Welcome
Welcome to Braille Books Acquired. This quarterly newsletter contains a list of Braille books recently acquired by the Centre for Equitable Library Access (CELA). Previous issues are available at celalibrary.ca/braille-books-acquired.
In this issue:
- Announcements
- Uncontracted braille / fiction for children and young adults
- Uncontracted braille / non-fiction for children
- Fiction printbraille
- Non-fiction printbraille
- Fiction for young adults
- Non-fiction for young adults
- Fiction for adults
- Non-fiction for adults
Announcements
Letter from our Executive Director
In April we celebrated World Book Day, a day created by UNESCO in 1995 to foster a worldwide celebration of books and reading. This year, the focus of the day is on Indigenous languages, and we are delighted to highlight some of the unique books in our collection written by Indigenous authors which incorporate Indigenous languages.
Spring seems to be a special time for celebrating books, especially for kids and teens. This month, many of the children and teen’s literature programs, including Forest of Reading, Manitoba Young Reader’s Choice Awards and Hackmatack, all concluded their voting periods. In the next few weeks, we’re looking forward to learning which authors will take home the honours and we’re grateful for these organizations for including and recognizing the importance of accessible books in their programs.
For adults interested in reading some more award winners, check out the Canadian authors nominated for the new Carol Shields Prize, or the nominees for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing. Or delve into some of our new braille books highlighted in this edition of Braille Books Acquired.
Happy Reading!
Laurie Davidson
Save the date for BLC's third annual virtual symposium
Braille Literacy Canada (BLC) will be holding its third annual virtual braille symposium on Friday June 2nd, 2023, from 1 – 5 PM EDT. A host of exciting and world-renowned speakers will give half hour presentations (beginning at the start of each hour) followed by time for Q&A and discussion, with exciting door prizes sprinkled throughout the day!
The symposium will be free of charge to members and $20 for non-members. Write to BLC to learn more!
Invitation to discuss accessibility in Canada's National Parks
Join Canadians by phone or Zoom for a national conference about sharing the beauty of Canada's national parks with disabled Canadians.
Tuesday July 25th to Thursday July 27th, 2023.
For details and to register, call: (416) 597-3422 x 7879 or at: https://pac2023.ca/.
A note about dates
Although the majority of these books have been published within the last 5 years, there may be some books listed here which are older, but which were only recently added to our collection. To make this clearer for you, we include the date of the print version of each book at the end of its annotation.
Happy Reading!
Laurie Davidson
CELA Executive Director
A note about dates
Although the majority of these books have been published within the last 5 years, there may be some books listed here which are older, but which were only recently added to our collection. To make this clearer for you, we include the date of the print version of each book at the end of its annotation.
Uncontracted braille / fiction for children and young adults
Animal Stories
4956205 Bear in the Family (Orca Echoes) by Eric Walters and Olga Barinova
1 volume. In this partially illustrated early chapter book, a family return to their home in the forest after a wildfire to find their house still standing and an orphaned bear cub in the well. Grades 1-3. 2022.
Family Stories
4936016 On the Line by Eric Walters and Paul Coccia
6 volumes. In this novel for middle readers, thirteen-year-old basketball star Jordan Ryker learns that his father is gay. Grades 4-8. 2022.
General fiction
4996341 The Undercover Book List by Colleen Nelson
3 volumes. From the award-winning author of Harvey Comes Home, a middle-school story about a girl in need of a friend, a boy in need of a chance, and the secret book club that brings them together. Grades 3-7. 2021.
Uncontracted braille / non-fiction for children
General non-fiction
4999667 Can You Believe It?: How to Spot Fake News and Find the Facts by Joyce Grant and Kathleen Marcotte
1 volume. Everything kids need to know to tell facts from “fake news” on the internet. Here's a comprehensive guide to how real journalism is made, what “fake news” is and, most importantly, how to spot the difference. It provides practical advice, thought-provoking examples, and loads of explanations, definitions and useful context. Never judgmental, it encourages young people to approach what they find online with skepticism and helps them hone their critical-thinking skills to make good choices about what to believe and share. It's a must-read book on a topic that couldn't be more important in today's online world. Grades 4-7. 2022.
5032813 Why Does My Shadow Follow Me?: More Science Questions from Real Kids by Kira Vermond and Suharu Ogawa
2 volumes. Science starts with a question in this fascinating compendium for curious kids. The team behind the acclaimed Why Don’t Cars Run on Apple Juice? is back to tackle more kid questions like “Are birds really dinosaurs?” and “Why do we have butts?” With help from Ontario Science Centre experts, Kira Vermond packs mind-boggling facts into answers that encourage further inquiry, covering topics over five sections: animals, the human body, planet Earth, tech and innovation, and outer space. Grades 2-6. 2021.
Nature
4999675 Sky Wolf's Call: The Gift of Indigenous Knowledge by by Eldon Yellowhorn and Kathy Lowinger
3 volumes. From healing to astronomy to our connection to the natural world, the lessons from Indigenous knowledge inform our learning and practices today. How do knowledge systems get passed down over generations? Through the knowledge inherited from their Elders and ancestors, Indigenous Peoples throughout North America have observed, practiced, experimented, and interacted with plants, animals, the sky, and the waters over millennia. Knowledge keepers have shared their wisdom with younger people through oral history, stories, ceremonies, and records that took many forms. In Sky Wolf’s Call, award-winning author team of Eldon Yellowhorn and Kathy Lowinger reveal how Indigenous knowledge comes from centuries of practices, experiences, and ideas gathered by people who have a long history with the natural world. Indigenous knowledge is explored through the use of fire and water, the acquisition of food, the study of astronomy, and healing practices. Grades 1-6. 2022.
Poetry
4999669 Flipping Forward Twisting Backward by Alma Fullerton
2 volumes. A diagnosis of dyslexia could change everything for an aspiring fifth-grade gymnast struggling at school in this authentic, high-energy novel in verse. The gym is where Claire shines and she’s on her way to qualifying for the state championships. But at school, she’s known as a troublemaker—which is fine with her since it helps her hide her reading problem. Claire has never been able to make sense of the wobbling jumble of letters on a page. When a sympathetic principal wonders if she’s acting out because she may have dyslexia, she’s stunned. Claire has always assumed she’s dumb, so she’s eager to get evaluated. But her mother balks. Afraid Claire will be labeled “stupid,” she refuses testing. Can Claire take on both her reading challenges and her mother’s denial? Is it worth jeopardizing her dream of the state championships? Told in clear and poignant verse and featuring black and white illustrations, Claire’s struggle with something that seems to come easily to everyone else will resonate with readers and have them cheering her on. Grades 3-7. 2022.
Fiction printbraille
Alphabet, number and picture books
5110129 Tap Tap Swish: Otter Counts the Band by Hayley Rose
The animals are ready, the instruments are in tune and the fun is about to begin. Join Otter and the rest of the animal band in this colorful, rhyming story that will have you laughing, singing and counting along. Inside you'll find: An entertaining, rhyming story, beautiful habitat illustrations, fun animal and instrument facts, simple math problems, and lots and lots of counting! Grades P-2. 2019.
4750497 Time is a Flower by Julie Morstad
A playful and poignant exploration of the nature of time through the eyes of a child from acclaimed author/illustrator Julie Morstad. What is time? Is it the tick tick tock of a clock, numbers and words on a calendar? It's that, but so much more. Time is a seed waiting to grow, a flower blooming, a sunbeam moving across a room. Time is slow like a spider spinning her web or fast like a wave at the beach. Time is a wiggly tooth, or waiting for the school bell to ring, or reading a story… or three! But time is also morning for some and night for others, a fading sunset and a memory captured in a photo taken long ago. In this magical meditation on the nature of time, Julie Morstad shines a joyful light on a difficult-to-grasp concept for young readers and reminds older readers to see the wonders of our world, including children themselves, through the lens of time. Grades P-2. 2021.
Animal stories
5194135 The Deepest Dig by Mark David Smith and Lily Snowden-Fine
Inspired by a true story! A tenacious kid digs deep and makes important discoveries. Grade 2. 2021.
