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Showing 1 - 20 of 22 items
By Sharon E McKay. 2014
Five-year-old Beatrix looks on in horror as a soldier forces her mother off the tram. It is 1942 in Amsterdam,…
and everyone knows what happens to Jews who are taken away by the Nazis. The soldier turns his attention to Beatrix, when suddenly, the ticket-taker, Lars Gorter, blurts out that she is his niece. With his brother Hans, the tram conductor, they manage to rescue the child from the same fate as her mother. The two elderly brothers realize that they are now in charge of the little girl. They are at a loss -- after all, neither one has ever married, let alone has children. They know that harbouring a Jew could cost them their lives, but in desperation, they turn to a neighbour, Mrs. Vos, for help. Grades 3-6. Winner of the 2015-16 Hackmatack Award for fiction. Winner of the 2016 Silver Birch Express Award. 2014.By Karen Bass. 2016
Jared’s plane has crashed in the Alberta wilderness, and Kyle is first on the scene. When Jared insists on hiking…
up the highest hill in search of cell phone reception, Kyle hesitates; his Cree grandmother has always forbidden him to go near it. There’s no stopping Jared, though, so Kyle reluctantly follows. After a night spent on the hilltop - with no cell service - the teens discover something odd: the plane has disappeared. Nothing in the forest surrounding them seems right. In fact, things seem very wrong. And worst of all, something - a creature that should only exist in legend - is hunting them. For senior high readers. 2016.By Deborah Ellis. 2000
A story about loyalty, survival, families and friendship, set against the backdrop of an intolerable existence in war-torn Afghanistan. Eleven-year-old…
Parvana lives in Taliban-controlled Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. Masquerading as a boy, Parvana goes to work in the streets so that her family can eat. Parvana becomes the breadwinner. Grades 5-8. 2000.By Margriet Ruurs, Nizar Ali Badr. 2016
A young girl and her family are forced to flee their village to escape the civil war that has engulfed…
Syria, and make their way toward freedom in Europe. Grades K-3 and older readers. 2016.By Jennifer Dance. 2014
Life is changing for Canada's Anishnaabek Nation and for the wolf packs that share their territory. In the late 1800s,…
both Native people and wolves are being forced from the land. Starving and lonely, an orphaned timber wolf is befriended by a boy named Red Wolf. But under the Indian Act, Red Wolf is forced to attend a residential school far from the life he knows, and the wolf is alone once more. Courage, love and fate reunite the pair, and they embark on a perilous journey home. But with winter closing in, will Red Wolf and Crooked Ear survive? And if they do, what will they find? For junior high readers. 2014.By Kathy Kacer, Jenny Kay Dupuis. 2016
Based on the life of Jenny Kay Dupuis' own grandmother, a young First Nations girl who was sent to a…
residential school. When eight-year-old Irene is removed from her First Nations family to live in a residential school she is confused, frightened, and terribly homesick. She tries to remember who she is and where she came from despite the efforts of the nuns to force her to do otherwise. Grades 3-6. Winner of the 2018 Silver Birch Express Honour Book Award. Winner of the 2018 Hackmatack Award for non-fiction. Winner of the 2018 Red Cedar Information Book Award. 2016.By Kathy Stinson. 2010
The Highway of Heroes is a stretch of the 401 Highway in Ontario where fallen soldiers, being brought home for…
burial, pass by. In 2002, ordinary citizens started standing on bridges over the road, showing their respect for the Canadians killed in wars and peacekeeping missions, a practice that has continued to this day. This is a fictional account of one family's journey along that highway, and a section describing the true story behind it. Grades K-3 and older readers. 2010.By Jennifer Dance, Allister Thompson. 2016
Hawk, a First Nations teen from northern Alberta, is a cross-country runner. But when Hawk discovers he has leukemia, his…
identity as a star athlete is stripped away, along with his muscles and energy. When he finds an osprey, “a fish hawk,” mired in a pond of toxic residue from the oil sands industry, he sees his life-or-death struggle echoed by the young bird. Slipping in and out of consciousness, Hawk has visions of the osprey and other animals that shared his childhood home: woodland caribou, wolves, and wood buffalo. They are all helpless and vulnerable, their forest and muskeg habitat vanishing. Hawk sees in these tragedies parallels with his own fragile life, and wants to forge a new identity - one that involves standing up for the voiceless creatures that share his world. But he needs to survive long enough to do it. For junior and senior high readers. 2016.By Donald Clayton Porter. 1982
Renno’s son, Ja-gonh, sets out to kill Huron brave Gray Fox, who murdered Renno’s father. But Gray Fox kidnaps Ja-gonh’s…
betrothed and offers her to the French king, Louis XV, as mistress. While Ja-gonh pursues them, Renno battles illness at home. Some descriptions of sex and some violence. Sequel to "Renno" (DC13362). Followed by "War cry". 1982. (The White Indian series ; 6)By Irène Cohen-Janca. 2009
150 ans, c'est une courte vie pour un marronnier. Menacé par les parasites qui le rongent, l'arbre se souvient de…
la vie trop courte de cette jeune fille qui vécut deux années clandestines au 163, Canal de l'Empereur. Par sa lucarne, elle l'observait et décrivait dans son journal ses transformations au fil des saisons, signe que le temps passait et que, dehors, la vie continuait... Elle s'appelait Anne Frank, c'était à Amsterdam, pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Au marronnier, maintenant, de raconter son histoire. Années 3-6.A Choctaw boy tells the story of his tribe's removal from the only land its people had ever known, and…
how their journey to Oklahoma led him to become a ghost--one with the ability to help those he left behind. Followed by "When a ghost talks, listen". Grades 3-6. 2013.By Rebecca Upjohn. 2012
