National Network for Equitable Library Service

Nic has autism. Through the eyes of his mother Jennifer, we follow Nic's family on a ten-year journey: from early confusion to a life-altering diagnosis, then through the stages of denial, anger, depression, bargaining and finally acceptance. Along the way the story provides a great deal of humour, both in Jennifer's own approach to parenting, and in Nic's perception of the world around him.

Anabel gives her heart to a man she meets on the subway and he disappears with it. Her limbs begin to fall asleep. George is on the run but keeps getting distracted by romantic comedies. He begins to blame his mother. Mona resorts to seeking therapy from GoogleShrink, forcing herself to speed-date, and taking in a stranger who appears on her doorstep clad in purple plaid. With Love and A Major Organ uses magic realism to reinvent the modern romantic comedy.

Raw in its emotionalism and bold in its theatricality, Falling in Time is set in Vancouver in 1994 and tells the story of four individuals, across two continents and over a span of more than forty years. The lives of these characters miraculously intertwine in Vancouver playwright C.E. Gatchalian's uncompromising meditation on war, masculinity, sexuality, personal boundaries, and love. Falling in Time asks the question, how do we let go?

The historical accounts from King Henry VIII and Queen Anne's time are steeped in controvery, contradiction, and irony. Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, was put to death on trumped up charges of adultery and incest. In fact, her husband, frustrated by his wife's failure to provide him with a son, simply wanted a way out of his marriage. Within days of Anne's execution, Henry married his third wife, Jane Seymour.

How does a farm girl in 1950s Ontario escape the stall-cleaning, cow-milking, hal-baling drudgery of life on Rural Route 2? She becomes a movie star, of course! The quickest route to Hollywood for a plucky gal in the mid-twentieth century was to enter as many beauty pageants as possible and to sing, twirl and pivot her way into the hearts of judges. And so Peggy Ann Douglas did just that, as did so many other young women of her generation, hoping to follow in the footsteps of starletts like Debbie Reynolds.

In Relative Good, David Gow grapples with the complex implications of the War on Terror, and the resulting sweeping changes to law that allow authorities to violate basic civil rights. Mohamed El Rafi is a Syrian-born Canadian engineer. He’s arrested in New York’s JFK airport, held without explanation, interrogated, and eventually forced to sign papers that facilitate his deportation to Syria.

Twelve Hours is the story of Jimmy Stanton. Convicted of the rape and murder of a young woman, Jimmy is facing his last hours on Death Row. As his story unfolds, so do those of the people whose lives he has impacted, from the sister of the woman he killed, to the Governor who must decide if Jimmy’s execution should be commuted. Twelve Hours goes into the hearts and minds of ordinary people affected by a terrible crime-and the cruel and biased punishment that results.

It's 1977, and successful writer Peg Dunlop has returned to her small Ontario hometown to look after her ailing mother. When an eager young English teacher decides to teach one of Dunlop's books to the town's Grade 13 class, a group of parents and the local pastor start a movement to have the book banned. Based on real-life events, Cooper's balanced look at the issues on both sides raises important questions: Who decides what we can and cannot read? How do we tell stories? How do we fight for what we believe in? And how do we coexist when we have opposing views?

Ally and Josh spend every summer with their father as he goes from small town to small town, working for a construction company in America. But this summer is different. This is the summer they grow up. The Nails is a play about family. It is a play about faith. And it captures a world of freedom and extremism in all directions; love and cruelty exist within the same space here. And sometimes they feel like the same thing.

It’s the 1830s. Two travelling minstrels are passing north from London, Ontario, with their song and dance show on the local circuit. Having fallen afoul of the law and desperate for a night’s lodging, they stumble into the Wilberforce hotel, owned and operated by Austin Steward, the president of this stalwart black settlement. Through turns highly comic, and deeply moving, the two musicians who have spent their showbiz careers painting their faces come to learn something life-changing about the actual black experience of early settlers in Middlesex Country at a time of exodus vs. jubilee.