Kids’ Books

The Several Lives of Orphan Jack

Sarah Ellis, the celebrated Vancouver author with X-ray insight into her child protagonists’ inner lives, turns her talents to something completely different: an ebullient bildungsroman that skips along with the sparkling wordplay of a junior ... Read More »

November 25, 2003 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Secret Ingredients: The Brave New World of Industrial Farming

By Stuart Laidlaw

Stuart Laidlaw, a member of The Toronto Star’s editorial board who has led the paper’s coverage of Canadian farm and agricultural issues, has written a compassionate and harrowing account of the burgeoning industrialization of Canadian ... Read More »

November 25, 2003 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Science, Technology & Environment

A Grain of Sand

By P.K. Page, Vladyana L. Krykorka, illus.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand/And a Heaven in a Wild Flower/Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity in an hour.” These mysterious, beautiful words of William Blake have inspired ... Read More »

November 25, 2003 | Filed under: Picture Books

★ The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, 1577-1580

By Samuel Bawlf

Did Sir Francis Drake visit Vancouver Island, the Queen Charlottes, and the coast of Alaska 200 years before any other European? Geographer, ex-B.C. politician, and sailor Samuel Bawlf sure makes a strong case for such ... Read More »

November 25, 2003 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, History

Crowd of Sounds

By Adam Sol

The first poem in Crowd of Sounds, Adam Sol’s second poetry collection, presents in miniature the book’s thematic concerns. Entitled “The Calculus of a Man Striking Water in Relation to a Boat Striking Wood, and ... Read More »

November 25, 2003 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Poetry

I Gave My Mom a Castle

By Jean Little, Kady MacDonald Denton, illus.

Giving presents and getting presents: both are often fun, but not always easy. Jean Little’s many well-loved novels and poems explore the difficulties as well as the joys of family life, and this new poem ... Read More »

November 25, 2003 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Dare to Be Different

By Quincy Mack with Robyn Burnett

Quincy Mack is a professional basketball trickster from Brantford, Ontario, who uses more than 100 Harlem Globetrotters-style tricks to grab kids’ attention so they’ll listen to his inspirational lectures. Part memoir/part Chicken Soup for the ... Read More »

November 25, 2003 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction

Grasslands

By Michael Hetherton

A woman named Sunny in one of Michael Hetherton’s stories calls a man “iceberg head,” but it’s not an insult. She means – or hopes – there’s more beneath the surface than meets the eye. ... Read More »

November 25, 2003 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Short

Wild Cat

By Jacques Poulin, Sheila Fischman, trans.

Jacques Poulin is one of Quebec’s best and most-loved writers, winner of the Governer General’s Award for Les Grandes marées (Spring Tides) and the Prix France-Amerique for Le Vieux chagrin (Mr. Blue). Thoughtful and wryly ... Read More »

November 25, 2003 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Novels

The Courtesan’s Daughter

By Priscilla Galloway

At 15, Phano is on the threshold of womanhood in ancient Greece. But trouble is all around: her stepmother, a former courtesan, is pursued by a ruthless man named Phrynion, who claims she is both ... Read More »