5134966 Midnight and Moon by Daniel Miyares and Kelly Cooper
A girl who doesn't fit in befriends a blind horse who also struggles to find his place in the herd. Moon cannot see, but he hears sounds that other horses ignore: the eggshell crack of a meadow lark hatching. The glide of a salamander into the pond. Clara does not speak but she hears sounds that other children ignore: the hum of the oven when her mother bakes muffins. The sound of the cat's paws on the kitchen floor. Both the foal and the little girl live with challenges. Both also have special qualities, which are recognized by friends who are open to seeing them. Midnight and Moon is about the rare and wonderful friendship that can form between opposites, a friendship that enriches both. This story shows us that our differences are positives, that the world needs both Claras and Jacks, Midnights and Moons. P-Grade 3. 2022.
5182267 Night Lunch by Eric Fan and Dena Seiferling
A delectable picture book about midnight snacks, nocturnal creatures and unexpected generosity, inspired by lunch carts that were the predecessors of today’s food trucks and diners. Noses sniff the air as mouthwatering smells waft down city streets, luring growling bellies to the Night Owl. Inside this elegant, horse-drawn establishment, a feathery cook works the grill, serving up tasty dishes for shift-workers and operagoers alike: a mince pie for Fox, a ham sandwich for Badger and puddings for little Possums. Mouse, a poor street sweeper, watches as the line of customers swells, ever hopeful that someone will drop a morsel of food—but Owl’s cooking is far too delicious for more than a crumb to be found. As the evening’s service winds down, weary Owl spots trembling Mouse. Has he found his own night lunch, or will he invite this small sweeper inside for a midnight feast for two? This dreamlike picture book is a magical ode to Victorian lunch wagons. Evoking the sounds, sights, smells and tastes of the city at night, Night Lunch reveals how empathy and kindness as well as dignity and gratitude can be found—and savored—in the most unexpected places. P-Grade 3. 2022.
5165205 Rodney Was a Tortoise by Nan Forler and Yong Ling Kang
This comforting and gently humorous picture book about bereavement and the strength of friendship shows how a child overcomes the sadness of her beloved pet's death. Bernadette and Rodney are the best of friends. Rodney's not so good at playing cards, but he's great at staring contests. His favorite food is lettuce, though he eats it VERRRRRRY SLOOOOOWLY. And he's such a joker! When Bernadette goes to sleep at night, Rodney is always there, watching over her from his tank. As the seasons pass, Rodney moves slower and slower, until one day he stops moving at all. Without Rodney, Bernadette feels all alone. She can't stop thinking about him, but none of her friends seem to notice. Except for Amar. Rodney Was a Tortoise is a moving story about friendship and loss. It shows the importance of expressing kindness and empathy, especially in life's most difficult moments. P-Grade 2. 2022.
Canadian fiction
5237986 Storyteller Skye: Teachings from My Ojibway Grandfather by Lindsay Christina King and Carolyn Frank
Have you ever wondered why Rabbit has such long ears? Or why Raccoon is wearing a mask? In this collection of funny and unique short stories, young Skye enlightens us in a number of Indigenous teachings, passed down to her from her Ojibway Grandfather. Through her natural gift of storytelling, Skye encourages other children to embrace the art and become storytellers, too! K-Grade 4. 2023.
Family stories
5182255 I Hope by Gabrielle Grimard and Monique Gray Smith
This beautifully illustrated picture book, written by award-winning Indigenous author Monique Gray Smith, explores all the hopes adults have for the children in their lives. P-K. 2022.
5194138 The Sour Cherry Tree by Naseem Hrab and Nahid Kazemi
A heartwarming look at love, loss, and memorable objects through the eyes of a child by critically-acclaimed creators Naseem Hrab and Nahid Kazemi. Grade 2-3. 2021.
Fantasy
5110131 Lizzy and the Cloud by Terry Fan and Eric Fan
From the critically acclaimed, award-winning creators of Ocean Meets Sky and The Night Gardener comes a whimsical and sweet tale of a young girl who cares for her pet cloud as it grows. It’s a little out of fashion to buy a pet cloud, but Lizzy doesn’t mind. She’s not looking for a big one or a fancy one, just one that’s right for her. And she finds it in Milo. Soon, she’s taking Milo out on walks with her family, watering Milo right on schedule, and seeing Milo grow and grow. But what happens when her pet cloud gets too big for Lizzy to handle? Grades P-4. 2022.
Folklore, fables and fairy tales
5110151 The Three Billy Goats Gruff (My First Fairy Tales) by Kate Pankhurst and Tiger Tales
Three billy goat brothers: Baby Gruff, Middle Gruff, and Big Gruff decide to head to the meadow where the sweetest grass is. They need to cross the bridge to the meadow, but a slobbering troll blocks their path. The brothers are no fools, but how do you trick a troll? Grades P-2. 2015.
Friendship stories
5220097 I Can, Too! by Karen Autio
A wonderful story of new friendship between two children with diverse abilities. Piper and Kayla love to move. They ride bikes, glide on ice, swoosh down mountains and much more—each in her own way. While Piper pedals her tricycle with her feet, Kayla uses her hands to move her trike forward. While Kayla coasts across the ice on a sled, Piper sails along on skates. Join Kayla and Piper as they play together, explore their world and make new friends. The inspiration for I Can, Too! comes from the author’s daughter, who was born with spina bifida. Shining a much-needed spotlight on kids who use special gear to navigate the world, I Can, Too! will delight readers of all abilities with its affirming story of inclusion, while also inviting readers to learn more about adaptive devices in the back matter. P-Grade 2. 2022.
General fiction
5182260 Because You Are by Nneka Myers and Jael Richardson
Because You Are captures Jael Richardson’s insightful lessons about growing up, being joyful and loving yourself as a young Black girl. By exploring what inner beauty means, this story inspires children to recognize and build their self-worth, to dream big and to make a difference in the world. These lessons are brought to life on the page with lively and tender illustrations by Nneka Myers. K-Grade 2. 2022.
5236119 The Bird Feeder by Andrew Larsen and Dorothy Leung
A child and beloved grandma bond over birds during the grandma's final days. When Grandma gets sick and comes to stay at her grandchild's house, she brings her bird feeder. Grandma loves birds. And the child loves the time they spend together, drawing bird pictures and “talking about interesting things.” Grandma's health declines, however. She moves to the hospice, where the child hangs the bird feeder outside her window. There, though the grandma's ability to interact diminishes over time, their love for each other never wavers. Simple and deep, this quiet book speaks with empathy about the loss of a treasured grandparent, and with hope about the tomorrows—and the birds—that always come. P-Grade 2. 2022.
5165201 Friends Are Friends, Forever by Lynn Scurfield and Dane Liu
A picture book based on the author's own immigration story, the infinite impact of friendship, and passing on love and kindness around the world. On a snowy Lunar New Year’s Eve in Northeastern China, it’s Dandan’s last night with Yueyue. Tomorrow, she moves to America. The two best friends have a favorite wintertime tradition: crafting paper-cut snowflakes, freezing them outside, and hanging them as ornaments. As they say goodbye, Yueyue presses red paper and a spool of thread into Dandan’s hands so that she can carry on their tradition. But in her new home, Dandan has no one to enjoy the gift with—until a friend comes along. P-Grade 3. 2022.
5165208 Granny's Kitchen: A Jamaican Story of Food and Family by Ken Daley and Sade Smith
Accompanied by Ken Daley's vibrant, sun-soaked artwork, Sade Smith's debut picture book Granny's Kitchen is the perfect read-aloud for budding chefs everywhere. Shelly-Ann lives with her Granny on the beautiful island of Jamaica. When Shelly-Ann becomes hungry, she asks her Granny for something to eat. Granny tells her “Gyal, you betta can cook!” and teaches Shelly-Ann how to get in touch with her Jamaican roots through the process of cooking. As Shelly-Ann tries each recipe, everything goes wrong. But when Granny is too tired to cook one morning, Shelly-Ann will have to find the courage to try one more time and prepare the perfect Jamaican breakfast. P-Grade 1. 2022.
5236110 How to Teach Your Cat a Trick: in Five Easy Steps (How to Cat books) by Nicola Winstanley and Zoe Si
In this hilarious and clever follow-up to How to Give Your Cat a Bath, a boy, a dog and a know-it-all narrator are thwarted by a cat who refuses to learn a trick. Step one: Decide on a trick. Step two: Get some treats ready. Step three: Hold the treat in your hand and ask your cat to do the trick. Step four: Watch your cat do exactly what you asked him to do. Step five: Reward your cat for doing the trick. Simple, right? This spoof on an instruction manual features an increasingly bewildered human, a nonchalant cat, a very good dog and a know-it-all narrator… who really doesn't know it all. How DO you teach a cat a trick? Read on to find out! P-Grade 2. 2022.
