Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 226 items
Autumn Bird and the Runaway
By Melanie Florence, Richard Scrimger. 2022
Two kids from different worlds form an unexpected friendship.Cody’s home life is a messy, too-often terrifying story of neglect and…
abuse. Cody himself is a smart kid, a survivor with a wicked sense of humour that helps him see past his circumstances and begin to try to get himself out.Autumn is, quite literally, on the other side of the tracks from him. Her home life is loving and secure, and she is “in” with the popular girls at school, even if she has a secret life as a glasses-wearing, self-professed comic book nerd at home. And even if the pressure to fit in at school requires hours of time spent making herself look “perfect.”Returning home from a movie one evening, Autumn comes across Cody, face down in the laneway behind her house. All Cody knows is that he can’t take another beating from his father like the one he just narrowly escaped. He can’t go home, but he doesn’t have anywhere else to go either. Autumn won’t turn her back on him, even if they never really were friends at school. She agrees to let him hide out in her dad’s art studio at night.Over the next couple of days of Autumn sneaking Cody food and bandages, his story comes out. And so does hers.Told in alternating narratives, Autumn Bird and the Runaway is a breathtaking collaboration by two of Canada’s finest writers of books for young readers. Infused with themes of identity, belonging and compassion, it’s a story that reminds us that we are all more than our circumstances, and we are all more connected than we think.A Bucket of Stars
By Suri Rosen. 2023
A story of two kids trying to save the world they know and heal the families they have.It’s the summer…
of 2003 and thirteen-year-old astronomer Noah Cooper has just moved to Queensport, a small town with a vast amateur sky full of stars. There he meets Tara Dhillon, a lonely girl and aspiring filmmaker. When the two team up to produce an astronomy movie and enter a film contest, they discover a secret plan to turn their rural hamlet into a huge subdivision.Noah and Tara must use their unique skills to identify the culprits who plan on paving over the historic county — and try to save the infinite beauty of the stars. As if that’s not enough to have at stake, Noah needs to win the prize money to buy a new telescope for his unemployed father — an ex-astronomer who’s almost given up on the stars, as well as life on earth.Touching on themes of activism, environmental anxiety and mental health, A Bucket of Stars will have readers cheering for Noah, a boy whose head is in the stars, and Tara, a girl who lives in a world of digital images — and their special bond that just might mend the world around them.The Magic School Bus Spins A Web: A Book About Spiders
By Joanna Cole. 1997
Rainbow Custodians
By Candice Leathem, Michael Head. 2015
The narrative Rainbow Custodians describes the incredible efforts of creatures to rise against the environmental destruction caused since the European…
invasion of Australia. The central characters Bert and Bennie Koala rally all manner of wildlife to jolt humans into growing a conscience and acting to save endangered creatures and the environment. Rainbow Custodians is designed to link to school curriculum and focuses on important issues such as indigenous people's relationship to land, creation, spiritual connection to mother earth and custodianship. The text exposes environmental degradation, human apathy towards extinct and endangered species and sustainability. Cultural inclusion, sustainability and right relationship are further topics that can be used to enhance the application of this book. Australian wildlife is proudly paraded throughout to familiarise the reader with our unique and wonderful creatures. Poetry is woven throughout the text to enchant the audience with this tale of perplexing complications, intelligent solutions and climactic inspirational codas. The text assumes a life of its own through the brilliant illustrations of Candice Leathem that adorn the cover and each of the ten chapters. These images are designed to delight viewers, provoke discussion and are superb teaching tools. The intended audience ranges from middle - upper primary to early secondary levels, as the text relates to key concepts explored within educational curriculum, but it also has inherent appeal for an older audience. The issues explored within this book have global appeal and it is hoped that a wider audience may enjoy this text and learn from the experience. Thank you for taking the time to read Rainbow Custodians.The Dark
By Sergio Chejfec, Heather Cleary. 2000
Opening with the presently shut-in narrator reminiscing about a past relationship with Delia, a young factory worker, The Dark employs…
Chejfec's signature style with an emphasis on the geography and motion of the mind, to recount the time the narrator spent with this multifaceted, yet somewhat absent, woman. The Dark is the most captivating example of Chejfec's unique narrative approach.The Dog That Talked to God
By Jim Kraus. 2012
A wonderfully quirky, heart-breaking, heart-warming and thought-provoking story of a woman's dog who not only talks to her, he talks…
to God. Recently widowed Mary Fassler has no choice except to believe Rufus, the miniature schnauzer, who claims to speak to the Divine. The question is: Will Mary follow the dog's advice, and leave everything she knows and loves? Is this at the urging of God? Or is it something else? Will Mary risk it all or ignore the urgings of her own heart?Mother to Mother
By Sindiwe Magona. 1998
Sindiwe Magona's novel Mother to Mother explores the South African legacy of apartheid through the lens of a woman who…
remembers a life marked by oppression and injustice. Magona decided to write this novel when she discovered that Fulbright Scholar Amy Biehl, who had been killed while working to organize the nation's first ever democratic elections in 1993, died just a few yards away from her own permanent residence in Guguletu, Capetown. She then learned that one of the boys held responsible for the killing was in fact her neighbor's son. Magona began to imagine how easily it might have been her own son caught up in the wave of violence that day. The book is based on this real-life incident, and takes the form of an epistle to Amy Biehl's mother. The murderer's mother, Mandisi, writes about her life, the life of her child, and the colonized society that not only allowed, but perpetuated violence against women and impoverished black South Africans under the reign of apartheid. The result is not an apology for the murder, but a beautifully written exploration of the society that bred such violence.Is Your Dog Gay?
