National Network for Equitable Library Service

With school over, Greg visiting relatives, and Betts on vacation with her family, it’s looking like it will be a quiet summer for Shelby Belgarden. Until, that is, she finds out that Betts and her family have returned home suddenly, and Betts’s mom faces criminal charges in the theft of a computer program from her workplace.To save Mrs. Thompson’s job and reputation - and to keep her out of prison - Shelby infiltrates the company in order to dig up clues. But with no clues to be found, can Shelby find the answers that will keep Betts’s family together?

Thirteen-year-old Casey Templeton has recently moved with his family to the southeastern Alberta town of Richford. One night Casey seeks refuge from a snowstorm in an abandoned farmhouse and stumbles upon his nearly frozen, unconscious science teacher, Mr. Deverell. Casey attempts to revive his teacher and searches the house for something to make a fire with. In the attic he makes a frightening discovery – a sophisticated office filled with computers, a printer, and racist posters and flyers!

An unexpected delivery from the florist points to a secret admirer for Shelby Belgarden, but when an ominous phone call and a disturbing email follow, the teenaged sleuth and her family realize that the dangerous obsession of a stalker lies behind them. While the messages become increasingly sinister, the police are unable to uncover the culprits identity, and Shelby finds her world has turned into a nightmare of fear and betrayal. When an arrest is made, it seems that life can return to normal for the Belgarden family, but the stalker proves more cunning than anyone could have imagined.

A mysterious white horse, a quirky parrot, a haunted house, an ancient curse, something frightening in the attic… A summer holiday turns into a nightmare when the Mallory family rents a shabby cottage in a remote corner of Ontario’s Rideau Lakes. Seventeen-year-old Chip Mallory and his sixteen-year-old sister Lee are persuaded to go along on "one last family vacation" with their parents before they get caught up in their own lives again.

It's the summer of 1988 and 15-year-old aspiring artist Adam Zapotica has a big problem. He's crazy about dinosaurs, and a team of paleontologists and scientists at Milk River Ridge near Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park in southern Alberta has recently unearthed a major cache of dinosaur eggs. They need volunteers to assist them at the dig, but there's a catch — you have to be 18!

Commended for the 2008 Best Books for Kids and Teens The year is 2099. North America is in chaos, ruined by years of war, terrorism, and ecological destruction. Marauding motorcycle gangs roam the land, while a secret society of mutants who practice devilish rites terrorize the innocent. Young Toby Johnson lives with his father, one of the Old Believers, a religious sect that clings to stern moral values. Although embarrassed by his father’s quaint ways, Toby is horrified when a motorcycle gang attacks their modest homestead.

Commended for the 2006 Canadian Children’s Book Centre Our Choice Selection The year is 2014. Dylan Gibson is 16 and knows there is something unusual about him, but he doesn’t know what - aside from his fascination for things like insects, opera, old Japanese sci-fi movies, playing the didgeridoo, and the Loch Ness monster. After being dumped by his girlfriend, Caroline, who thinks he’s too strange, Dylan meets Robyn, who’s something of an outcast herself. Dylan’s father works for a big drug company, and his mom, a former geneticist, dropped out of research after a mysterious event.

At last, Shelby Belgarden has put her crime-solving behind her and has returned to the life of an ordinary teenager. Now 16, she has taken her first job: working at a new local restaurant called The Steak Place. But when one of her co-workers — a waitress named Nadine — goes missing, Shelby suspects foul play. The police won't believe her. Neither will Shelby's boyfriend, Greg, who grows frustrated with her search for a criminal who may not exist.

Commended for the 2008 Best Books for Kids and Teens On the surface, Peter McAllister has a good life: a good school, good friends, good times. So what if his best friend is a girl — and sort of a geek? And so what if she might be more than a friend. Underneath, it’s a different story. It’s been years since the death of his parents landed him in this small town with his hardly-there uncle, but he still feels as if his life in Clarksbury is just an inch deep. Does he really belong? Only Rosemary seems real.

Although it is 1969 and the end of a decade that has brought tremendous social change even in southweatern Ontario, 14-year-old Annie Ward has experienced little of "love, peace, and understanding." A diehard Beatles fan and highly intelligent but lacking in social graces, Annie is still grieving over the death of her father and also misses Zoe, the one "best" friend she ever had, who has moved away due to less-than-friendly circumstances. Lonely but proud, Annie has distanced herself from everyone, even her mother.