5110136 I Believe I Can by Grace Byers, Keturah A. Bobo
I Believe I Can is an affirmation for boys and girls of every background to love and believe in themselves. Actress and activist Grace Byers and artist Keturah A. Bobo return with another gorgeously illustrated new classic that’s the perfect gift for baby showers, birthdays, or just for reading at home again and again. Grades P-4. 2020.
5236129 I Love My Body Because by Shelly Anand, Erika Rodriguez Medina, Nomi Ellenson
All Are Welcome meets Bodies Are Cool in this picture book that shows us what makes every body special. Everybody has a body and every body is good. Your body takes you where you want to go. Your body is your first home. And your body is different from everyone else’s body! I Love My Body Because is a gentle and poetic picture book for the youngest readers about celebrating your own body and all the different, wonderful bodies that make up our world. P-Grade 3. 2022.
5182266 It's My Body! by Elise Gravel
From bestselling author Elise Gravel comes a book that celebrates our amazing bodies. Through her trademark quirky monster characters, author Elise Gravel illustrates ways that bodies can be different. They have different shapes, different sizes, different colours, different hair, and can do different things. These differences make everybody’s bodies special, but all bodies should be respected. Your body is YOURS, so give it a hug… but only if you want to. This important message of body positivity will both empower and entertain. The best body is the one that belongs to you! P-Grade 2. 2022.
5182262 Kumo: The Bashful Cloud by Nathalie Dion and Kyo Maclear
The uplifting journey of a bashful cloud ("kumo" in Japanese) who discovers the rewards of feeling seen. Kumo is a cloud whose only wish is to float unseen. When she’s assigned cloud duty for the day, she feels overwhelmed by self-doubt and her fear of being noticed. But after learning that closing your eyes isn’t a good solution to your troubles, Kumo pulls her fluff together and does her duties—drifting, releasing rain and providing shelter—meeting some new friends along the way and inspiring the imagination (and capturing the heart) of a small daydreamer like her. Kyo Maclear’s sweetly humorous and lyrical parable about shyness, vividly brought to life by Nathalie Dion’s ethereal illustrations, is an affirmation of the pleasures of community and the confidence that can arise from friendship and visibility. P-Grade 3. 2022.
5182254 The Most Magnificent Idea by Ashley Spires
The long-awaited sequel to the runaway bestseller The Most Magnificent Thing! This is the story of a girl who, with her dog at her side, loves to make things. Her brain is an “idea machine,” always so full of ideas, she can hardly keep up! But then, one day... it isn't. All of a sudden, the girl can't think of anything to make. She tries brainstorming, gathering new supplies, even jumping up and down on one foot to shake an idea loose. Nothing. What if she never has another idea again? Readers everywhere will be rooting for their favorite thing-maker to get her mojo back! P-Grade 2. 2022.
5134969 Princess Charming by Holly Hatam and Zibby Owens
From debut author Zibby Owens comes Princess Charming, a lovable and empowering new character! Princess Charming can’t quite seem to find her “thing.” She’s tried everything from cooking to hip-hop, and hasn’t been able to perfect either. Even her cartwheels are subpar. But when the castle hosts a superstar for a special event, Princess Charming finally finds her time to shine. Princess Charming is about a brand-new princess character filled with fun, humor, and girl power. With a modern look and can-do attitude, Princess Charming is the perfect gift for all young readers who never give up! P-Grade 1. 2022.
5110148 Thelma the Unicorn by Aaron Blabey
Be careful what you wish for… Thelma is an ordinary pony who dreams of being a unicorn. And through a little bit of chance, and a strange dash of pink glitter-coloured fate, her dream comes true! Suddenly Thelma is transformed into a unicorn and becomes an international sensation. But fame comes with its price. Fans are screaming and crying, and sometimes they chase her home! In this adorable picture book from Aaron Blabey (creator of Pig the Pug), kids will laugh at Thelma’s transformation from ordinary pony to glitzy unicorn and back to pony, while parents will appreciate the underlying lesson of staying true to oneself. Grades P-4. 2016.
Gentle fiction
5194137 If You Could Be Anything by Jennifer Britton
A gentle lullaby celebrating the abundant nature of the East Coast. This lyrical lullaby from educator and musician Jen Britton, with illustrations by celebrated artist Briana Corr Scott (Mermaid Lullaby, Wildflower) asks young readers, If you could be anything, what would you be? Responses run the gamut from lupins to sea glass to a lighthouse shining bright to the pull of the tides, celebrating the abundant natural and cultural landscapes of the East Coast. With gentle, rhyming text and dreamy oil illustrations, If You Could Be Anything is the perfect story to send little ones off to dreamland, and older ones off on new adventures. Includes informative, illustrated backmatter. K-Grade 2. 2022.
Holiday fiction
5194129 The Cow Said BOO! by Lana Button and Alice Carter
A silly and accidentally spooky read-aloud about a cow who is mistaken for a ghost, told in rhyming verse with a refrain perfect for chiming in. P-Grade 2. 2021.
5165206 Hot Cross Buns For Everyone (DEAR Books) by Yolanda T. Marshall
Jackson’s friends and their families bake assorted hot cross buns for his Easter party. Liam’s foster parents use his most memorable Scottish ingredient, and Dimitri’s dad adds Greek mahlepi spice. Some have rainbow colours for all to see and a sweet Jamaican bun and cheese recipe! One by one, the children arrive with hot cross buns for everyone. K-Grade 4. 2022.
Indigenous peoples in Canada fiction
5182265 Dancing With Our Ancestors (Sk'ad'a Stories Series #4) by Robert Davidson, Sara Florence Davidson, and Janine Gibbons
The invitations have been sent. The food has been prepared. The decorations have been hung. And now the day of the potlatch has finally arrived! Guests from all over come to witness this bittersweet but joyful celebration of Haida culture and community. Grade 1-3. 2022.
5236121 Little Bear in Foster Care by S.P. Joseph Lyons and Julian Grafenauer
Algonquin author S.P. Joseph Lyons, from Kitigan Zibi First Nation, was placed in foster care as a young child and is a survivor of the Sixties Scoop. Foster Care can be scary and lonely. Through S.P. Joseph Lyons' experiences, the Little Bear in Foster Care book makes foster care a little less frightening. This book connects children to a range of emotions, encouraging them to find their voice, process their feelings, and lets our children know that they are not alone or to blame. The richness of Indigenous cultures and experiences come alive in this story of healing and resilience. This is an important book for all young children. With vibrant illustrations by Julian Grafenauer, Anishinaabe from Rolling River First Nation. This book is in English only. Grade 1-8. 2021.
5194134 Still This Love Goes On by Julie Flett and Buffy Sainte-Marie
From Cree-Métis artist Julie Flett and Academy Award-winning icon Buffy Sainte-Marie comes a celebration of Indigenous community, and the enduring love we hold for the people and places we are far away from. Based on Sainte-Marie’s song of the same name, Still This Love Goes On combines Flett's breathtaking art with vivid lyrics to craft a stunning portrait of a Cree worldview. At the heart of this picture book is a gentle message about missing our loved ones, and the promise of seeing each other again. This gem of a picture book features: Sheet music of Buffy Sainte-Marie's beloved song, notes from Sainte-Marie and Flett about their inspiration for the song and illustrations. Brimming with love for community and the land, Still This Love Goes On is destined to be read and sung for generations. P-Grade 2. 2022.
Multi-cultural fiction
5220095 The Big Bath House by Kyo Maclear and Gracey Zhang
In this celebration of Japanese culture and family and naked bodies of all shapes and sizes, join a little girl—along with her aunties and grandmother—at a traditional bath house. Once there, the rituals leading up to the baths begin: hair washing, back scrubbing, and, finally, the wood barrel drumroll. Until, at last, it's time, and they ease their bodies—their creased bodies, newly sprouting bodies, saggy, jiggly bodies—into the bath. Ahhhhhh! With a lyrical text and gorgeous illustrations, this picture book is based on Kyo Maclear's loving memories of childhood visits to Japan and is an ode to the ties that bind generations of women together. P-Grade 3. 2021.