By Victoria Roberts, Charles Kreloff, Patty Brown. 2004
Skywater
By Melinda Worth Popham. 2013
"Brand X and his fellow coyotes . . . are meticulously observed in the desert environment that Ms. Popham seems…
to know like her backyard. And so are the people of this fable--old Hallie and Albert . . . and the several varmint-hunters, callous or alcoholic or both. There is a parable of how we might relate to the creatures that share the world with us; and a parable of dreams versus realty; and a parable of home, of known territory with its comparative safety; and a parable of making the best of a world short of everything. The people and the creatures of Ms. Popham's fable are right, they belong, and they mean." --Wallace Stegner "This spare and affecting novel has the precision and the stinging sweetness of a fable. A wonderful book." --Thomas McGuane "Refreshing . . . Life-affirming . . . The first book I've read in a long time that left me with teary eyes at the end."--The San Diego Tribune "Captivating . . . The animals' arduous westward journey down the Colorado River to the Gulf suggests a coyote world view that is subtly sustained by their mysterious ways." --Publishers Weekly "With dramatic urgency and imaginative tenderness, Melinda Popham has given the world a painful, poetic, and delightfully unpredictable story that pulsates with hope and healing meaning." --Al Young, California Poet Laureate Emeritus "Rich with poetic resonance." --Los Angeles Times Book Review "Evoking a rich sense of place and animal behavior, [Popham] lets us see through very different eyes." --The Seattle Times "A daring and visionary tale. [Popham] dares to tell us what a coyote thinks and sees and feels and dreams. . . . A hero of the classic kind--a furry, howling, water-seeking version of the Hero with a Thousand Faces." --James D. Houston "Masterful . . . Astonishing . . . Remarkable . . . Put down the latest technothriller and bask awhile in the descriptive prose of Skywater." --L.A. LifeThe Plume Hunter
By Renée Thompson. 2011
Bird-watchers will love this journey back to the 1880s West Coast when vast populations of wild birds still filled the…
skies in annual migrations. But the birds were imperiled by plume hunters intent on personal fortune. This story of violence, love, and loss portrays the advent of the Audubon Society.A moving story of conflict, friendship, and love, The Plume Hunter follows the life of Fin McFaddin, a late-nineteenth century Oregon outdoorsman who takes to plume hunting - killing birds to collect feathers for women's hats - to support his widowed mother. In 1885, more than five million birds were killed in the United States for the millinery industry, prompting the formation of the Audubon Society. The novel brings to life an era of our country's natural history seldom explored in fiction, and follows Fin's relationships with his lifelong friends as they struggle to adapt to society's changing mores.Renée Thompson writes about wildlife, her love of birds, and the people who inhabit the American West. Her first novel, The Bridge at Valentine, received high praise from Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove. Renée lives in Northern California with her husband, Steve, and is at work on a short-story collection.The Plume Hunter won the 2012 da Vinci Eye Award, presented by the Eric Hoffer Award for Books, for its superior cover art."I really enjoyed this book. It offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of a bird hunter and the complex social, economic and personal issues swirling around the birth of the conservation movement." --David Sibley, author of THE SIBLEY GUIDE TO BIRDS"...Renée Thompson's gripping novel transports the reader to a time when our nation was trying its best to grow up, yet seemed mired in its own awkward "teen" years...I read this book in one sitting, finding it no easier to put down than Fin did his hunting guns." -- Bill Thompson III, Editor, Bird Watcher's Digest"...Renée Thompson brings us to a place of semi-darkness, with its confused emotions, and allows us to witness the "Hunter" changing from within. This is a story of process and a quest to redeem. I love it." - Fr. Tom Pincelli, Former Chairman, American Birding Association"...A compelling chronicle of avarice, betrayal, and redemption."- Tim Gallagher, author of The Grail BirdGood People
By David Lindsay-Abaire. 2011
"A lyrical and understanding chronicler of people who somehow become displaced within their own lives. . . . Mr. Lindsay-Abaire…
