Service Alert
Website maintenance April 24 10pm ET
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
Showing 1 - 20 of 35 items
By Alix Ohlin. 2019
"Evocative...traces [its] characters over long arcs of time and place with equal amounts grace and wit. Most revelatory is the…
way that each [sister] fights to find her own life as an artist outside the expectations of others and the demands of a male-dominated world."--Vogue A masterful achievement: a joint coming-of-age story and an achingly poignant portrait of the strange, painful, ultimately life-sustaining bonds between sisters. Lark and Robin are half-sisters whose similarities end at being named for birds. While Lark is shy and studious, Robin is wild and artistic. Raised in Montreal by their disinterested single mother, they form a fierce team in childhood regardless of their differences. As they grow up, Lark excels at school and Robin becomes an extraordinary pianist. At seventeen, Lark flees to America to attend college, where she finds her calling in documentary films, and her sister soon joins her. Later, in New York City, they find themselves tested: Lark struggles with self-doubt, and Robin chafes against the demands of Juilliard. Under pressure, their bond grows strained and ultimately is broken, and their paths abruptly diverge. Years later, Lark's life is in tatters and Robin's is wilder than ever. As Lark tries to take charge of her destiny, she discovers that despite the difficulties of their relationship, there is only one person she can truly rely on: her sister. In this gripping, unforgettable novel about art, ambition, sisterhood, motherhood, and self-knowledge, Alix Ohlin traces the rich and complicated lives of two indelible women. Dazzlingly insightful and beautifully crafted, Dual Citizens captures the unique language of sisters and makes visible the imperceptible strings that bind us to the ones we love for good.By Cherie Dimaline. 2019
Broken-hearted Joan has been searching for her husband, Victor, for almost a year--ever since he went missing on the night…
they had their first serious argument. One terrible, hungover morning in a Walmart parking lot in a little town near Georgian Bay, she is drawn to a revival tent where the local Métis have been flocking to hear a charismatic preacher named Eugene Wolff. By the time she staggers into the tent, the service is over. But as she is about to leave, she hears an unmistakable voice. She turns, and there Victor is. The same face, the same eyes, the same hands. But his hair is short and he's wearing a suit and he doesn't recognize her at all. No, he insists, she's the one suffering a delusion: he's the Reverend Wolff and his only mission is to bring his people to Jesus. Except that, as Joan soon discovers, that's not all the enigmatic Wolff is doing. With only the help of Ajean, a foul-mouthed euchre shark with a knowledge of the old ways, and her odd, Johnny-Cash-loving, 12-year-old nephew Zeus, Joan has to find a way to remind the Reverend Wolff of who he really is. If he really is Victor. Her life, and the life of everyone she loves, depends upon it. 2019.By Shauntay Grant. 2020
À quoi ressemblait la communauté ? Des maisons aux couleurs vives, logées dans la colline ; des champs où les…
garçons jouaient au football ; un étang où les en- fants faisaient du rafting ; la pêche en abondance; des immenses feux de joie...La jeune fille sort de sa rêverie ; elle visite le parc historique actuel et le cadran solaire où le nom de son arrière-grand mère est gravé dans la pierre, et célèbre un jour d’été aux retrouvailles annuelles d’Africville.By Denis M. Boucher. 2020
Tout comme le Loch Ness ou le lac Memphrémagog, le lac Baker du Haut Madawaska, serait-il infesté par un monstre?…
Les trois mousquetaires acadiens plongent dans leur première enquête! Trois jeunes écoliers acadiens (et leur chien) se cherchant une occupation peu banale décident de fonder une agence de détectives et se baptisent Les trois mousquetaires, puisqu’ils sont quatre ! Au même moment, les riverains du lac Baker, dans le nord-ouest du Nouveau-Brunswick, à la frontière avec le Québec et les États-Unis sont effrayés par la présence d’un monstre marin. Il n’en faut pas plus pour que Ania, Mamadou et Gabriel plongent au cœur du mystère. Qu’est-ce qui se cache dans ce lac ? Ce premier de sept romans jeunesse très populaires en Acadie a été complètement revisité par l’auteur, et les illustrations de Paul Roux ajoutent encore davantage à l’intrigue, l’action et l’humour incontestable de la série.By Kathryn Hartley. 2021
