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 657 items
By Mary Fairhurst Breen. 2023
The activists between these pages have stood up for the queer community, whether on their own behalf or in support…
of people they love. Some made a difference by confronting injustice; others dared to be fully themselves.By Colleen Nelson, Kathie MacIsaac. 2023
From award-winning author Colleen Nelson, and literacy advocate Kathie MacIsaac, twenty-five profiles present a plethora of jobs, and people, making…
it easier than ever for young people to see their dreams and to live their dreams!By Dustin Galer. 2023
The story of a mid-century working-class housewife whose extraordinary physical transformation empowered her to become a dynamic social activist who…
fueled a movement to create a more inclusive future for people with disabilities.By Justin Davis. 2022
An indispensable guide to parents of hockey hopefuls At a time of great change in hockey, Justin Davis exposes the…
dark underbelly of the journey from the minors to the big leagues Hockey culture: it's a commonly used phrase inside the game, glorifying sacrifice, toughness, loyalty, and a sense of identity. Justin Davis viewed this culture as something he was lucky enough to experience. After all, he'd won a Memorial Cup after leading the tournament in scoring, and he'd been drafted by the Washington Capitals. "In my mind," he says, "I was the normal one." Unfortunately, after stepping outside the game, he began to recognize the racism, sexual abuse and bullying that was so deeply ingrained in the sport. And then, as his own children grew into teenagers, the curtain was pulled back, the memories came rushing forward, and he was horrified: "Why was I naked in a bus bathroom for four hours with seven teammates? What happened to my brain, and why can't I remember the simplest things? How did I end up living in a basement where the strangers upstairs were clearly engaged in domestic abuse?" As it navigates the sport's darkest corridors, Conflicted Scars shares the story of the common Canadian player and offers a guide for parents who need to know how and why a typical teenager with NHL dreams, from a small town, now lives anxiously, introvertedly, and battling emotional detachmentBy Connie Jakab. 2024
Our kids are not okay. The children and youth mental health crisis is at an all-time high. Anxiety and depression…
are skyrocketing. In Bring Them Closer, author Connie Jakab shares from her experience working with parents and educators with for 25 years in homes and schools, but also what she learned in her own home with a mental health crisis her family faced. She digs deeper into questions like: What does the idea "you never send the hurting away; you bring them closer" really look like? How do we create a connection with our children, so they live healed and whole? How do we see our children free of anxiety, depression, and behavioural issues? How do you support a child or student who is depressed? How do you get through to an oppositional child or student? How do you parent or teach a student with ADHD or ASD? How do you help a child or student drowning in anxiety? ?By Jessica J. Lee. 2024
INSTANT TORONTO STAR BESTSELLERThe prize-winning and bestselling author of Two Trees Make a Forest turns to the lives of plants…
entangled in our human world to explore belonging, displacement, identity, and the truths of our shared futureA seed slips beyond a garden wall. A tree is planted on a precarious border. A shrub is stolen from its culture and its land. What happens when these plants leave their original homes and put down roots elsewhere?The themes in these fourteen essays become invigorating and intimate in Lee’s hands, centering on the lives of plants like seaweed, tangelos, and soy, and their entanglement with our human worlds. Lee explores the rich backstory of cherry trees in Berlin; a tea plant that grows in the Himalayan foothills just southwest of China; the world of algae and wakame, and the journeys they’ve made to reach us.Each of the plants considered in this collection are somehow perceived as being "out of place"—weeds, samples collected through imperial science, crops introduced and transformed by our hand. Lee looks at these plant species in their own context, even when we find them outside of it.Dispersals draws a gorgeous, sprawling map of the diaspora of flora. Combining memoir, history, and scientific research in poetic prose, Jessica J. Lee meditates on the question of how both plants and people come to belong, why both cross borders, and how our futures are more entwined than we might imagine.By Denise Chong. 2024
From the bestselling author of The Concubine’s Children and The Girl in the Picture, a gripping story of a domestic…