has shown a special affinity for female characters suddenly forced to re-evaluate the roles by which they define themselves."--The New York Times With his latest play Good People, David Lindsay-Abaire returns to Manhattan Theatre Club where four of his previous works were produced, including his 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole. The play premiered there in winter 2011 in a production directed by Daniel Sullivan (who also directed Rabbit Hole), and featuring Frances McDormand in the role of protagonist Margie Walsh. Good People is set in South Boston, the blue-collar neighborhood where Lindsay-Abaire himself grew up: Margie Walsh, let go from yet another job and facing eviction, decides to appeal to an old flame who has made good and left his Southie past behind. Lindsay-Abaire offers us both his "quiet three-dimensional depth" (Los Angeles Times) and his carefully observed humor in this exploration of life in America when you're on your last dollar. David Lindsay-Abaire is the author of Fuddy Meers, Kimberly Akimbo, A Devil Inside, Wonder of the World, and Rabbit Hole, in addition to the book for the musicals High Fidelity and Shrek. His plays have been produced throughout the United States and around the world.The Language of Silence
By Peggy Webb. 2014
Following in the footsteps of her tiger-taming grandmother, a woman flees her abusive husband to join the circus in this…
masterful, heartfelt work of women's fiction.Peggy Webb won raves for her debut novel, The Tender Mercy of Roses*, with novelist Pat Conroy calling her "a truly gifted writer." Now Webb has crafted a poignant portrayal of a woman on the edge seeking solace in the past.Nobody in the family talks about Ellen's grandmother Lola, who was swallowed up by the circus and emerged as a woman who tamed tigers and got away scot-free for killing her husband. When Ellen's husband, Wayne, beats her nearly to death, she runs to the only place she knows where a woman can completely disappear--the same Big Top that once sheltered her grandmother. Though the circus moves from one town to the next, Wayne tracks it, and Ellen, relentlessly. At the same time, Ellen learns more about her feisty, fiery relative, and the heritage that is hers for the taking--if she dares. With her violent husband hot on her trail, Ellen must learn to stand up and fight for herself, to break the cycle of abuse, and pass down a story of love and redemption to her children.*writing as Anna MichaelsInhabited
By Charlie Quimby. 2016
"Charlie Quimby is a writer with a big talent, big heart, and big social conscience. In his second novel, Inhabited,…
characters finely drawn and memorable live amidst the crisscrossing lines of moral conscience, political juggling and economic expediency, a tough neighborhood. I was staggered by the authenticity of these people and their dilemmas."-FAITH SULLIVAN, author of Goodnight, Mr. Wodehouse and The Cape Ann"Charlie Quimby is the sharpest shooter in the West. Inhabited is a dramatic, honest, humane portrait of a Colorado city in the throes of great change and great choice. The characters and the setting are indelibly rendered...We're all in the mix here-rich and poor, homeless and over-housed, rancher and eco-activist, native politician and outside scoundrel. Inhabited is a vivid, compelling story delivered with 21st-century true grit."-ALYSON HAGY, author of Boleto"A thoroughly enjoyable novel that masterfully takes the reader on an emotionally rewarding exploration of 'home' and the power the concept has on the human psyche."-JONATHAN ODELL, author of Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League"Inhabited transforms a typical community 'homeless problem' into a layered drama about our responsibilities to each other and the blunders and scars we must endure. I salute Charlie Quimby for following the path of Steinbeck and Orwell in writing empathetic portraits of the ignored and the shunned."-JIM LYNCH, author of Before the WindMeg Mogrin sells pricey houses, belongs to the mayor's inner circle, and knows more than she's letting on about her sister's death. Isaac Samson lives in a tent and believes Thomas Edison invented the Reagan presidency. When their town attracts a game-changing development, Isaac is displaced by the town's crackdown on vagrancy. As Isaac struggles to regain stability, Meg contends with conflicting roles of assisting the developer while serving on the homeless coalition. Isaac's quest to return a lost artifact soon intrudes into Meg's tidy world, digging up a part of her past she'd rather remained buried. Inhabited, a sister novel to Charlie Quimby's acclaimed Monument Road, returns to the Grand Valley of western Colorado to explore the dimensions of loss, the boundaries of compassion, and the endurance of love.Charlie Quimby is the author of Monument Road, an Indie Next List pick and Booklist Editors' Choice in 2013. He began his writing career as playwright and arts journalist, veered into corporate communications and then founded a marketing agency that now purrs along without him. Along the way, he collected awards and developed the notion he had a few good novels in him. A native Coloradan and adopted Minnesotan, he is at home in both places.Inhabited
By Charlie Quimby. 2016
"Charlie Quimby is a writer with a big talent, big heart, and big social conscience. In his second novel, Inhabited,…
