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Showing 21 - 40 of 3164 items
By Farley Mowat. 1975
The barbarity and futility of war transformed a swaggering, self-confident junior officer into a seasoned, cynical veteran as his regiment…
was decimated in Sicily and struggled to survive the carnage of the 1943 Italian campaign. Strong language and descriptions of violence. Canada Reads 2012. 2003, c1975.More than 250,000 courageous men and women were enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. These…
Canadians fought valiantly in every major air operation from the Battle of Britain to the bombing of Germany. Thousands lost their lives. Those who survived to tell their stories were forever changed. Here are some of their incredible stories. 2003.During World War II, some of the most treacherous jobs were those performed by men and women located deep within…
enemy territory. Always in danger of being exposed and subjected to torture, imprisonment, and even death, their stories are chilling accounts of bravery and luck - and, in some cases, what happens when the luck runs out. Some descriptions of violence. 2003.By Norman Leach. 2004
The history of Canada is filled with charismatic and talented military leaders. Each of the men featured in this collection…
was wildly successful in business and used his private wealth to provide Canada with a military unit at its times of greatest need. Today these respected units continue to serve Canada and Canadians. Includes biographies of Lord Strathcona, Henry Pellatt, and Hamilton Gault. Some descriptions of violence. 2004.By Laura Hillenbrand. 2010
Details the life of Louis Zamperini (b. 1917), an Olympic runner and World War II bombardier, who survived a plane…
crash and forty-seven days adrift at sea only to become a POW in Japan. Relates Louis's later religious awakening under Billy Graham's ministry. Violence. Bestseller. 2010.By Hideko Tamura Snider. 1996
Hideko was ten years old when the atomic bomb devastated her home in Hiroshima. In this narrative, Hideko recalls her…
life before the bomb, the explosion itself, and the influence of that trauma upon her subsequent life in Japan and the United States. Her years in America have given her unusual insights into the relationship between Japanese and American cultures and the impact of Hiroshima on our lives. 1996.By Serge Marc Durflinger. 2010
A history of Canada's war-blinded veterans and of the organization they founded in 1922, the Sir Arthur Pearson Association of…
War Blinded. Durflinger details the veterans' process of civil re-establishment, physical and psychological rehabilitation, and social and personal coping, and describes their public advocacy for government pension entitlements, job retraining, and other social programs. Captures the spirit of perseverance that permeated the veterans' community, and highlights the impact made by the war blinded as advocates for all Canadian veterans and for all blind citizens. 2010.By Jessica Dee Humphreys, Roméo A Dallaire. 2010
In conflicts around the world, there is an increasingly popular weapon system that requires negligible technology, is simple to sustain,…
has unlimited versatility and incredible capacity for both loyalty and barbarism - children. Believing that no one should tolerate a child being used in this fashion, Dallaire has made it his mission to end the use of child soldiers. He provides an introduction to the phenomenon, as well as solutions to eradicate it. Explicit descriptions of violence. c2010.By Rod Mickleburgh, Rudyard Griffiths. 2005
Twenty Canadian Second World War veterans candidly describe their experiences, including the sinking of the Bismarck and landing on the…
beaches of Normandy. Describes the search of a Jewish nurse for survivors of the Holocaust and provides tales of shot-down airmen on the run in occupied Europe. Some strong language. 2005.By James Giblin. 2002
Biography of the German political leader whose racial prejudice and personal ambition shaped World War II. Traces Hitler's life and…
career from his birth in Austria in 1889 to his death in Berlin in 1945. Briefly discusses this tyrant's legacy. Some descriptions of violence. Grades 5-8 and older readers. Siebert Award. 2002.By Roméo A Dallaire. 2016
Roméo Dallaire, traumatized by witnessing genocide on an imponderable scale in Rwanda, reflects on the nature of PTSD and the…
impact of that deep wound on his life since 1994, and on how he motivates himself and others to humanitarian work despite his constant struggle. Though he had been a leader in peace and in war at all levels up to deputy commander of the Canadian Army, his PTSD led to his medical dismissal from the Canadian Forces in April 2000, a blow that almost killed him. But he crawled out of the hole he fell into after he had to take off the uniform, and he has been inspiring people to give their all to multiple missions ever since, from ending genocide to eradicating the use of child soldiers to revolutionizing officer training so that our soldiers can better deal with the muddy reality of modern conflict zones, and to revolutionizing our thinking about the changing nature of conflict itself. Bestseller. 2016.By Bill Olmsted. 1987