assault that shocked the world, of the exercise of power and political influence, and of the Bangladeshi woman whose irrepressible spirit found light in sudden darkness.From the outside, Rumana seemed an unlikely victim of domestic abuse: married to a man of her own choosing and progressing in her career as a professor of international relations at Dhaka University. But in 2011, on return from graduate studies at the University of British Columbia, her husband attacked and blinded her in front of their young daughter. As Rumana's horrifying story garnered international headlines, and connections brought her to Vancouver in an attempt—ultimately futile—to restore her sight, her plight underscored the fact that there are no typical victims of intimate-partner violence. Denise Chong goes behind the headlines to reveal the devolution of a love story into a tale of tyranny behind closed doors, and the pursuit of justice that proved all the more elusive during the rise of social media. Out of Darkness tells a globe-spanning narrative of loyalty, perseverance and a woman’s determination to face the future and rebuild a life with meaning.By Gianluigi Mastandrea Bonaviri, Mirosław Michał Sadowski. 2024
This edited collection, which brings together nearly fifty authors from across the globe and various disciplines, makes a valuable contribution…
to the field of conservation, covering a wide range of topics regarding the protection of heritage in times of war and peace. Uniquely linking the two typically separate perspectives, the book builds on the wealth of discussions that took place during the 2021 and 2022 installments of the international “Heritage in War and Peace” Seminars held in Rome and Montréal, respectively.Issues explored in the volume include but are not limited to questions surrounding the protection of contentious heritages, unsustainability of the current dichotomic cultural/natural heritage protection frameworks, digitalization of heritage, place of heritage in military conflicts, use of heritage by armed non-state actors, indigenous peoples’ relationships with heritage, the intersection of intellectual property (IP) law and heritage, human rights matters linked to heritage protection, and the latest case studies surrounding restitution.Given its scope, the book will be of particular interest not only to practitioners and conservation specialists but also to academics and students in the broader social sciences and humanities, and to all those who hope to preserve our heritage for future generations.By M. G. Vassanji. 2024
From one of Canada's most celebrated writers, two-time Giller Prize winner M.G. Vassanji, comes a thoughtful meditation on what it…
means to belong in the world.Home is never a single place, entirely and unequivocally. It is contingent. The abstract "nowhere," then, is the true home.M.G. Vassanji has been exploring the immigrant experience for over three decades, drawing deeply on his own transnational upbringing and intimate understanding of the unique challenges and perspectives born from leaving one's home to resettle in a new land. The question of identity, of how to configure and see oneself within this new land, is one such challenge faced. But Vassanji suggests that a more fundamental and slippery endeavour than establishing one's identity is how, if ever, we can establish a sense of belonging. Can we ever truly belong in this new home? Did we ever truly belong in the home we left? Where exactly do we belong? For many, the answer is nowhere exactly. Combining brilliant prose, thoughtful, candid observation, and a lifetime of exploring how we as individuals are shaped by the places and communities in which we live and the history that haunts them, Nowhere, Exactly examines with exquisite sensitivity the space between identity and belonging, the immigrant experience of both loss and gain, and the weight of memory and nostalgia, guilt and hope felt by so many of those who leave their homes in search of new ones.By Helen Brown. 2024
Bestselling pet memoirist Helen Brown has enthralled readers with tales of the cats in her life. Readers all over the…
globe have fallen in love with Cleo, Jonah, and Bono alike. But now, Helen is taking her readers back to where it all began: her childhood pet, Mickey. This is a memoir about growing up, with the help of a very special cat. The youngest daughter of an eccentric engineer and a musical theater fanatic, Helen Brown grew up in the New Zealand coastal town of New Plymouth in a crumbling castle overrun by nature, and overshadowed by nearby, beautiful Mount Taranaki. It&’s 1966, the Pacific islands are being used for atomic bomb testing, and her parents and siblings are swept up in their own lives. Twelve years old, struggling in school, and facing eye surgery—for the second time—Helen feels lonely and lost. . . . Until her father gives her a three-month-old, gray-and-brown tiger-striped tabby with extra toes on each paw. Noticing an M design on the cat&’s forehead, Helen names her new companion Mickey. Inquisitive, rambunctious, clever, and skittish, Mickey disrupts the already quirky household with his mischief. But Helen finds love, joy—and herself—in learning what it means to care for a living creature who needs her as much as she needs him. Praise for Helen Brown&’s Books&“The next Marley & Me.&” —Good Housekeeping&“An absolute must.&” —Cat WorldBy Bart J. Mindszenthy, Dr Michael Gordon. 2013
