National Network for Equitable Library Service

Inspired by a story told to the author while on safari in 2015, The Wild Beast describes the creation of one of Africa's most unusual animals, the wildebeest. According to oral tradition, the Creator built this unique beast out of leftover parts from other magnificent animals found on the continent. Horns from buffalos and stripes meant for zebras. Tails from giraffes and bumps meant for camels. This creative retelling will introduce little ones to a story rich in both imagery and in lesson: Take what you need to live. Take no more. Waste nothing.

No matter how hard he tries, even with the help of his classroom aide, Ian Goobie can't do the things that the other children in his class can do. Every day he dreads going to school. Then he finds a rock, a rock that fits perfectly in his pocket, a rock that touches all his senses and whisks him away into a whole other world. From then on, as long as he has a rock in his pocket, Ian Goobie can manage his daily challenges. That is, until he stuffs so many rocks in his pockets that his pants fall down right outside in the schoolyard, in front of all his classmates.

This gorgeously illustrated picture book is a celebration of summer vacation and West Coast island life. Every day is different on Gran's island in the Salish Sea as granddaughter climbs big-leaf maples, eats blackberries, explores tide pools and sandstone caves and examines ancient middens and petroglyphs. She and Gran watch harbor seals sunning themselves and Gran's neighbor carving an eagle out of a piece of cedar while drinking fresh nettle tea.

Lucy and her family are skating on an outdoor rink when she sees a game of hockey going on. It looks like fun, but maybe too challenging. Supported by her parents, Lucy enrolls in an introductory-hockey clinic, and thanks to an encouraging instructor, she and her friends learn basic hockey skills, have fun on the ice and decide to add hockey to their list of favorite sports! The Lucy Tries Sports series encourages children to get active and participate in sports and recreation.

The Hockey Sweater, the title story in this 20-story collection, has become an enduring classic: a Quebec boy and Habs fan is shipped a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater by mistake. It encapsulates everything you need to understand French and English Canada, told with humour and love. This edition features a new introduction.

2017 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Finalist. This Accident of Being Lost is the knife-sharp new collection of stories and songs from award-winning Nishnaabeg storyteller and writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. These visionary pieces build upon Simpson's powerful use of the fragment as a tool for intervention in her critically acclaimed collection Islands of Decolonial Love. Provocateur and poet, she continually rebirths a decolonized reality, one that circles in and out of time and resists dominant narratives or comfortable categorization.

In If Clara, nobody stands on firm ground. Daisy, a writer confined to her home, her leg in a cast from hip to ankle, receives a parcel containing the manuscript of a novel about a Syrian refugee and is asked to pose as its writer. Julia, the curator at the Kleinzahler Gallery, has no idea that her sister, Clara, has written a novel. However, she does know that Clara suffers from a debilitating mental illness, is unpredictable, and lapses easily into hostility.

Norris Kaplan is clever, cynical, and quite possibly too smart for his own good. A Black French Canadian, he knows moving to Austin, Texas won't be easy. He decides to label people before they can label him, but he may have more in common with the loner and cheerleader than he thinks.

Wanda Jaynes is about to lose her job amidst a mountain of bills, and she suspects her musician boyfriend might be romantically interested in her friend, Trish. But Wanda’s life changes radically on a routine trip to the grocery store when a gunman enters the supermarket and opens fire. When Wanda comes face to face with the shooter, she instinctively hurls a can of coconut milk at his head and knocks him unconscious. In the ensuing media storm, she’s hailed as a hero and miracle worker.

For the first time in thirty years, all the signs have returned to the waters off The Shores. Signs of a presumed gone, possibly legendary giant cod. A photograph is the only evidence the big one ever existed. The Shores's mysterious Abel Mack almost landed the most giant of the giant cod the last time they appeared. At all costs, two powerful men with competing interests are after the biggest cod. They are closing in on The Shores - but the fisherman is missing. Ninety-year-old Abel Mack has disappeared. At the best of times, Abel is there one minute, gone the next.