★ Wild Awake

Kiri Byrd, the protagonist in Hilary T. Smith’s debut novel, is a gifted 17-year-old pianist living in Vancouver. She practices relentlessly, almost compulsively. When she’s not at the piano, she’s in her best friend Lukas’s ... Read More »

August 1, 2013

Nala’s Magical Mitsiaq: A Story of Inuit Adoption

By Jennifer Noah; Qin Leng, illus.

Telling the story of one family’s experience of Inuit custom adoption, Nala’s Magical Mitsiaq is the first title in the Community imprint from Inhabit Media, which involves members of the Nunavummiut community in the conception ... Read More »

August 1, 2013 | Filed under: Picture Books

Whimsy’s Heavy Things

By Julie Kraulis

Much has been written lately about how to talk to young children about the tragic or scary events they are inevitably exposed to in the news or through their friends. Whimsy’s Heavy Things is a ... Read More »

August 1, 2013 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Picture Books

Loula Is Leaving for Africa

By Anne Villeneuve

Loula can’t stand her three roughhousing brothers. The final indignity comes when she is waylaid while carrying her tea set, so self-possessed Loula takes action to escape the “mean, terrible, stinky” triplets and punish her ... Read More »

August 1, 2013 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Picture Books

★ Once Upon a Northern Night

By Jean E. Pendziwol; Isabelle Arsenault, illus.

A parent’s vision of a wintry Northern idyll leaps beautifully to life in this collaboration by author Jean E. Pendziwol and illustrator Isabelle Arsenault. As a young child sleeps snugly inside the comfort of a ... Read More »

August 1, 2013 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Picture Books

★ The Fall

Authors have many good reasons for choosing to set their tales of teen angst in space or the distant past, or in worlds full of vampires, extraterrestrials, or sentient robots. One reason YA writers prefer ... Read More »

July 29, 2013

The Search Angel

By Tish Cohen

What defines motherhood? Does it have to do simply with giving birth, or is it more closely connected to the matter of raising a child? In her fourth novel for adults, Tish Cohen tackles weighty ... Read More »

July 22, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ Hellgoing

By Lynn Coady

For several years, Lynn Coady – whose 2011 novel, The Antagonist, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize – hosted a “group therapy” advice column for The Globe and Mail, an experience that may ... Read More »

July 15, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Blood and Daring: How Canada Fought the American Civil War and Forged a Nation

Confederation may be one of the best-known events in Canadian history, with countless volumes devoted to the subject. Despite this, historian John Boyko manages to find a fresh lens through which to examine this foundational ... Read More »

July 8, 2013