A compendium of family scenarios for those dealing with the guilt, worry, and difficult decisions that come with eldercare.Is it…
time for your aging father to stop driving?How can you balance your career opportunities with your mother’s care needs?Can your parents cope on their own?Is it time for long-term care? Given their reluctance, is that even an option? Millions of people are dealing with aging parents and are stunned with the complexities and demands of their care. As demographics change and societies adapt, that caring — that parenting — isn’t getting any simpler. In the fourth edition of this eldercare classic, advocate Bart J. Mindszenthy and geriatrician Dr. Michael Gordon present twenty-seven case studies of families working through the eldercare puzzle. With new scenarios covering legalized marijuana and medically assisted dying, this revised and updated edition of Parenting Your Parents makes the case for good planning, family unity, and being aware of your loved ones’ health. With the help of Gordon and Mindszenthy’s expert advice, care providers are able to shed guilt and worry and become confident that they have done all they could to make their parents’ latter years as fulfilling and comfortable as possible.By Lucy Diggs Slowe. 2024
Lucy Diggs Slowe (1885–1937) was one of the most remarkable and accomplished figures in the history of Black women’s higher…
education. She was a builder of institutions, organizing the first historically Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, while a student at Howard University in 1908; establishing the first junior high school for Black students in Washington, D.C.; and founding as well as leading other major national and community organizations. In 1922 Slowe was appointed the first Dean of Women at Howard, making her the first Black woman to serve as dean at any American university. Beyond her trailblazing career in higher education, she was a committed teacher, an ardent antiracist advocate, and even a national tennis champion.Her Truth and Service showcases Slowe’s speeches, articles, and letters, illuminating her multifaceted accomplishments and unwavering dedication to the quest for equality and justice. In these texts, readers encounter Slowe’s powerful voice and keen intellect, witnessing her triumphs and travails as an educator, a leader, and a Black woman in a deeply exclusionary society. Slowe’s writings depict her personal and professional efforts to topple race and gender barriers and open up greater opportunities for Black women and girls, as well as the obstacles she faced in male-dominated institutions including the Howard administration. Her Truth and Service is an important document of a significant figure in the development of Black institutions and an inspiring testament to the lifelong struggle for social justice.There is one proven method for happier kids, more involved dads, and less stressed-out moms after divorce—50/50 custodyIt's hard for…
everyone when parents split up—but the end of living together doesn't need to mean the end of a functional family. Part of the reason divorces are so traumatic for the kids involved is because of our child custody system, which truly sets everyone up for failure. Throughout the country, the default arrangement is for Mom to get majority time with the kids (and most of the responsibility of caring for them), for Dad to become an occasional visitor (and perhaps saddled with massive child support payments), and for the kids to lose the stability, structure and confidence of knowing they have two equally committed, loving parents. But it doesn't have to be this way!In The 50/50 Solution, creator of the Wealthy Single Mommy community Emma Johnson showcases the robust research proving that, in the vast majority of cases, equal timesharing is the best outcome for everyone in a family where the adults no longer live together. The 50/50 Solution will show you that equal parenting time leads to:Better physical, emotional, and mental health for children of divorceHigher career earnings for single mothersFathers who are more engaged and whose rights as parents are preservedFar less parental and legal conflictA progressive, forward-thinking cultural norm that promotes gender and racial equality for all families, regardless of their configurationA few states have already adopted 50/50 custody as the default arrangement, and several more are poised to follow. Equal parenting time is the custody framework of the future, and The 50/50 Solution shows readers how it helps our families and communities thrive.A young South Asian American woman's story of reconnecting with her identity, family, and heritage through sustainable farmingIn 2012, 25-year-old…