5134975 I's the B'y: The Beloved Folk Song by Lauren Soloy
For kids who love to sing and dance: this vibrant picture book shares lyrics from a classic folk song about community, culture, and the seaside. Rhyming lyrics are easy to read and memorize and fun for the whole family. The history of this famous ballad is explored in vivid illustrations! “I’s the B’y” is a decades-old folk song that originated in Newfoundland but has been sung and danced to the world over. In this gorgeous picture book, Maritime artist and children’s writer Lauren Soloy honors the song and its birthplace with rich, captivating illustrations of bobbing boats, leaping humpback whales, violin-playing fish, dancing people, starry skies, and stormy seas. Full of undeniable energy and joy, this spirited picture book will have kids singing, dancing, and learning all about Newfoundland. P-Grade 3. 2022.
5236105 The Ugly Place by Laura Deal, Emma Pedersen
A child makes their way along the Arctic shoreline on a dark day. Everything around them seems as ugly as their mood until the child closes their eyes and breathes. What they once saw as an ugly landscape is now wonderful and vibrant. Grade 1-3. 2022.
Non-fiction printbraille
Biography
5134971 Journey of the Midnight Sun by Shazia Afzal and Aliya Ghare
A beautiful picture book based on the true story of the Midnight Sun Mosque that traveled 4,000 kilometers across Canada to become one of the most northern mosques in the world. P-K. 2022.
Science and technology
5236127 Boobies by Nancy Vo
A cheeky celebration of boobies—the blue-footed avian sort and the more familiar kind that we find on our own bodies. P-Grade 1. 2022.
Fiction for young adults
Family stories
5066507 Love from Mecca to Medina by S. K. Ali
6 volumes. On the trip of a lifetime, Adam and Zayneb must find their way back to each other in this surprising and romantic sequel to Love from A to Z. Adam and Zayneb. Perfectly matched. Painfully apart. Adam is in Doha, Qatar, making a map of the Hijra, a historic migration from Mecca to Medina, and worried about where his next paycheck will come from. Zayneb is in Chicago, where school and extracurricular stresses are piling on top of a terrible frenemy situation, making her miserable. Then a marvel occurs: Adam and Zayneb get the chance to spend Thanksgiving week on the Umrah, a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, in Saudi Arabia. Adam is thrilled; it’s the reboot he needs and an opportunity to pray for a hijra in real life: to migrate to Zayneb in Chicago. Zayneb balks at the trip at first, having envisioned another kind of vacation, but then decides a spiritual reset is calling her name too. But the trip is nothing like what they expect. As one wedge after another drives them apart while they make their way through rites in the holy city, Adam and Zayneb start to wonder: was their meeting just an oddity after all? Or can their love transcend everything else like the greatest marvels of the world? For high school readers. 2022.
Humourous fiction
5007142 Murder at the Hotel Hopeless (Orca Soundings) by John Lekich
1 volumes. In this high-interest accessible novel for teen readers, an unlikely duo try to solve the murder of an international jewel thief. For high school readers. 2022.
Non-fiction for young adults
Canadian history
5139095 Steel Across the Plains (Canada Moves West Ser.) by Pierre Berton
1 volume. A series of accessible, fast-paced non-fiction narratives aimed at pre-teen and young teenage readers. These stories of tremendous determination and hardship tell of the railway men and pioneers who opened up the vast and inhospitable West and in a very real way, created the country of Canada. Grades 4-7. 1992.
Death and bereavement
4488904 Three Funerals for My Father: Love, Loss and Escape from Vietnam by Jolie Phuong Hoang
4 volumes. What would you risk to save your children? Jolie Phuong Hoang grew up as one of ten children, part of a loving, prosperous Vietnamese family. All that changed after the communists took over in 1975. Identified as a potential “bad element,” the family lived in constant fear of being sent to the dreaded new economic zone. Desperate to ensure the family’s safety and to provide a future for his children, Jolie’s father arranged three separate escapes. The first was a failure that cost most of their fortune, but the second was successful—six of his children reached Indonesia and ultimately settled in Canada. He and his youngest daughter drowned during the disastrous third attempt. Told from the author’s perspective and that of her father’s ghost, Three Funerals for My Father is a poignant story of love, grief and resilience that spans three countries and fifty years. It is at once an intimate story of one family, a testament to the collective experience of the “boat people” who escaped communist Vietnam, and a plea on behalf of the millions of refugees currently seeking asylum across the globe. For high school readers. 2021.
Fiction for adults
Family stories
5201641 Mad Honey by Katie Welch
7 volumes. With gorgeous descriptions, deft characterizations and a page-turning plot, Mad Honey immerses the reader in a search for truth bounded by the everyday magic of beekeeping, of family and of finding peace, all while asking how much we really understand the natural world. 2022.
Fantasy
4999673 Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk
2 volumes. C. L. Polk turns their considerable powers to a fantastical noir with Even Though I Knew the End. A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago's divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above. An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother's life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can't resist—the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves. To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago's most notorious serial killer. If she fails, only hell and heartbreak await. 2022.
General fiction
4750723 I Am Billy the Kid by Michael Blouin
8 volumes. What if Billy the Kid not only didn't die, but was saved by a woman? History tells us that the short and violent life of William Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, ended at the hand of Pat Garrett on the moonless night of July 14, 1881. But I Am Billy the Kid tells a different story, straight from Billy himself. This revisionist history seen through the lens of a twenty-first century sensibility features the picaresque hero we thought we knew and the unexpected one that we don't; a fearless and determined young woman who is in no mood to be saved and would much prefer exacting her own revenge. Billy has been in an alcoholic haze since a failed attempt to escape notoriety by faking his own death. By 1915, his fame has only increased, and when word of a possible ruse leaks out, Billy finds himself once again on the run. He agrees to follow his elder brother Joseph north from New Mexico Territory, to possible sanctuary in Canada. Billy and Joseph encounter Turner Wing, a young woman with a fierce sense of self-determination and the skills with a gun to back it up, and her father, a man with a past and a burlap sack over his head due to a significant facial disfiguration. They are in desperate search of Turner's sister, who has been abducted by a pair of marauding thieves. Billy and Joseph know the truth about the girl's fate and, following their own code of honour, form an uneasy alliance with the Wings to avenge her death. 2022.
5110297 Fayne: A Novel by Ann-Marie MacDonald
20 volumes. A beloved writer returns with a tale of science, magyk, love and identity. In the late nineteenth century, Charlotte Bell is growing up at Fayne, a vast and lonely estate straddling the border between England and Scotland, where she has been kept from the world by her adoring father, Lord Henry Bell, owing to a mysterious condition. Charlotte, strong and insatiably curious, revels in the moorlands, and has learned the treacherous and healing ways of the bog from the old hired man, Byrn, whose own origins are shrouded in mystery. Her idyllic existence is shadowed by the magnificent portrait on the landing in Fayne House which depicts her mother, a beautiful Irish-American heiress, holding Charlotte’s brother, Charles Bell. Charlotte has grown up with the knowledge that her mother died in giving birth to her, and that her older brother, Charles, the long-awaited heir, died soon afterwards at the age of two. When Charlotte’s appetite for learning threatens to exceed the bounds of the estate, her father breaks with tradition and hires a tutor to teach his daughter “as you would my son, had I one.” But when Charlotte and her tutor’s explorations of the bog turn up an unexpected artefact, her father announces he has arranged for her to be cured of her condition, and her world is upended. Charlotte’s passion for knowledge and adventure will take her to the bottom of family secrets and to the heart of her own identity. 2022.
4493305 The Music Game (Biblioasis International Translation Series #34) by Stéfanie Clermont and J. C. Sutcliffe
5 volumes. Friends since grade school, Céline, Julie, and Sabrina come of age at the start of a new millennium, supporting each other and drifting apart as their lives pull them in different directions. But when their friend dies by suicide in the abandoned city lot where they once gathered, they must carry on in the world that left him behind—one they once dreamed they would change for the better. From the grind of Montreal service jobs, to isolated French Ontario countryside childhoods, to the tenuous cooperation of Bay Area punk squats, the three young women navigate everyday losses and fears against the backdrop of a tumultuous 21st century. An ode to friendship and the ties that bind us together, Stéfanie Clermont’s award-winning The Music Game confronts the violence of the modern world and pays homage to those who work in the hope and faith that it can still be made a better place. 2022.
