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Showing 1 - 9 of 9 items
The bite of the mango
By Mariatu Kamara, Susan McClelland. 2008
Sierra Leone. At the age of 12, Mariatu Kamara was raped by a family friend, then captured by rebels who…
cut off her hands. Despite her wounds, Kamara walked out of the bush and sought help, ending up in an amputee camp, where she gave birth to a son who died of malnutrition. When foreign journalists interviewed Kamara in the camp, her story garnered international interest and assistance, which eventually brought her to Toronto. Her autobiography testifies to Kamara's horrific trauma, but with the aim of fostering hope and reconciliation. Winner of the 2011 Red Maple Non-Fiction Award. For junior high and older readers. Some strong language, some descriptions of sex, and some descriptions of violence. c2008.Shake hands with the devil: the failure of humanity in Rwanda
By Roméo A Dallaire, Brent Beardsley. 2003
As former head of the 1993 U.N. peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, Canadian general Dallaire's initial proposal called for 5,000 soldiers,…
to permit orderly elections and the return of the refugees. Nothing like this number was supplied, and the result was an outright attempt at genocide against the Tutsis that nearly succeeded, with 800,000 dead over three months. Dallaire's argument that Rwanda-like situations are fires that can be put out with a small force if caught early enough will certainly draw debate, but the book documents in horrifying detail what happens when no serious effort is made. Explicit descriptions of violence. Winner of the 2004 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. Canada Reads 2012. 2003.Shadow maker: the life of Gwendolyn MacEwen
By Rosemary Sullivan. 1995
Using the personal impressions of the poet's intimate friends, Rosemary Sullivan builds a composite portrait of Gwendolyn MacEwan, the Toronto…
poet who died in 1987 at the age of 46. The daughter of an alcoholic father and mentally ill mother, MacEwen's story is a painful one, yet the richness of her art and inner life redeemed the pain. Winner of the 1995 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction.100 cigarettes and a bottle of vodka: a memoir
By Arthur Schaller. 1998
Arthur Schaller was eleven years old when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, a time when the reward for turning in…
a Jew was 100 cigarettes and a bottle of vodka. Separated from his family in the Warsaw Ghetto, Arthur managed to escape to the other side of the Ghetto wall, and posed until the end of the war as a Catholic orphan. Winner of the 1999 CNIB Talking Book of the Year Award. 1998.The mummy congress: science, obsession, and the everlasting dead
By Heather Anne Pringle. 2001
After covering a conference of mummy experts, science reporter Heather Pringle became so intrigued with mummies that she spent a…
year circling the globe, visiting leading scientists in the field. She also investigated preserved Italian saints, Scandinavian mummies in bogs, and frozen Inca princesses. Pringle researched Egyptian embalmers, the past public craze for mummy unwrappings, and the Russians' attempts to preserve Stalin, and along the way learned what mummies have to tell us about ourselves. Winner of the 2002 CNIB Torgi Award. 2001.Confessions of an immigrant's daughter (Social History of Canada. #34.)
By Laura Goodman Salverson, K. P Stich. 1981
Salverson's autobiography describes the struggles of a young Icelandic woman to rise above an early life of poverty, isolation and…
upheaval. It also depicts the sometimes agonizing process of the immigrant, adjusting to a life in a new country. It discusses the discrimination against women and ethnic minorities she encountered as she attempted to fulfill her own dreams. Winner of the 1939 Governor General's Award. (Social History of Canada ; 34)Vimy
By Pierre Berton. 1986
In 1917, the Canadian Corps seized and held the best-defended German bastion on the Western Front, a feat thought impossible…
by the British, French and German forces. The author believes they succeeded because the men were civilians, with flexible minds unfettered by military rules. Bestseller 1986. Winner of the 1987 CNIB Talking Book of the Year Award.The right cheek: an autobiography (The French writers of Canada series)
By Claire Martin. 1968
In the second part of her autobiography, the author describes her adolescence and early womanhood in her father's house, one…
of gloom and oppressive brutality. The attitudes of the times towards sex and women are bitterly attacked and ridiculed. Sequel to "In an iron glove" (DC00901). 1975, c1968. Uniform title: Dans un gant de fer, v. 2, La joue droite.The armies of the night: history as a novel, the novel as history
By Norman Mailer. 1968
The story of the 1967 march on the Pentagon, skirmishes between armed guards and anti-war demonstrators, and the subsequent arrest…
of hundreds of people. The author describes his own experience as a demonstrator and also gives a historical account of the action. Winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. 1968.