Jackie Moyer—the daughter of a forbidden marriage between a white American father and a Punjabi American mother—leased 10 acres of land in Gold Hill, California, and embarked on a career in organic farming. With a fractured relationship to her heritage, Moyer saw an opportunity for repair when she learned of a nearly lost heirloom wheat variety called Sonora.Sonora wasn&’t just an heirloom wheat strain; it was her own cultural heirloom. Its history can be traced back to Punjab, the Indian state where Moyer&’s own roots are planted. In growing the grain on her farm, she began to uncover the multigenerational story of her family&’s resilience.From California to Punjab, the past to the present, Jackie maps her personal story atop the entangled histories of wheat cultivation and the rise of the organic farming movement. With a passion for dismantling the exploitative big-agriculture industry, she examines how the development of high-yielding varieties and chemical fertilizers has harmed our relationship with food, the planet, and each other.Braiding memoir with historical inquiry, On Gold Hill explores the complexities of the immigrant experience, illuminates the ways colonialism and capitalism constrain our food system, and investigates what it means to lose—and to reclaim—one&’s heritage.By Roxy Longworth, Gay Longworth. 2022
'Read this book. Then talk to your sons. It is essential reading' Jamie Theakston 'An extraordinary and important book. Read…
it immediately' Claudia Winkleman 'Superbly written, this deeply moving book underlines how truly precious mother-daughter relationships are, and never more so than in those teenage years' Gloria Hunniford A gripping memoir of two battling narratives and a mother-daughter relationship stretched to its absolute limits.Roxy was 13 years old when she was coerced then blackmailed into sending explicit photos, which were spread around her school. The shame led to self-loathing. The blame led to a psychotic breakdown. Roxy started hearing voices. Then she started seeing things...What happens when your teenager starts to lose it, and then you lose each other? What happens when you can't tell your mother you desperately need help? And how can a family move past a devastating mental health crisis?When You Lose It is a brutally honest true story, written from two perspectives, of consent, coercion and shattering consequences.By Louise Allen. 2022
From the bestselling author of the Thrown Away Children series comes another heartbreaking story of life in foster care.Louise has…
trouble on her hands from the first moment that 5-year-old Billy Blackthorn comes to stay. He is one of more than 20 children taken into care from a single family, and erupts into the Allen household with a volatility that is frightening and disturbing in equal measure. It is only as Louise begins to uncover the secrets of Billy's dark past that she begins to understand what made his family 'untouchable'.'Britain's top foster carer' The Sun'A shining light' Emily Finch, BBCBy Uché Blackstock. 2024
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER&“This book is more than a memoir—it also serves as a call to action to create…
a more equitable healthcare system for patients of color, particularly Black women.&” —Essence One of NPR&’s 11 Books to Look Forward to in 2024 One of Good Morning America&’s 15 New Books to Read for the New Year &“Legacy is both a compelling memoir and an edifying analysis of the inequities in the way we deliver healthcare in America. Uché Blackstock is a force of nature.&” —Abraham Verghese, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Covenant of Water &“[An] extraordinary family story.&” —Dr. Damon Tweedy, The New York Times Book Review &“This book should be required reading for all medical students.&” —Gayle King, CBS Mornings The rousing, captivating story of a Black physician, her career in medicine, and the deep inequities that still exist in the U.S. healthcare systemGrowing up in Brooklyn, New York, it never occurred to Uché Blackstock and her twin sister, Oni, that they would be anything but physicians. In the 1980s, their mother headed an organization of Black women physicians, and for years the girls watched these fiercely intelligent women in white coats tend to their patients and neighbors, host community health fairs, cure ills, and save lives.What Dr. Uché Blackstock did not understand as a child—or learn about at Harvard Medical School, where she and her sister had followed in their mother&’s footsteps, making them the first Black mother-daughter legacies from the school—were the profound and long-standing systemic inequities that mean just 2 percent of all U.S. physicians today are Black women; the racist practices and policies that ensure Black Americans have far worse health outcomes than any other group in the country; and the flawed system that endangers the well-being of communities like theirs. As an ER physician, and later as a professor in academic medicine, Dr. Blackstock became profoundly aware of the systemic barriers that Black patients and physicians continue to face.Legacy is a journey through the critical intersection of racism and healthcare. At once a searing indictment of our healthcare system, a generational family memoir, and a call to action, Legacy is Dr. Blackstock&’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician—to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.By Michelle Dowd. 2023
