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The great escape: the untold story
By Ted Barris. 2014
On the night of March 24, 1944, eighty airmen crawled through a 400-foot-long tunnel, code-named "Harry," and dashed from Stalag…
Luft III, the infamous WWII German POW camp. It became known as The Great Escape. The breakout had taken a year to plan, involved 2,000 POWs, and prompted a massive manhunt across occupied Europe. All but three escapees were recaptured, and on Hitler’s orders, fifty were murdered. The author recounts this battle of wits and determination through the voices of those involved, assembles original interviews, memoirs, letters and diaries to reconstruct the Great Escape’s untold story. Bestseller. 2014.The girl in the green sweater: a life in Holocaust's shadow
By Daniel Paisner, Krystyna Chiger. 2008
In 1943, with Lvov's 150,000 Jews having been exiled, killed, or forced into ghettos and facing extermination, a group of…
Polish Jews sought refuge in the city's sewer system. The last surviving member this group, Krystyna Chiger, provides a first-person account of those fourteen months with her family. Also describes Leopold Socha, a Polish Catholic and former thief, who risked his life to help Chiger's underground family survive, bringing them food and supplies. 2009, c2008.The fog of war: censorship of Canada's media in World War Two
By Mark Bourrie. 2011
The Canadian government censored the news during World War II for two main reasons: to keep military and economic secrets…
out of enemy hands and to prevent civilian morale from breaking down. But in those tumultuous times - with Nazi spies landing on our shores by raft, U-boat attacks in the St. Lawrence, army mutinies in British Columbia and Ontario, and pro-Hitler propaganda in the mainstream Quebec press - censors had a hard time keeping news events contained. Now, with freshly unsealed World War II press-censor files, many of the undocumented events that occurred in wartime Canada are finally revealed. c2011.The end of absence: reclaiming what we've lost in a world of constant connection
By Michael Harris. 2014
Only one generation in history (ours) will experience life both with and without the internet. For everyone who follows us,…
online life will simply be the air they breathe. Today, we revel in ubiquitous information and constant connection, rarely stopping to consider the implications for our logged-on lives. The author chronicles this massive shift, exploring what we've gained and lost in the bargain. He argues that our greatest loss has been that of absence itself -- of silence, wonder and solitude. Winner of the 2014 Governor General’s Award for Non-fiction. 2014.The damned: the Canadians at the battle of Hong Kong and the POW experience, 1941-45
By Nathan M Greenfield. 2010
Fall, 1941. Almost 2,000 members of the Royal Rifles and Winnipeg Grenadiers were sent to bolster the British garrison at…
Hong Kong, but in the seventeen day battle for the colony following the attack on December 8, the Canadians suffered grievous losses. The second part of their story describes how the Canadians survived the horrendous conditions of Japanese POW camps. Some descriptions of sex, explicit descriptions of violence and strong language. 2010.The clouded leopard: travels to landscapes of spirit and desire
By Wade Davis. 1998
Davis examines the link between the diversity of our biological landscape and cultural diversity. He argues that the more we…
destroy the biological landscapes of the Earth, the more we cause diverse cultures to assimilate with the more mainstream cultures. Davis uses his travels around the world to illustrate his argument and shares stories of his time spent with a variety of peoples throughout the world. c1998.The guns of victory: a soldier's eye view, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, 1944-45
By George G Blackburn. 1996
Blackburn continues the story of the First Canadian Army's 4th Field Regiment. After the battle for Normandy, they pursue the…
German army through the Netherlands and Belgium, opening the Scheldt estuary. They endure the bitter winter of 1945, then fight in the Battle of the Rhineland through to ultimate victory. Some strong language and some descriptions of violence. 1996.The guns of Normandy: a soldier's eye view, France 1944
By George G Blackburn. 1995
Blackburn follows the Canadian Army through its landing on the Normandy beaches after the D-Day attacks, and to the battles…
at Falaise and Caen. Blackburn presents a detailed description of the lives of the Canadian soldiers who fought in the battles. Some strong language.The curse of the narrows: the Halifax explosion, 1917
By Laura MacDonald. 2005
On December 7, 1917, in the heart of the World War I, two ships collided in Halifax harbour. The resulting…
explosion killed over 2,000 people and injured some 6,000 more. Macdonald presents the whole story of how the military, volunteers and ordinary citizens united to organize one of the most complex relief efforts in North American history. Descriptions of violence. 2005.The climate wars