Based on a true story. Milek and his brother, Munio, live in a sleepy village in Poland. Anton, an odd…
neighbour, speaks to animals, feeds the flies, and only eats vegetables, so most people call him the village fool. When the war brings Nazi soldiers to town rounding up Jewish boys like Milek and Munio, Anton worries about them and comes up with a plan to hide the whole family in his own home, putting his own life at risk. The back of the book outlines what happened to Anton and the others after the war. Winner of the 2014 Silver Birch Express Award and the 2014 Golden Oak Award. Grades 3-6. 2012.By Jennifer Maruno. 2009
Nine-year-old Michiko Minagawa bids her father good-bye before her birthday celebration. She doesn't know the government has ordered all Japanese-born…
men out of the province, or that ten days later, her family would join hundreds of Japanese-Canadians on a train to the interior of British Columbia. There are no paved roads, no streetlights and no streetcars, and their house is dirty and drafty. Michiko must face local prejudice, the worst winter in forty years, and her first Christmas without her father. Grades 2-4. 2009.By Susan Currie. 2016
When Cass's estranged grandmother unexpectedly leaves her house and savings to Cass and her mom, it is just the thing…
they need to change their lives. Cass is being bullied at school, and her mom just lost her job—again—so they pack up and move in. Cass finds an intriguing and powerful mask in her new room, and she is inexplicably drawn to it. A strange relationship grows between Cass and the mask; it sings her songs, shows her visions of past traumas and encourages her to be brave when facing bullies. The mask eventually leads her to discover her own Cayuga heritage and leads her into the arms of a community that's been waiting for them. Winner of the Second Story Press Aboriginal Writing Contest. Grades 3-6. 2016.By Stephen Crane, Emily Hutchinson. 1999
Henry Fleming, an unsophisticated country boy, enthusiastic to serve his country, enlists with the Union forces at the beginning of…
the Civil War. At first, the shock of war causes him to retreat and his heroic vision of himself fades. In the next battle, however, his courage revives as he carries forward the regiment's colours in a crucial advance. Adaptation of the American classic by Stephen Crane, originally published in 1895. For junior and senior high readers. 1999.By Ruby Slipperjack. 2016
Twelve-year-old Violet Pesheens is taken away to Residential School in 1966. The diary recounts her experiences of travelling there, the…
first day, and first months, focusing on the everyday life she experiences--the school routine, battles with Cree girls, being quarantined over Christmas, getting home at Easter and reuniting with her family. When the time comes to gather at the train station for the trip back to the residential school, her mother looks her in the eye and asks, "Do you want to go back, or come with us to the trapline?" Violet knows the choice she must make. Grades 4-7. 2016.By Helen Frost. 2009
In their own voices, four young people, Muriel, Frank, Emma, and Ollie, tell of their experiences during the first World…
War, as the boys enlist and are sent overseas, Emma finishes school, and Muriel fights for peace and women's suffrage. Grades 5-8. 2009.By Kochka. 2006
1990. Après quinze années de guerre civile, la paix est en passe d'être signée au Liban. Mais, dans un hôpital…
parisien, Élie est dans le coma. Son père Jacques Morhange ne comprend pas. S'il avait fait le choix de ne pas quitter Beyrouth au plus fort des bombardements, il avait néanmoins mis sa famille à l'abri, loin. La guerre peut-elle tuer à distance ? -- 4e de couv.By Eric Walters, Kathy Kacer. 2019
A violin and a middle-school musical unleash a dark family secret in this moving story by an award-winning author duo.…
For fans of The Devil's Arithmetic and Hana's Suitcase.It's 2002. In the aftermath of the twin towers -- and the death of her beloved grandmother -- Shirli Berman is intent on moving forward. The best singer in her junior high, she auditions for the lead role in Fiddler on the Roof, but is crushed to learn that she's been given the part of the old Jewish mother in the musical rather than the coveted part of the sister. But there is an upside: her "husband" is none other than Ben Morgan, the cutest and most popular boy in the school. Deciding to throw herself into the role, she rummages in her grandfather's attic for some props. There, she discovers an old violin in the corner -- strange, since her Zayde has never seemed to like music, never even going to any of her recitals. Showing it to her grandfather unleashes an anger in him she has never seen before, and while she is frightened of what it might mean, Shirli keeps trying to connect with her Zayde and discover the awful reason behind his anger. A long-kept family secret spills out, and Shirli learns the true power of music, both terrible and wonderful.By Nahanni Shingoose. 2019
Part Ojibwe and part white, River lives with her white mother and stepfather on a farm in Ontario. Teased about…
her Indigenous heritage as a young girl, she feels like she doesn't belong and struggles with her identity.Now eighteen and just finished high school, River travels to Winnipeg to spend the summer with her Indigenous father and grandmother, where she sees firsthand what it means to be an "urban Indian."On her family's nearby reserve, she learns more than she expects about the lives of Indigenous people, including the presence of Indigenous gangs and the multi-generational effects of the residential school system. But River also discovers a deep respect for and connection with the land and her cultural traditions. The highlight of her summer is attending the annual powwow with her new friends.At the powwow after party, however, River drinks too much and posts photos online that anger people and she has her right to identify as an Indigenous person called into question.Can River ever begin to resolve the complexities of her identity — Indigenous and not?