4516028 My Volcano by John Elizabeth Stintzi
6 volumes. On the morning of June 2, 2016, a jogger in Central Park notices a mass of stone in the centre of the reservoir, a mass that three weeks later will have grown into an active stratovolcano nearly two and a half miles tall. This inexplicable event seems to coincide with an escalation of strange phenomena happening around the world. My Volcano is a pre-apocalyptic vision following a global and diverse cast of characters, each experiencing private and collective eruptions. With audacious structure and poetic prose, My Volcano is an electrifying tapestry on fire. 2022.
4570698 An Unthinkable Thing by Nicole Lundrigan
7 volumes. Tommie Ware’s life is turned upside down the summer of 1958, just after his eleventh birthday. When his beloved aunt—the woman who raised him—doesn’t return after her shift as a night nurse and is later found murdered, there is only one place left for Tommie to go: “home” to the mother who handed him over the day he was born. All is not as it seems behind the hedgerow surrounding the lavish Henneberry estate where Tommie’s mother, Esther, works as live-in housekeeper. Her employers have agreed he can stay until she “sorts things out,” but as she's at the family’s beck and call around the clock, Tommie is mostly left on his own to navigate the grounds, the massive house, and the twisted family inside. Soon he is enmeshed in the oppressive attentions of matriarch Muriel, who is often heavily medicated, and of 15-year-old Martin, who treats Tommie sometimes like a kid brother, sometimes like a pawn in a confusing game. While Dr. Henneberry mostly ignores Tommie, he also seems eager for him to be gone. Then there’s the elderly neighbour, who may know more about the family's past than anyone else will say. By summer's end, the secrets and games tighten around Tommie and his mother, until a horrific crime is discovered and we are faced with an unthinkable question: could an 11-year-old boy really have committed cold-blooded murder? 2022.
Historical fiction
4895886 The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
4 volumes. When a mudslide strands a train, Baxter, a queer Black sleeping car porter, must contend with the perils of white passengers, ghosts, and his secret love affair. The Sleeping Car Porter brings to life an important part of Black history in North America, from the perspective of a queer man living in a culture that renders him invisible in two ways. Baxter’s name isn’t George. But it’s 1929, and Baxter is lucky enough, as a Black man, to have a job as a sleeping car porter on a train that crisscrosses the country. So when the passengers call him George, he has to just smile and nod and act invisible. What he really wants is to go to dentistry school, but he’ll have to save up a lot of nickel and dime tips to get there, so he puts up with “George.” On this particular trip out west, the passengers are more unruly than usual, especially when the train is stalled for two extra days; their secrets start to leak out and blur with the sleep-deprivation hallucinations Baxter is having. When he finds a naughty postcard of two queer men, Baxter’s memories and longings are reawakened; keeping it puts his job in peril, but he can’t part with the postcard or his thoughts of Edwin Drew, Porter Instructor. 2022.
Historical romance
4538326 Bluebird: A Novel by Genevieve Graham
7 volumes. A dazzling novel set during the Great War and postwar Prohibition about a young nurse, a soldier, and a family secret that binds them together for generations to come. Present day Cassie Simmons, a museum curator, is enthusiastic about solving mysteries from the past, and she has a personal interest in the history of the rumrunners who ferried illegal booze across the Detroit River during Prohibition. So when a cache of whisky labeled Bailey Brothers’ Best is unearthed during a local home renovation, Cassie hopes to find the answers she’s been searching for about the legendary family of bootleggers. 1918 Corporal Jeremiah Bailey of the 1st Canadian Tunnelling Company is tasked with planting mines in the tunnels beneath enemy trenches. After Jerry is badly wounded in an explosion, he finds himself in a Belgium field hospital under the care of Adele Savard, one of Canada’s nursing sisters, nicknamed “Bluebirds” for their blue gowns and white caps. As Jerry recovers, he forms a strong connection with Adele, who is from a place near his hometown of Windsor, along the Detroit River. By war’s end, both Jerry and Adele return home to Windsor, scarred by the horrors of what they endured overseas. When they cross paths one day, they have a chance to start over. But the city is in the grip of Prohibition, which brings exciting opportunities as well as new dangerous conflicts that threaten to destroy everything they have fought for. 2022.
Humorous fiction
4516027 Mindful of Murder: A Novel by Susan Juby
Meet Helen Thorpe. She’s smart, preternaturally calm, deeply insightful and a freshly trained butler. On the day she is supposed to start her career as an unusually equanimous domestic professional serving one of the wealthiest families in the world, she is called back to a spiritual retreat where she used to work. The owner of the lodge, Helen’s former employer Edna, has died while on a three-month silent self-retreat, leaving Helen instructions to settle her affairs. But Edna’s will is more detailed than most, and getting things in order means Helen must run the retreat for a select group to determine which of Edna’s relatives will inherit the institute. Helen’s classmates, newly minted butlers themselves, decide they can’t let her go it alone and arrive to help Helen pull things off. After all, is there anything three butlers can’t handle? As Helen carries out the will’s instructions, she begins to think that someone had reason to want Edna dead. A reluctantly suspicious investigator, Helen and her band of butlers find themselves caught up in the mystery. 2022.
LGBTQ+ fiction
5182377 Querelle of Roberval (Biblioasis International Translation Series #39) by Donald Winkler, Kevin Lambert
4 volumes. Homage to Jean Genet’s antihero and a brilliant reimagining of the ancient form of tragedy, Querelle of Roberval is a wildly imaginative story of justice, passion, and murderous revenge. As a millworkers’ strike in the northern lumber town of Roberval drags on, tensions start to escalate between the workers—but when a lockout renews their solidarity, they rally around the mysterious and magnetic influence of Querelle, a dashing newcomer from Montreal. Strapping and unabashed, likeable but callow, by day he walks the picket lines and at night moves like a mythic Adonis through the ranks of young men who flock to his apartment for sex. As the dispute hardens and both sides refuse to yield, sand stalls the gears of the economic machine and the tinderbox of class struggle and entitlement ignites in a firestorm of passions carnal and violent. 2022.
Multi-cultural fiction
4590550 Monster Child by Rahela Nayebzadah
3 volumes. In a powerful debut novel author Rahela Nayebzadah introduces three unforgettable characters, Beh, Shabnam and Alif. In a world swirling with secrets, racism and a touch of magic we watch through the eyes of these three children as Nayebzadah's family of Afghan immigrants try to find their way in an often uncaring society. But as a sexual assault on thirteen-year-old Beh unleashes the past and destroys the family the reader is left wondering who is the monster child? Is it Beh, who says she is called a disease? Is it Shabnam, who cries tears of blood? Is it Alif, who in the end declares "We are a family of monsters"? Or are the monsters all around us? 2021.
Mysteries and crime stories
5066505 Four for Fogo Island (The Sebastian Synard Mystery Series #4) by Kevin Major
4 volumes. Murder in a quilt shop on scenic Fogo Island leads sardonic private eye Sebastian Synard from his quest for some R&R to a different kind of excursion altogether. Four for Fogo Island finds Sebastian Synard on a May 24th weekend getaway with his new significant other, Mae. When Sebastian and Mae arrive at a fabric shop, they discover the owner in a back room, lying in a pool of blood, having been stabbed with a pair of antique quilting scissors. This propels the couple along a sequence of occasionally bizarre investigative paths to track down the killer. Sebastian has more than murder to deal with. A family get-together involving his son and ex-wife (and her partner, Frederick, a police officer) goes awry as Frederick inserts himself into the investigation. Mae on occasion outsmarts Sebastian on the investigative trails, but our private eye is rarely without his trademark sense of humour. 2022.
Police procedural fiction
5165352 Blackwater Falls: A Thriller (Blackwater Falls #1) by Ausma Zehanat Khan
8 volumes. From critically acclaimed author Ausma Zehanat Khan, Blackwater Falls is the first in a timely and powerful crime series, introducing Detective Inaya Rahman. Girls from immigrant communities have been disappearing for months in the Colorado town of Blackwater Falls, but the local sheriff is slow to act and the fates of the missing girls largely ignored. At last, the calls for justice become too loud to ignore when the body of a star student and refugee--the Syrian teenager Razan Elkader--is positioned deliberately in a mosque. Detective Inaya Rahman and Lieutenant Waqas Seif of the Denver Police are recruited to solve Razan’s murder, and quickly uncover a link to other missing and murdered girls. But as Inaya gets closer to the truth, Seif finds ways to obstruct the investigation. Inaya turns to her female colleagues, attorney Areesha Adams and Detective Catalina Hernandez, for help in finding the truth. The three have bonded through their experiences as members of vulnerable groups and now they must work together to expose the conspiracy behind the murders before another girl disappears. Delving deep into racial tensions, and police corruption and violence, Blackwater Falls examines a series of crimes within the context of contemporary American politics with compassion and searing insight. 2022.