By Gwynne Dyer. 2008
Dwindling resources, massive population shifts, natural disasters, spreading epidemics. Drought, rising sea levels, plummeting agricultural yields, crashing economies and political…
extremism. These are some of the expected consequences of runaway climate change in the decades ahead, and any of them could tip the world towards conflict. 2008.The burning house: unlocking the mysteries of the brain
By Jay Ingram. 1994
The beauty of the beastly: new views on the nature of life
By Natalie Angier. 1996
Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer for the New York Times offers her essays on the beauty of organisms usually considered beastly,…
and the beastliness behind conventional icons of beauty in the natural world. Admitting she "anthropomorphizes shamelessly," she humorously discusses commonalities that humans share with other species. Topics include loving, adapting, healing, creating, and dying. Some descriptions of violence. 1995.A collection of humourous and surprising essays which examine the scientific explanation for certain human behaviours, the scientific world's attempts…
to re-examine history, including the Salem witch trials, and some of the stranger questions tackled by scientists. Sections on human behaviour, curiosities of life, science and history, natural battles and how things work are included. 1998.The alchemy of love and lust: discovering our sex hormones and how they determine who we love, when we love, and how often we love
By Theresa Larsen Crenshaw. 1997
Identifies the role our hormones play in the different sexual stages, exploring the age-old concept of chemistry between the sexes…
and how hormones can determine the course of human relationships. Functions as both an encyclopedia of our attachment-related hormones, telling us exactly what they are and exactly what modern science thinks they do, and a guide to what we can do to get them to keep functioning the way we want them to. Descriptions of sex and some strong language. 1996.Tell no one who you are: the hidden childhood of Régine Miller
By Walter Buchignani. 1994
The story of Régine Miller, who, as a young Jewish girl during World War II, was hidden by Belgium's underground…
movement and was the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust. Grades 5-8. c1994.Sun in winter: a Toronto wartime journal, 1942 to 1945
By Gunda Lambton. 2003
In 1942 Gunda Lambton was a "war guest," a single mother sent from England to Toronto to avoid the war.…
While insanity raged throughout Europe she struggled to keep herself and her two small children going in a strange new home. While many people then were engaged in dramatic, heroic war work, her diary is a tribute to the quiet areas of endurance and pleasures of discovery that also distinguished those years. 2003.Slow death by rubber duck: how the toxic chemistry of everyday life affects our health
By Rick Smith, Bruce Lourie, Sarah Dopp. 2009
To prove that the most dangerous pollution comes from commonplace items in our homes and workplaces, Smith and Lourie ingested…
and inhaled these items for one week. They expose the miscreant corporate giants who manufacture the toxins, the weak-kneed government officials who let it happen, and the effects on people across the globe; they also describe the extent to which we are poisoned, from the simple household dust that is polluting our blood to the toxins in our urine that are created by run-of-the-mill shampoos and toothpaste. c2009.Shorty, an aviation pioneer: the story of Victor John Hatton
By James Glassco Henderson. 2004
Having survived the First World War in the trenches, Shorty Hatton started his aviation career in a near-fatal crash of…
an Avro 504K and ended it with another Avro aircraft, the Arrow. In the intervening years he was a military, bush, and test pilot, he taught fledgling aviators at Camp Borden, he was the first to fly new air mail routes in an open cockpit plane, and he tested newly-built Hawker Hurricanes before they joined the Battle of Britain. Some descriptions of sex. 2004.Secret ingredients: the brave new world of industrial farming
By Stuart Laidlaw. 2003
A vivid portrait of what modern industrial farming is, what it is doing to the environment, to farmers, to the…
plants and livestock we eat, and to us as consumers and as citizens. The author takes us from the dairy farms of Pennsylvania to Canada's prairie wheatfields, from the tomato greenhouses of southern Ontario to the potato fields of P.E.I. All along the way, he shows us food's secret ingredient - its hidden costs. 2003.Secrets of the mummies: uncovering the bodies of ancient Egyptians (An I was there book)
By Shelley Tanaka, Peter Brand. 1999
Four mummies, from a mighty pharaoh to a poor weaver, are studied scientifically to reveal the lives and times of…
these three-thousand-year-old people. Also describes embalming and mummification, life in ancient Egypt, and the scientific techniques now used to study mummies. Grades 3-6. 1999.