Nestled in the rolling foothills, where the prairie climbs to meet the Rocky Mountains, lies the small town of Cougar…
Lake. You know these towns. You've driven through them. Maybe even stopped for a bite at the Copper Kettle café. In this book all the doors in town swing quietly open. Each inhabitant's life and story intersects with others like overlapping ripples in the water. Each story stands alone but each story reaches tendrils into others. The residents form a cast of beguiling, sometimes eccentric, characters. As the book progresses, we gradually discover their loves and longings, their histories and their dreams. We learn what brought them to Cougar Lake and, more importantly, what keeps them here. In the end the town stands together to survive. Here are the stories, the dramas, the heartbreak and the glories of the town and the people of Cougar Lake.By Theresa Meuse. 2022
It's early July, and for Matthew and his Auntie that means one thing: time to go sweetgrass picking. This year,…
Matthew's younger cousin Warren is coming along, and it will be his first time visiting the shoreline where the sweetgrass grows. With Auntie's traditional Mi'kmaw knowledge and Matthew's gentle guidance, Warren learns about the many uses for sweetgrass—as traditional medicine, a sacred offering, a smudging ingredient—and the importance of not picking more than he needs. Once the trio is back at Auntie's house, she shows the boys how to clean and braid the grass. This heartfelt story about the gifts we receive from Mother Earth and how to gather them respectfully offers thoughtful insight into a treasured Mi'kmaw traditionBy Lori Weber. 2016
When a team in an all-girls’ hockey league comes to recruit players, twelve-year-old Lou’s dreams seem to be coming true.…
But the dreams hinge on one thing: never letting on that Lou is a boy. But the road to stardom is not easy, as Lou discovers that the competition is fierce, and that he’s got a lot of work to do to match the skills of the league’s star player and his chief rival, Albertine Lapensée. All the while, he has to keep his secret, and wrestle with the moral dilemma of taking a place on the team away from a deserving girl. Loosely based on a true story, Lightning Lou is a riveting and thought-provoking story for middle-grade readers.By Alexandra Latos. 2020
This heartfelt novel for fans of Jandy Nelson and Adam Silvera follows twins Audrey and Clare as they grapple with…
their brother's death and their changing relationships-with each other and themselves. Audrey&’s best friend was always her twin, Clare. But as they got older, they grew apart, and when their brother Adam died, Clare blamed Audrey for the accident. Now, Audrey&’s attending an alternative school where she feels more isolated than ever. Tired of being seen as different from her neurotypical peers, Audrey&’s determined to switch to the public high school, rebuild her friendship with Clare, and atone for Adam&’s death . . . but she&’ll need to convince her parents, and her therapist, first. Clare knows her sister thinks she&’s the perfect twin, but Audrey doesn&’t realize that Clare&’s &“popular&” status is crumbling—she&’s begun to question old friendships, dress in Adam&’s clothes, and wonder what feelings for a nonbinary classmate, Taylor, might mean. As she grapples with not only grief but also her gender fluidity, Clare wonders where she&’ll belong if she sheds her carefully constructed image and embraces her true self. Will first crushes, new family dynamics, and questions of identity prove that Audrey and Clare have grown too different to understand each other-or that they've needed each other all along?By Joan Donaldson-Yarmey. 2015
On his sixteenth birthday Phillipe Chabot is told that his brother-in-law has hired him to be a voyageur. He will…
be paddling west from Montreal to Grade Portage to trade supplies with the Indians for furs. He is overjoyed and receives all the appropriate clothing from his family as birthday gifts, even a tobacco pouch. As the loaded canoe brigade gets ready to leave, his cousin, Jeanne, accepts the proposal of marriage yelled at her by the clerk who is going along to keep track of the trading. Unfortunately, disaster strikes the brigade as the men paddle the rivers, make their portages, and get onto the sometimes violent and unforgiving Lake Superior. In Montreal, the city is ravished by a fire and death is everywhere.By Regina M. Hansen. 2021
Music, myth, and horror blend in this romantic, atmospheric fantasy debut about a teen girl who must fight a powerful…