Serious and literary fiction
4523256 Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah
5 volumes. A vivid love letter to the 1980s and one woman's struggle to overcome the challenges of immigration. It's 1986, and Muna Heddad is in a bind. She and her son have moved to Montreal, leaving behind a civil war filled with bad memories in Lebanon. She had plans to find work as a French teacher, but no one in Quebec trusts her to teach the language. The only work Muna can find is at a weight-loss center as a hotline operator. All day, she takes calls from people responding to ads seen in magazines or on TV. On the phone, she's Mona, and she's quite good at listening. These strangers all have so much to say once someone shows interest in their lives-marriages gone bad, parents dying, isolation, personal inadequacies. Even as her daily life in Canada is filled with invisible barriers at every turn, at the office Muna is privy to her clients' deepest secrets. Dimitri Nasrallah has written a vivid elegy to the 1980s, the years he first moved to Canada, bringing the era's systemic challenges into the current moment through this deeply endearing portrait of struggle, perseverance, and bonding. 2022.
Suspense and thrillers
4516015 Stray Dogs: And Other Stories by Rawi Hage
3 volumes. From the internationally acclaimed author of the novels De Niro’s Game, Cockroach, Carnival and Beirut Hellfire Society, here is a captivating and cosmopolitan collection of stories. In Montreal, a photographer’s unexpected encounter with actress Sophia Loren leads to a life-altering revelation about his dead mother. In Beirut, a disillusioned geologist eagerly awaits the destruction that will come with an impending tsunami. In Tokyo, a Jordanian academic delivering a lecture at a conference receives haunting news from the Persian Gulf. And in Berlin, a Lebanese writer forms a fragile, fateful bond with his voluble German neighbours. The irresistible characters in Stray Dogs lead radically different lives, but all are restless travelers, moving between states—nation-states and states of mind—seeking connection, escaping the past and following delicate threads of truth, only to experience the sometimes shocking, sometimes amusing and often random ways our fragile modern identities are constructed, destroyed, and reborn. 2022.
4570720 Watch Out for Her: A Novel by Samantha M. Bailey
7 volumes. A tense psychological thriller about a mother who must keep watch at all times if she wants to keep her family safe. Sarah Goldman, mother to six-year-old Jacob, is relieved to move across the country. She has a lot she wants to leave behind, especially Holly Monroe, the pretty 22-year-old babysitter she and her husband hired to take care of their young son last summer. It started out as a perfect arrangement—Sarah had a childminder her son adored, and Holly found the mother figure she’d always wanted. But Sarah’s never been one to trust very easily, so she kept a close eye on Holly, maybe too close at times. What she saw raised some questions, not only about who Holly really was but what she was hiding. The more Sarah watched, the more she learned—until one day, she saw something she couldn’t unsee, something so shocking that all she could do was flee. Sarah has put it all behind her and is starting over in a different city with her husband and son. They’ve settled into a friendly suburb where the neighbors, a tight clique of good citizens, are always on the lookout for danger. But when Sarah finds hidden cameras in her new home, she has to wonder: Has her past caught up to her, and worse yet, who’s watching her now? A chilling look at trust, voyeurism, and obsession in the modern age, and how far we will go to watch out for those we love. 2022.
Non-fiction for adults
Actors biography
5032789 The Mother of All Degrassi: A Memoir by Linda Schuyler
8 volumes. Linda Schuyler, co-creator and executive producer of the long-running Degrassi series, shares her personal stories about the grit and determination it took to make it as a woman entrepreneur in the bourgeoning independent Canadian television industry of the early 1980s. 2022.
Arts and entertainment
4357971 Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling (The CBC Massey Lectures) by Esi Edugyan
4 volumes. Two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize winner and internationally bestselling author Esi Edugyan delivers an incisive analysis of the relationship between race and art. 2021.
Biography
4570723 Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland's Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World by Eliza Reid
6 volumes. The Canadian first lady of Iceland pens a book about why this tiny nation is leading the charge in gender equality, in the vein of The Moment of Lift. Iceland is the best place on earth to be a woman—but why? For the past twelve years, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report has ranked Iceland number one on its list of countries closing the gap in equality between men and women. What is it about Iceland that enables its society to make such meaningful progress in this ongoing battle, from electing the world’s first female president to passing legislation specifically designed to help even the playing field at work and at home? The answer is found in the country’s sprakkar, an ancient Icelandic word meaning extraordinary or outstanding women. Eliza Reid—Canadian born and raised, and now first lady of Iceland—examines her adopted homeland’s attitude toward women: the deep-seated cultural sense of fairness, the influence of current and historical role models, and, crucially, the areas where Iceland still has room for improvement. Throughout, she interviews dozens of sprakkar to tell their inspirational stories, and expertly weaves in her own experiences as an immigrant from small-town Canada. Secrets of the Sprakkar is a powerful and atmospheric portrait of a tiny country that could lead the way forward for us all. 2022.
Business and economics
4439800 Rez Rules: My Indictment of Canada's and America's Systemic Racism Against Indigenous Peoples by Chief Clarence Louie
7 volumes. A common-sense blueprint for what the future of First Nations should look like as told through the fascinating life and legacy of a remarkable leader. In 1984, at the age of twenty-four, Clarence Louie was elected Chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band in the Okanagan Valley. Nineteen elections later, Chief Louie has led his community for nearly four decades. In Rez Rules, Chief Louie writes about his youth in Osoyoos, from early mornings working in the vineyards, to playing and coaching sports, and attending a largely white school in Oliver, B.C. He remembers enrolling in the “Native American Studies” program at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College in 1979 and falling in love with First Nations history. Learning about the historic significance of treaties was life-changing. He recalls his first involvement in activism: participating in a treaty bundle run across the country before embarking on a path of leadership. He and his band have worked hard to achieve economic growth and record levels of employment. Inspired by his ancestors’ working culture, and by the young people on the reserve, Chief Louie continues to work for First Nations’ self-sufficiency and independence. Direct and passionate, Chief Louie brings together wide-ranging subjects: life on the Rez, including Rez language and humour; per capita payments; the role of elected chiefs; the devastating impact of residential schools; the need to look to culture and ceremony for governance and guidance; the use of Indigenous names and logos by professional sports teams; his love for motorcycle honour rides; and what makes a good leader. He takes aim at systemic racism and examines the relationship between First Nations and colonial Canada and the United States, and sounds a call to action for First Nations to “Indian Up!” and “never forget our past.” Offering leadership lessons on and off the Rez, this memoir describes the fascinating life and legacy of a remarkable leader and provides a common-sense blueprint for the future of First Nations communities. In it, Chief Louie writes, “Damn, I’m lucky to be an Indian!” 2021.
Canadian history
5032817 From Underground Railroad to Rebel Refuge: Canada and the Civil War by Brian Martin
9 volumes. A fascinating history of Canada’s role in the American Civil War. Thousands fled north to escape the bloody battles: draft dodgers, deserters, recruiters, plotters and spies, and those escaping slavery through the Underground Railroad. Martin illuminates how the traffic between countries shaped both. 2022.
4523253 Murder on the Inside: The True Story of the Deadly Riot at Kingston Penitentiary by Catherine Fogarty
7 volumes. Shortlisted for The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book On April 14, 1971, a handful of prisoners attacked the guards at Kingston Penitentiary and seized control, making headlines around the world. For four intense days, the prisoners held the guards hostage while their leaders negotiated with a citizens’ committee of journalists and lawyers, drawing attention to the dehumanizing realities of their incarceration, including overcrowding, harsh punishment and extreme isolation. But when another group of convicts turned their pent-up rage towards some of the weakest prisoners, tensions inside the old stone walls erupted, with tragic consequences. Murder on the Inside tells the harrowing story of a prison in crisis against the backdrop of a pivotal moment in the history of human rights. 2021.