Bill Olmstead, one of Canada's most decorated fighter pilots, took part in three invasions and flew over 500 sorties during…
World War II. Using his diaries and letters written to his mother, he recounts hair-raising dogfights and describes the amazing escapades of his fellow pilots.By James Mackay. 1998
By Eric Lomax. 1996
Eric Lomax was tortured by the Japanese as a POW working on the Burma-Siam Railway. Fifty years later he met…
one of his tormentors. His is a story of innocence betrayed; of passion and curiosity about the world of machines turned into nightmares, and punished by the cruelty of which only humans are capable. It is also a story of survival and of courage.By Miep Gies, Alison Leslie Gold. 1987
Gies, known affectionately as Miep Van Santen in Anne Frank's diary, recalls the changes Nazi occupation forced on the Dutch.…
She describes the efforts to resist and chronicles her perilous relationship with the Franks, including her affection for Anne.By Farley Mowat. 1992
As Farley Mowat saw his comrades killed and wounded during the Italian campaign of World War II, his spirit was…
sustained by his strong relationship with his father. Mowat captures the shock and despair of war, and the exhilaration that followed victory. Some strong language. Sequel to "And no birds sang".By Gérald Messadié. 2008
This autobiography of Canadian Max Eisen details the rural Hungarian deportations to Auschwitz-Birkenau, back-breaking slave labour in Auschwitz I, the…
infamous 'death march' of January 1945, the painful aftermath of liberation, and a journey of physical and psychological healing. Winner of Canada Reads 2019. Bestseller. 2016. Childhood in Czechoslovakia -- Summers on the Farm -- Big Changes -- Life under Hungarian Rule -- Year of Birth and Death -- Final Seder -- Train -- Arrival in Auschwitz II-Birkenau -- Arbeit Macht Frei -- Draining Swamps -- Walking Ghosts -- Piece of Bacon -- Selections, July 1944 -- Land Reclamation Outside Auschwitz -- Operating Room -- Surgeries in Barrack 21 -- Pot of Stew -- Destruction of Crematorium 4 -- Death March -- Melk, Ebensee, and Liberation -- Ebensee, After Liberation -- From Ceske Budejovice to Moldava -- Emotional and Physical Healing -- Marienbad -- Prague -- Return to Kosice -- Ebelsberg DP Camp -- Canada.By Kelly S. Thompson. 2019
At eighteen years old, Kelly Thompson enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces. Despite growing up in a military family --…
she would, in fact, be a fourth-generation soldier -- she couldn't shake the feeling that she didn't belong. From the moment she arrives for basic training at a Quebec military base, a young woman more interested in writing than weaponry, she quickly realizes that her conception of what being a soldier means, forged from a desire to serve her country after the 9/11 attacks, isn't entirely accurate. A career as a female officer will involve navigating a masculinized culture and coming to grips with her burgeoning feminism. In this compulsively readable memoir, Thompson writes with wit and honesty about her own development as a woman and a soldier, unsparingly highlighting truths about her time in the military. In sharply crafted prose, she chronicles the frequent sexism and misogyny she encounters both in training and later in the workplace, and explores her own feelings of pride and loyalty to the Forces, and a family legacy of PTSD, all while searching for an artistic identity in a career that demands conformity. When she sustains a career-altering injury, Thompson fearlessly re-examines her identity as a soldier. 2019.By Badeeah Hassan Ahmed. 2019
Captured by ISIS, known locally as Daesh, Badeeah was among hundreds forced into a brutal human trafficking network made up…
of women and girls of Ezidi ethnicity, a much-persecuted minority culture of Iraq. Badeeah's story takes her to Syria where she is sold to a high-ranking ISIS commander known as Al Amriki, the American, kept as a house slave, raped, and routinely assaulted. Only the presence of her young nephew Eivan and her friend Navine, also prisoners, keeps her from harming herself. In captivity, she draws on memories and stories from her childhood to maintain a small bit of control in an otherwise volatile situation. Ultimately, it is her profound sense of faith and brave resistance that lead her to escape with Eivan and reunite with family. Since her escape, Badeeah has brought her harrowing story of war and survival to the world's stage, raising awareness about the little-known acts of genocide against her culture and the strength of a people unknown to many around the world. 2019.