At fifteen, Tamara has survived the foster-care system through brains, will and attitude. Now there's high school to get through, along with her teacher's latest community project -- volunteering at the local seniors' home. Tamara doubts she can endure either the residents or the smells. Then she's assigned to Jean Barclay, a cranky, wealthy and frail former schoolteacher. As the two size one another up, they realize each is the key to achieving their own very different goals. Miss Barclay...

An eccentric babysitter has a knack for telling stories that are eerily well suited to her young charges.When Carolina Giddle moves into the Blatchford Arms, no one knows what to make of her sequin-sprinkled sneakers and her trinket-crusted car. But the parents are happy there’s a new babysitter around, and Carolina seems to have an uncanny ability to calm the most rambunctious child with her ghostly stories.Armed with unusual snacks (bone-shaped peppermint...

Travis has been waiting to get to junior high. When that time finally comes, things are both better, and worse, than he had hoped. On the plus side are two great new teachers. On the minus side there's Shon Docker, Travis's old tormenter from elementary school.Travis lives in a trailer park outside a small prairie town. His mother, a country-and-western singer, is on the road a lot; his father is long gone. When things get crazy at his house, he can always visit his best friend, Ch...

Includes Author-Curated Discussion Questions!From small-town Alberta, Curtis comes to Edmonton to obtain a teaching degree. There he forms a close friendship with his elderly, blind Aunt Harriet, considered a family pariah due to her eccentric enthusiasm for a lost world of artists and musicians.When Curtis begins reading aloud to Harriet the diary her intended husband Phillip kept before his death during World War One, an obsessed Curtis examines parallels...

Firebird explores a period in our history - one year in particular (1915–1916) - when a massive number of newcomers were deemed “enemy aliens,” arrested and put into internment camps set up all across Canada. Alex Kaminsky, a fourteen-year-old Ukrainian immigrant boy, suffers burns to his hands and face when his uncle’s farmhouse burns down. Rescued by a neighbour, he is tended to by a backcountry midwife before being taken in by a local postmaster. Determined to search for his older broth...

Leroy "Doodlebug" Barnstable likes to call himself the quickest draw in the west—with a crayon. It's 1923 and Doodle is on the run from a couple of abusive cousins. He stumbles into a travelling Chautauqua show where it's easy to get lost in a crowd—but also easy to lose your heart. This funny and endearing novel by Governor General's Award-winning novelist Glen Huser will make an absorbing read for fourteen and fifteen year olds, boys and girls alike.

Firebird explores a period in our history — one year in particular (1915–1916) — when a massive number of newcomers were deemed “enemy aliens,” arrested and put into internment camps set up all across Canada. Alex Kaminsky, a fourteen-year-old Ukrainian immigrant boy, suffers burns to his hands and face when his uncle’s farmhouse burns down. Rescued by a neighbour, he is tended to by a backcountry midwife before being taken in by a local postmaster. Determined to search for his ol...

Lynn’s life is full — choir practice, school, shopping for the perfect jeans, and dealing with her free-spirited mother. Then one day her life is saved by a mysterious girl named Blossom, who introduces Lynn to her own world and family — both more bizarre, yet somehow more sane, than Lynn’s own.Blossom’s family is a small band of outcasts and eccentrics who live secretly in an ingenious bunker beneath a city reservoir. The Underlanders forage and trade for the things they need (“Is...

Gordon Korman meets Word Nerd in this totally (and completely) genius debut!Arthur Bean, soon-to-be a rich and famous author, has set two goals for himself: to win the school writing contest and to win the heart of his secret crush, Kennedy. But his life has had some major twists and turns lately, and the recent loss of his mother definitely complicates things.Arthur is in turns outrageous, defiant, and unintentionally hilarious as we peek over his...

FINALIST FOR THE SILVER BIRCH AWARDDashiel Woolf should be ecstatic for the chance to meet his hero, the Great Houdini, not long before the famous magician’s untimely death in 1926. But Dash is far more concerned about getting home—because home is 85 years in the future.Sent back in time through a magic trick gone terribly wrong, Dash and his new friend, Walt—a known troublemaker—hatch a plan to return Dash to the present day. But if they are successful, th...

In an alternate world where humans and dragons battle over fossil fuels, a teenage slayer and his bard must rally their community against impending doom."Johnston's masterful book is a refreshing blend of alternative history, high fantasy, and contemporary teen life. Johnston has done careful research for her intricate world building, and the result is strikingly original and believable."— Booklist, Starred ReviewListen! For I sing...

From the imagination of one of Canada’s funniest writers comes the story of a young zombie who is integrated into a regular classroom in southern Ontario. Clashes, heroics and hilarity ensue as the community’s tolerance for difference—and narrator Bob's tolerance for an undead rival—are pushed to the limit in this exciting and surprisingly touching novel.