A moving, heartbreaking, and inspiring true story of the author&’s escape from an apocalyptic cult—and the deep understanding of the…
natural world that helped her find freedom. My family prepared me for the end of the world, but I know how to survive on what the earth yields. Michelle Dowd grew up on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest, born into an ultra-religious cult—the Field, as members called it—run by her grandfather, who believed that his chosen followers must prepare themselves to survive doomsday. Bound by the group&’s patriarchal rules and literal interpretation of the Bible, Michelle and her siblings lived a life of deprivation, isolated from Outsiders and starved for both love and food. She was forced to learn the skills necessary to battle hunger, thirst, and cold; she learned to trust animals more than humans; and most important, she learned how to survive by foraging for what she needed. And as Michelle got older, she realized she had the strength to break free. Focus on what will sustain, not satiate you, she would tell herself. Use everything. Waste nothing. Get to know the intricacies of the land like the intricacies of your body. And so she did. With haunting and stark language, and illustrations of edible plants and their uses opening each chapter, Forager is a fierce and empowering coming-of-age story and a timely meditation on the ways in which harnessing nature&’s gifts can lead to our freedom.By Mukul Chaturvedi. 2024
This book focuses on varied forms of self-referential storytelling or life writing and its emergence as a democratic and inclusive…
genre, both globally and in India, and its intersections with history, fiction, memory, truth and identity. The book examines the practice of life writing and its scope for accommodating diverse voices, distinct identities, collaborations and non-hierarchical connections as it gives voice to oral, silenced and marginalized communities. It explores forms like auto/biographical fiction, digital storytelling, graphic memoirs, and testimonies of migration and exile, among others. The eclectic collection of essays in this volume draws attention towards the transformative possibilities of life writing as it engages with issues of resistance, recuperation, re-inscribing individual and collective memories, histories, and promotes an understanding of multicultural others. Focusing on the multiple ways in which the production, circulation, and consumption of life writing has helped to reimagine and redefine individual and collective identities in different cultural and geopolitical contexts, the collection breaks new ground by initiating a cross-cultural perspective in life writing studies. The book aims to encourage critical engagement with a vastly growing body of literature that has seen a publishing and translation boom in contemporary times, both globally and in India. With life writing emerging as a robust area of research, this edited collection provides a much-needed impetus to critically engage with issues of self-representation, memory and identity in recent times. This volume will serve as a significant and rich resource for university students, researchers, and academics of literature, comparative studies, cultural studies, history, indigenous studies and digital and media studies.By Anna Broinowski. 2024
'Hilarious, terrifying and fun - much like the 80s, only smarter.' ANNA FUNDER'Fiercely funny. This is a road trip of…
danger, love and hope. Brilliant!' JULIA ZEMIRO'Witty, brave, honest and wise. Mad Max meets 1980s feminism, fuelled by undergraduate outrage and hedonism.' CATHERINE LUMBYDatson Angel is a turbo-charged adventure into the savage heart of 1980s Australia: a place completely alien, yet frighteningly similar, to today.EVERYTHING IN THIS BOOK HAPPENED . . .At seventeen, Anna Broinowski is precocious, naive and convinced she knows how the world works. But O-Week at Sydney University changes that. She's suddenly in a hyper-masculine caste system, where future captains of industry terrorise freshers and invade dorms in naked, screaming packs. Nothing is what she thought it'd be . . . until Anna finds her people. New dreams are made. Playing violin, auditioning for NIDA, losing her virginity. Then Peisley, a gentle giant, talks of a hitchhiking trip up north. And, after agreeing on three rules - never split up, remain platonic, accept every lift that gets them closer to Darwin - Anna decides to go.Hitchhiking the highways leads her into a dystopian dustbowl on society's hard edges, where outsiders must adapt or perish, and women teeter on an existential knife edge. In this flyblown asylum, love and danger collide with the toxic misogyny in the guts of the Australian soul. Anna will learn that the line between victim and survivor can be as cruel as luck and as random as a shiny blue Datson on a red dirt road.Based on her battered travel diary, Datsun Angel is a savage, darkly funny memoir of sex, drugs and violence-fuelled adventure through the brutal 1980s Australian outback. It is a feminist On the Road, told through a #MeToo filter.