men, women and children, and explores the role the media has played. Asylum gives voice to the real people behind the sensationalism, with first-hand accounts from asylum-seekers themselves. What happened to them in their own countries that made them feel they had to leave, their dangerous journeys to get to Australia, and the treatment they have received in detention centres. They stitch up their lips, go on hunger strikes, burn Australian buildings on Australian soil. Who are these desperate people and what enrages them so much?