evil that&’s invaded her Prince Edward Island home—perfect for fans of An Enchantment of Ravens.There&’s a certain wild magic in the salt air and the thrum of the sea. Beet MacNeill has known this all her life. It added spice to her childhood adventures with her older cousin, Gerry, the two of them thick as thieves as they explored their Prince Edward Island home. So when Gerry comes up the path one early spring morning, Beet thinks nothing of it at first. But he is soaking wet and silent, and he plays a haunting tune on his fiddle that chills Beet to the bone. Something is very, very wrong. Things only get worse when Marina Shaw saunters into town and takes an unsettling interest in Gerry&’s new baby. Local lore is filled with tales of a vicious shape-shifting sea creature and the cold, beautiful woman who controls him—a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Marina. Beet is determined to find out what happened to her beloved cousin, and to prevent the same fate from befalling the handsome new boy in town who is winning her heart, whether she wants him to or not. Yet the sea always exacts a price...By Michel Noel. 2001
Winner of the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction The year is 1959, and fifteen-year-old Nipishish returns to his reserve…
in northern Quebec after being kicked out of residential school, where the principal tells him he's a good-for-nothing who, like all Indians, can look forward to a life of drunkenness, prison and despair. The reserve, however, offers nothing to Nipishish. He remembers little of his late mother and father. In fact, he seems to know less about himself than the people at the band office. He must try to rediscover the old ways, face the officials who find him a threat, and learn the truth about his father's death.By Brian Doyle. 1982
Winner of the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award Young Tommy and Baby Bridget, the girl with the…
trillium-shaped eyes, discover that living, healing and dying are not always what they seem. And they make that discovery with the help of a wonderful cast of characters, including Crazy Mickey, Frank and the Hummer. Award-winning author Brian Doyle spent the summers of his boyhood in the Gatineau Hills, the setting for Up to Low.By Martha Brooks. 1997
Alexandra's beloved grandfather was fond of saying, Life is full of surprises, and sometimes the good and the bad get…
all bunched up together. However, he could not have prepared her for the death of her father, a man she never knew, and his legacy -- a cabin on prairie land formerly owned by the LaFreniere family. Lonny LaFreniere's stepfather is the kindest man Lonny has ever known. But Lonny, tormented by guilty memories and visions he can't shake, rejects the land Pop always wanted to pass on to him. How could he have known it would end up in the hands of a city girl like Alexandra Sinclair? Acclaimed author Martha Brooks tells an unforgettable story about two teens and their quest to understand the land and each other.By Jen Ferguson. 2022
In this complex and emotionally resonant novel about a Métis girl living on the Canadian prairies, debut author Jen Ferguson…
serves up a powerful story about rage, secrets, and all the spectrums that make up a person—and the sweetness that can still live alongside the bitterest truth. Lou has enough confusion in front of her this summer. She’ll be working in her family’s ice-cream shack with her newly ex-boyfriend—whose kisses never made her feel desire, only discomfort—and her former best friend, King, who is back in their Canadian prairie town after disappearing three years ago without a word.But when she gets a letter from her biological father—a man she hoped would stay behind bars for the rest of his life—Lou immediately knows that she cannot meet him, no matter how much he insists.While King’s friendship makes Lou feel safer and warmer than she would have thought possible, when her family’s business comes under threat, she soon realizes that she can’t ignore her father forever.The Heartdrum imprint centers a wide range of intertribal voices, visions, and stories while welcoming all young readers, with an emphasis on the present and future of Indian Country and on the strength of young Native heroes. In partnership with We Need Diverse Books.In 1784, Englishwoman Amelia Latimer sails to the new colony of New Brunswick in faraway Canada. She’s to marry a…