characters finely drawn and memorable live amidst the crisscrossing lines of moral conscience, political juggling and economic expediency, a tough neighborhood. I was staggered by the authenticity of these people and their dilemmas."-FAITH SULLIVAN, author of Goodnight, Mr. Wodehouse and The Cape Ann"Charlie Quimby is the sharpest shooter in the West. Inhabited is a dramatic, honest, humane portrait of a Colorado city in the throes of great change and great choice. The characters and the setting are indelibly rendered...We're all in the mix here-rich and poor, homeless and over-housed, rancher and eco-activist, native politician and outside scoundrel. Inhabited is a vivid, compelling story delivered with 21st-century true grit."-ALYSON HAGY, author of Boleto"A thoroughly enjoyable novel that masterfully takes the reader on an emotionally rewarding exploration of 'home' and the power the concept has on the human psyche."-JONATHAN ODELL, author of Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League"Inhabited transforms a typical community 'homeless problem' into a layered drama about our responsibilities to each other and the blunders and scars we must endure. I salute Charlie Quimby for following the path of Steinbeck and Orwell in writing empathetic portraits of the ignored and the shunned."-JIM LYNCH, author of Before the WindMeg Mogrin sells pricey houses, belongs to the mayor's inner circle, and knows more than she's letting on about her sister's death. Isaac Samson lives in a tent and believes Thomas Edison invented the Reagan presidency. When their town attracts a game-changing development, Isaac is displaced by the town's crackdown on vagrancy. As Isaac struggles to regain stability, Meg contends with conflicting roles of assisting the developer while serving on the homeless coalition. Isaac's quest to return a lost artifact soon intrudes into Meg's tidy world, digging up a part of her past she'd rather remained buried. Inhabited, a sister novel to Charlie Quimby's acclaimed Monument Road, returns to the Grand Valley of western Colorado to explore the dimensions of loss, the boundaries of compassion, and the endurance of love.Charlie Quimby is the author of Monument Road, an Indie Next List pick and Booklist Editors' Choice in 2013. He began his writing career as playwright and arts journalist, veered into corporate communications and then founded a marketing agency that now purrs along without him. Along the way, he collected awards and developed the notion he had a few good novels in him. A native Coloradan and adopted Minnesotan, he is at home in both places.The Vampire of Ropraz
By Jacques Chessex, Donald Wilson. 1973
"Silky prose in this harrowing account of crime and punishment."--Kirkus Reviews "Using spare, effective prose, Chessex brilliantly renders both the…
inhospitable winter landscape of the mountains and the harshness of a society that makes monsters of its victims.'--London Review of Books"A superb novel, hard as a winter in these landscapes of dark forests, where an atmosphere of prejudice and violence envelops the reader."--L'Express"It's beautiful; it's pure, like a blue sky over a black forest. Giono without garlic and olives."--Le Point"Far from just telling us a simple story Chessex has had the intelligence to integrate a dose of poetry, of the aesthetics of sin, and of the metaphysics of the monster."--LireJacques Chessex, winner of the prestigious Goncourt prize, takes a true story and weaves it into a lyrical tale of fear and cruelty.1903, Ropraz, a small village near the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. On a howling December day, a lone walker discovers a recently opened tomb, the body of a young woman violated, her left hand cut off, genitals mutilated, and heart carved out. There is horror in the nearby villages: the return of atavistic superstitions and mutual suspicions. Then two more bodies are violated. A suspect must be found. Favez, a stableboy with bloodshot eyes, is arrested and placed in psychiatric care. He escapes, enlists in the Foreign Legion as the First World War begins, and is sent into battle in the trenches of the Somme.Jacques Chessex, born in 1934, won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize for his novel A Father's Love. He is considered one of Switzerland's greatest living authors. He lives in Ropraz.Invisible Beasts
By Sharona Muir. 2014
"An amazing feat of imagination." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Invisible Beasts is a strange and beautiful meditation on love and seeing,…