Disabilities
4493336 Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid by Shayda Kafai
4 volumes. In recent years, disability activism has come into its own as a vital and necessary means to acknowledge the power and resilience of the disabled community, and to call out ableist culture wherever it appears. Crip Kinship explores the art activism of Sins Invalid, a San Francisco Bay Area-based performance project, and its radical imaginings of what disabled, queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming bodyminds of colour can do: how they can rewrite oppression, and how they can gift us with transformational lessons for our collective survival. Grounded in the disability justice framework, Crip Kinship investigates the revolutionary survival teachings that disabled, queer of colour community offers to all our bodyminds. 2021.
5032784 The joy of signing: the illustrated guide for mastering sign language and the manual alphabet by Lottie L Riekehof
10 volumes. Second edition of the comprehensive guide for mastering the basic signs used to communicate with deaf people in either the word order of the English language or in the American Sign Language pattern (ASL or Ameslan). Provides the vocabulary needed for persons entering interpreter-training programs and for families and professionals. 1987.
Environment
4474618 Watermelon Snow: Science, Art, and a Lone Polar Bear by Lynne Quarmby
4 volumes. Weaves memoir, microbiology, and artistic antics together with descriptions of a sublime Arctic landscape. Inspiring and deeply personal, this is the story of one scientist's rediscovery of what it means to live a good life at a time of increasing desperation about the future. 2020.
Family and relationships
4523271 Can't Help Falling: A Long Road to Motherhood by Tarah Schwartz
3 volumes. When Tarah Schwartz miscarried for the first time at almost 5 months, she assumed this would be just a blip on the way to motherhood. But more miscarriages would follow, threatening her stability, her relationships, and changing her profoundly. In this memoir, Tarah puts words to excruciating loss as she recounts her unexpected and deeply inspiring journey to motherhood. As a long-time news reporter, she spent years working in front of a television camera, telling stories that reflected the power of the human spirit to survive. This time she tells her own. 2022.
General non-fiction
4493324 Rebound: Sports, Community, and the Inclusive City by Perry King
4 volumes. From basketball hoops to cricket bats, the role community sports play in our cities and how crucial they are to diversity and inclusion. For every kid who makes it to the NBA, thousands more seek out the pleasure and camaraderie of pick-up basketball in their local community centre or neighbourhood park. It’s a story that plays out in sport after sport—team and individual, youth and adult, men's and women's. While the dazzle of pro athletes may command our attention, grassroots sports build the bridges that link city-dwellers together in ways that go well beyond the physical benefits. The pandemic and heightened awareness of racial exclusion reminded us of the importance of these pastimes and the public spaces where we play. In this closely reported exploration of the role of community sports in diverse cities, Toronto journalist Perry King makes an impassioned case for re-imagining neighbourhoods whose residents can be active, healthy, and connected. 2021.
4673026 Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
4 volumes. Professional wrestling super fandom, Ontario's endlessly unfurling 401 highway, late nights at the convenience store listening to heavy metal—for writer and podcast host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, these are the building blocks of a life. Son of Elsewhere charts that life in wise, funny, and moving reflections on the many threads that weave together into an identity. Arriving in Canada at age 12 from Sudan, Elamin's teenage years were spent trying on new ways of being in the world, new ways of relating to his almost universally white peers. His is a story of yearning to belong in a time and place where expectation and assumptions around race, faith, language, and origin make such belonging extremely difficult, but it's also a story of the surprising and unexpected ways in which connection and acceptance can be found. In this extraordinary debut collection, the process of growing—of trying, failing, and trying again to fit in—is cast against the backdrop of the memory of life in a different time, and different place—a Khartoum being bombed by the United States, a nation seeking to define and understand itself against global powers of infinite reach. Taken together, these essays explore how we pick and choose from our experience and environment to help us in the ongoing project of defining who we are. With the perfect balance of relatable humor and intellectual ferocity, Son of Elsewhere confronts what we know about ourselves, and most important, what we’re still learning. 2022.
Indigenous peoples biography
5007138 All Roads Home: A Life On and Off the Ice by Stephen Brunt and Bryan Trottier
6 volumes. A poignant and inspiring memoir of the people and challenges that shaped the life and career of Canada's most decorated Indigenous athlete. Over the course of his incredible career, Bryan Trottier set a new standard of hockey excellence. A seven-time Stanley Cup champion, Trottier won countless awards and is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. In 2017, he was named one of the NHL's Top 100 Players of All Time. All Roads Home offers a poignant, funny, wise, and inspiring look at his coming of age, both on and off the ice. It is a unique memoir in which Trottier shares stories about family, friends, teammates, and coaches, the lessons that he has learned from them, and the profound impact they have had in shaping the person he has become. He'll also talk about the high school English teacher and guidance counsellor who helped him develop self-confidence and encouraged him as a writer: Governor General's Award–winning poet, Lorna Crozier. 2022.
4778844 Rehearsals for Living by Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
6 volumes. A revolutionary collaboration about the world we're living in now, between two of our most important contemporary thinkers, writers and activists. When the world entered pandemic lockdown in spring 2020, Robyn Maynard, influential author of Policing Black Lives, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, renowned artist, musician, and author of Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, began writing each other letters—a gesture sparked by a desire for kinship and connection in a world shattering under the intersecting crises of pandemic, police killings, and climate catastrophe. Rehearsals for Living is a captivating and visionary work—part debate, part dialogue, part lively and detailed familial correspondence between two razor-sharp writers. By articulating to each other Black and Indigenous perspectives on our unprecedented here and now, and reiterating the long-disavowed histories of slavery and colonization that have brought us to this moment, Maynard and Simpson create something new: an urgent demand for a different way forward, and a poetic call to dream up other ways of ordering earthly life. 2022.
Journals and memoirs
4999670 The Long Road Home: On Blackness and Belonging by Debra Thompson
6 volumes. From a leading scholar on the politics of race comes a work of family history, memoir, and insight gained from a unique journey across the continent, on what it is to be Black in North America. When Debra Thompson moved to the United States in 2010, she felt like she was returning to the land of her ancestors, those who had escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad. But her decade-long journey across Canada and the US transformed her relationship to both countries, and to the very idea of home. In The Long Road Home, Thompson follows the roots of Black identities in North America and the routes taken by those who have crisscrossed the world’s longest undefended border in search of freedom and belonging. She begins in Shrewsbury, Ontario, one of the termini of the Underground Railroad and the place where members of her own family found freedom. More than a century later, Thompson still feels the echoes and intergenerational trauma of North American slavery. She was often the Only One—the only Black person in so many white spaces—in a country that perpetuates the national mythology of multiculturalism. Then she revisits her four American homes, each of which reveals something peculiar about the relationship between American racism and democracy. She then moves across the border and settles in Montreal, a unique city with a long history of transnational Black activism, but one that does not easily accept the unfamiliar and the foreign into the fold. The Long Road Home is a moving personal story and a vital examination of the nuances of racism in the United States and Canada. 2022.
4622603 We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story by by Simu Liu
6 volumes. Marvel’s newest recruit shares his own inspiring and unexpected origin story, ranging from China to the bright lights of Hollywood. Our story begins in the city of Harbin, where Simu’s parents have left him with his grandparents while they seek to build a future in Canada. One day, a mysterious stranger shows up; it’s Simu’s father, who whisks him away from the only home he has ever known to the land of opportunity and maple syrup. Life in the new world, however, is not all that it was cracked up to be. Simu’s new guardians lack the gentle touch of his grandparents, resulting in harsh words and hurt feelings. His parents, on the other hand, find their new son emotionally distant and difficult to relate to. Although they are related by blood, they are separated by culture, language and values. As Simu grows up, he plays the part of the ideal son well, but as time goes on, he grows increasingly disillusioned with the expectations placed on his shoulders, and finds it harder and harder to keep up the charade. Barely a year out of college, he hits rock bottom when he is laid off from his first job as an accountant. Unemployed, riddled with shame and with nothing left to lose, Simu sees an ad on Craigslist that will send him on a wildly unexpected journey into the mysterious world of show business. Through a swath of rejections and comical mishaps, Simu’s determination leads him to succeed as an actor and to open the door to reconciling with his parents. We Were Dreamers is more than a celebrity memoir—it’s a story about growing up between cultures, finding your family and becoming the master of your own extraordinary circumstances. 2022.