man chosen by her soldier father. Amelia is repulsed by her betrothed, refuses to marry, then meets the handsome Acadian trader, Gilbert, a man beneath her in status. Gilbert must protect his mother who was attacked by an English soldier. He fights to hold on to their property, to keep it from the Loyalists who have flooded the colony, desperate men chased from the south after the American Revolution. In a land fraught with hardship, Amelia and Gilbert struggle to overcome prejudice and political upheaval, while forging a life in a remote country where events seek to destroy their love and lives. If you like Sara Donati's Into the Wilderness, you're going to love Diane Scott Lewis' On a Stormy Primeval Shore.By Wisdomkeeper. 2022
Yaotl and Sascho splashed along the shores of the becha spears hefted, watching for the flash of fin to rise…
to the surface and sparkle in the sunlight. Tender feelings, barely discovered, flushed their faces. Waving their spears they laughed and teased one another with sprays of newly melted ice water. In the distance, the warning about the kw'ahtıı sounds, but on this fatal day it goes unheard; Yaotl and Sascho fall into the hands of the Indian Agents. Transport to Fort Providence residential school is only the beginning of their ordeal, for the teachers believe it is their sworn duty to “kill the Indian inside.” All attempts at escape are severely punished, but Yaotl and Sascho, along with two others, will try, beginning a journey of 900 Kilometers along the Mackenzie River. Like wild geese, brave hearts together, they are homeward bound.French-Canadian soldier, Napoleon, proposes to Lea during WWI, promising golden fields of wheat as far as the eye can see.…
After the armistice, he sends money for her passage, and she journeys far from her family and the conveniences of a modern country to join him on a homestead in Saskatchewan. There, she works hard to build their dream of a prospering farm, clearing fields alongside her husband through several pregnancies and even after suffering a terrible loss. When the stock market crashes in ’29, the prairies are stricken by a long and abysmal drought. Thrown into poverty, she struggles to survive in a world where work is scarce, death is abundant, and hope dwindles. Will she and her family survive the Great Depression?By Joan Donaldson-Yarmey. 2015
On his sixteenth birthday Phillipe Chabot is told that his brother-in-law has hired him to be a voyageur. He will…
be paddling west from Montreal to Grade Portage to trade supplies with the Indians for furs. He is overjoyed and receives all the appropriate clothing from his family as birthday gifts, even a tobacco pouch.This special four-book collection features stories of bravery and courage about early settlers and their relationships with the indigenous peoples…
of Canada. B.J. Bayle's young adult fiction brings Canada's past alive on the page. Includes: Red River Rising In 1813, Angus, a young Scot, and his family endure hardships as they attempt to start a new life in Canada. As they struggle to survive, they find themselves caught up in the rivalry between two fur-trading empires. Shadow Riders In 1874 Rob McCann and his adopted Native brother Luke frantically chase after the thieves who have stolen their horses and wounded their father. They seek out the help of the North-West Mounted Police, and as Colonel George French attempts to escort the boys home, the brothers tag along with the NWMP men on an 800-mile journey. Battle Cry at Batoche Ben Muldoon witnesses the struggle of the Metis and Cree in the Saskatchewan River Valley in 1885. He is caught between his loyalty to a friend and the authority of an uncle. Perilous Passage In 1809, Peter, a victim of amnesia, embarks on a series of amazing adventures with David Thompson, soon to become a famous explorer and mapmaker.By Jennifer Maruno. 2014
Jonny must travel to the distant past to understand the present As an orphaned white boy in a…
school full of Native students fourteen-year-old Jonny Joe isn t like any of the others at the island Redemption Residential School off the west coast When the advances of Father Gregory disturb Jonny he joins another boy in an escape to a mountain cave But when they leave the cave the world as they knew it no longer exists The boys travel to a native village in a sheltered bay where Jonny becomes skilled in the art of carving When a steamship enters the cove the party of sightseers brings a disease that annihilates most of the people in the village Meanwhile Jonny has learned the secret of his past and when he returns to the present Jonny carves a totem pole to honour the members of the village