a hybrid of fantasy and field guide, novel and essay, treatise and fable. With one hand it offers a sad commentary on environmental degradation, while with the other it presents a bright, whimsical, and funny exploration of what it means to be human. It's wonderfully written, crazily imagined, and absolutely original." -ANTHONY DOERR, author of All the Light We Cannot See and The Shell CollectorSophie is an amateur naturalist with a rare genetic gift: the ability to see a marvelous kingdom of invisible, sentient creatures that share a vital relationship with humankind. To record her observations, Sophie creates a personal bestiary and, as she relates the strange abilities of these endangered beings, her tales become extraordinary meditations on love, sex, evolution, extinction, truth, and self-knowledge.In the tradition of E.O. Wilson's Anthill, Invisible Beasts is inspiring, philosophical, and richly detailed fiction grounded by scientific fact and a profound insight into nature. The fantastic creations within its pages-an ancient animal that uses natural cold fusion for energy, a species of vampire bat that can hear when their human host is lying, a continent-sized sponge living under the ice of Antarctica-illuminate the role that all living creatures play in the environment and remind us of what we stand to lose if we fail to recognize our entwined destinies.Sharona Muir is the author of The Book of Telling: Tracing the Secrets of My Father's Lives. The recipient of a Hodder Fellowship and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, her writing has appeared in Granta, Orion magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is a Professor of Creative Writing and English at Bowling Green State University. Invisible Beasts is her first novel.The Cat That God Sent
By Jim Kraus. 2013
Jake Wilkerson, a disillusioned young pastor who is an expert at hiding his fears, takes on a new assignment at…
a small rural church in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. It's a far piece from anywhere and full of curiously odd and eccentric people, including Emma Grainger, a single woman and a veterinarian who dismisses all Christians as "those people," and Tassy, a young runaway with a secret. His first day on the job, however, Jake is adopted by Petey - a cat of unknown origins and breed - but of great perception. Petey believes that he is on a mission from God to redeem Jake and bring him and his quirky friends back to the truth.Vernon Subutex Two: Roman
By Frank Wynne, Virginie Despentes. 2018
Rock star Alexandre Bleach might be dead, but he has a secret. It's a secret that concerns several people, but…
the only person who can unlock it is Vernon Subutex, former record shop proprietor turned homeless messiah and guru, last seen hallucinating and feverish on a bench in the parc des Buttes Chaumont. Acha wants to know the truth behind the death of her mother, Vodka Satana. And if she finds the bastards responsible, she wants to make them pay, whatever Celeste thinks of her plan.C?leste wants Acha to get a grip and stop hanging around with Subutex's gang of disciples. The Hyena wants to find the Bleach tapes. She wants to untangle her complicated feelings about Ana?s, her boss' assistant. And speaking of her boss, she does not want Laurent Dopalet to discover how badly she has double-crossed him.Laurent Dopalet wants the Hyena to find and destroy the Bleach tapes. He wants to forget he ever knew Vodka Satana. He wants people to stop graffitiing his apartment with ludicrous allegations. Above all, he wants people to understand: NONE OF THIS IS HIS FAULT.THE SEQUEL TO VERNON SUBUTEX 1, SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2018.Translated from the French by Frank WynneBees in the City
By Andrea Cheng, Sarah McMenemy. 2017
2018 Green Earth Book Award Finalist Lionel lives in a Paris apartment building but loves keeping bees with his Aunt…
Celine at her farm outside the city. But when her bees start dying, how can he help? The solution, he realizes, is in the rooftop gardens and window boxes of his apartment neighbors, representing a varied and continuously blooming array of flowers that the bees will love. Aunt Celine must bring her bees to Paris! But first he and his friends Alice and Samir must convince their skeptical neighbors and landlord, Mr. Dubi, that this is a good idea. Adorned with Parisian skylines, Bees in the City is a love letter to the City of Light and a celebration of the can-do spirit of kids. Sarah McMenemy’s illustrations recall the Parisian magic of Madeleine. The book’s backmatter explores urban beekeeping and rooftop gardening in greater depth. Fountas & Pinnell Level PThe Hand and the Paw (Four Tails in Revolt)
By Marco Milani, Louise Loehndorff. 2018
At the foot of the village of Colicchio there is a mysterious laboratory carrying out secret experiments. No one knows…
what is really going on until an extraordinary fact is revealed that will change reality and reverse the roles of humans and animals. A cat, a monkey, a dog and a mouse lead the revolt. A story that knows how to touch people and make them think. An intense and fast-paced book. A manifesto that is not only antivivisectionist but also antispeciesist, it presents us with a truth too often ignored: revenge is never the right path to take.