Judaism
4570697 Who By Fire: War, Atonement, and the Resurrection of Leonard Cohen by Matti Friedman
The incredible never-before-told story of Leonard Cohen's 1973 tour of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. In October, 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen—39 years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end—traveled to the Sinai desert and inserted himself into the chaos and bloodshed of the Yom Kippur War. Moving around the front with a guitar and a pick-up team of local musicians, Cohen dived headlong into the midst of a global crisis and met hundreds of fighting men and women at the worst moment of their lives. In Who By Fire, Canadian-Israeli journalist Matti Friedman gives us a riveting account of what happened during those weeks in Israel in October, 1973, bringing us close to one the greatest, most brilliant and charismatic voices of our times, and gives us a rare glimpse of war, faith, and belonging. 2022.
Literature biography
4570703 Know It All: Finding the Impossible Country (Reflections) by James H. Marsh
7 volumes. In Know It All: Finding the Impossible Country, James Marsh tells of his evolution from a troubled childhood to a career in publishing that culminated in the creation of The Canadian Encyclopedia. Through friendships, curiosity, the insights of a psychiatrist, and the intimate encounters with the authors he met, he championed a diverse and inclusive view of Canada, which was used to draw the great minds of an impossible nation together in a common enterprise. 2022.
Poetry
4357994 A History of the Theories of Rain by Stephen Collis
1 volume. A History of the Theories of Rain explores the strange effect our current sense of impending doom has on our relation to time, approaching the unfolding climate catastrophe conceptually through its dissolution of the categories of “man-made” and “natural” disasters. How do we go on with our daily lives while a disastrous future impinges upon every moment? Collis provides no easy answers and offers no simple hope. What his book does instead is probe our current state of anxiety with care, humour, and an unflinching gazing into the darkness we have gathered around ourselves. All the while it asks what form a resistance to the tenor of these out-of-joint times might take. In doing so, it explores the links between the climate’s “tipping points” and the borders which constrain those who are fleeing the disaster. 2021.
4570709 Standing in a River of Time by Jónína Kirton
4 volumes. Standing in a River of Time merges poetry and lyrical memoir on a journey exposing the intergenerational effects of colonization on a Métis family. This collection unravels painful memories and a mixed-blood woman’s journey towards wholeness. The Ancestors whisper to Kirton throughout, asking her to heal, to bring them home, so that within these stories of redemption and loss the dead walk with us, their presence felt as the story unfurls in unexpected ways. Kirton does not offer false hope, nor does she push us towards answers we are not yet ready for. Instead, she gestures towards the many healing modalities she has explored as she discovers that the path to reconciliation is not only a long and winding road, but also that it begins with those closest to us. 2022.
4622591 You Still Look the Same by Farzana Doctor
1 volume. A moving collection of poetry about navigating mid-life, full of humour and wit, from acclaimed novelist Farzana Doctor. This debut poetry collection from acclaimed novelist Farzana Doctor is both an intimate deep dive and a humorous glance at the tumultuous decade of her forties. Through crisp and vivid language, Doctor explores mid-life breakups and dating, female genital cutting, imprints of racism and misogyny, and the oddness of sex and love, and urges us to take a second look at the ways in which human relationships are never what we expect them to be. 2022.
Politics and government
4493334 Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower by Charlie Angus
6 volumes. Charlie Angus uncovers how Canada’s mining dominance feeds the world’s hunger for cobalt, a mineral with a horrific present and troubled history. 2022.
4516031 The Naked Don't Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees by Matthieu Aikins
8 volumes. In this extraordinary book, an acclaimed young war reporter chronicles a dangerous journey on the smuggler’s road to Europe, accompanying his friend, an Afghan refugee, in search of a better future. In 2016, a young Afghan driver and translator named Omar makes the heart-wrenching choice to flee his war-torn country, saying goodbye to Laila, the love of his life, without knowing when they might be reunited again. Matthieu Aikins, a journalist living in Kabul, decides to follow his friend. In order to do so, he must leave his own passport and identity behind to go underground on the refugee trail with Omar. Their odyssey across land and sea from Afghanistan to Europe brings them face to face with the people at heart of the migration crisis: smugglers, cops, activists, and the men, women and children fleeing war in search of a better life. As setbacks and dangers mount for the two friends, Matthieu is also drawn into the escape plans of Omar’s entire family. Harrowing yet hopeful, this exceptional work brings into sharp focus one of the most contentious issues of our times. 2022.
Self help
4904273 Be a Triangle: How I Went from Being Lost to Getting My Life into Shape by Lilly Singh
1 volume. An honest, funny, and inspiring primer on learning to come home to your truest and happiest self. Everyone knows that sometimes, life just sucks—even world-famous actress, author, and creator Lilly Singh. In this book, Lilly provides a safe space where readers can learn how to create a sense of peace within themselves. Without sugarcoating what it's like to face adversity—including Lilly's intensely personal struggles with identity, success, and self-doubt—she teaches readers to "unsubscribe" from cookie-cutter ideals. With her signature blend of vulnerability, insight, and humor, Lilly instructs readers to "be a triangle": You must build a solid foundation for your life, one that can be built upon, but never fundamentally changed or destroyed. Like a wise, empathetic friend who always keeps you honest, Lilly pushes you to adjust your mindset and change the conversations you have with yourself. The result is a deeply humane, entertaining, and uplifting guide to befriending yourself and becoming a true "miracle for the world." 2022.
Sports biography
5032786 Playing the Long Game: A Memoir by Christine Sinclair
4 volumes. For the first time in depth and in public, Olympic soccer gold-medalist Christine Sinclair, the top international goal scorer of all time and one of Canada's greatest athletes, reflects on both her exhilarating successes and her heartbreaking failures. Christine Sinclair is one of the world's most respected and admired athletes. Not only is she the player who has scored the most goals on the international soccer stage, male or female, but more than two decades into her career, she is the heart of any team she plays on, the captain of both Canada's national team and the top-ranked Portland Thorns FC in the National Women's Soccer League. Working with the brilliant and bestselling sportswriter Stephen Brunt, the intensely private Sinclair will share her reflections on the significant moments and turning points in her life and career, the big wins and losses survived, not only on the pitch. Her extraordinary journey, combined with her candour, commitment and decency, will inspire and empower her fans and admirers, and girls and women everywhere. 2022.
Women biography
4570699 My Ackee Tree: A Chef's Memoir of Finding Home in the Kitchen by Suzanne Barr and Suzanne Hancock
4 volumes. A memoir about food, family, and the recipes that brought one woman home when she needed it the most. Suzanne Barr’s journey to become a chef started when she was 30. Her mother was diagnosed with cancer and she moved home to Florida to take care of her. Suzanne escorted her mother to doctor’s appointments, bathed her, and kept her company, but the hardest part of the experience was that she didn’t know how to cook for her. Fast-forward to the summer of 2017 when Suzanne became the inaugural Chef-in-Residence at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. She wanted to create a menu that represented who she was as a chef and it emerged as a love letter to her mother. Her Rite of Passage Menu, as she called it, changed her. It started her on a journey that has brought her closer to her mother, to her ancestors, and to her Jamaican heritage. My Ackee Tree tells the story of a woman who is always on the move, always seeking; who battles the stereotypes of being a Black female cook to become a culinary star in an industry beset by dated practices and landlords with too much power. From the ackee tree in front of her childhood home, through New York City, Atlanta, Hawaii, the Hamptons, and France, Suzanne takes us on her unpredictable journey, and at every turn, she finds light and comfort in the kitchen. 2022.
4570716 Send Me Into the Woods Alone: Essays on Motherhood by Erin Pepler
4 volumes. Dispatches from modern motherhood by a reluctant suburbanite. Send Me Into The Woods Alone is an honest, heartfelt, and often hilarious collection of essays on the joys, struggles, and complexities of motherhood. These essays touch on the major milestones of raising children, from giving birth (and having approximately a million hands in your vagina) and taking your beautiful newborn home (and feeling like you’ve stolen your baby from the hospital), to lying to kids about the Tooth Fairy and mastering the subtle art of beating children at board games. Plus the pitfalls of online culture and the #winemom phenomenon, and the unattainable expectations placed on mothers today. Written from the perspective of an always tired, often anxious, and reluctant suburbanite who is doing her damn best, these essays articulate one woman’s experience in order to help mothers of all kinds process the wildly variable, deeply different ways in which being a mom changes our lives. 2022.