National Network for Equitable Library Service

One glorious autumn day in 1894, a drifter attacked thirteen-year-old Jessie Keith so violently that people thought Jack the Ripper must be loose in rural Ontario. To solve the crime, the government called in Detective John Wilson Murray, the true-life model for Detective William Murdoch of the popular TV series Murdoch Mysteries. His prime clue was a black valise. The Man with the Black Valise traces the killer's trajectory through three counties-a route that today connects travelers to poignant reminders of nineteenth-century life.

Passionate and cogent, this could be the most important book of the year for Canadians We are complacent. We bask in the idea that Canada holds 20% of the world’s fresh water — water crises face other countries, but not ours. We could not be more wrong. In Boiling Point, bestselling author and activist Maude Barlow lays bare the issues facing Canada’s water reserves, including long-outdated water laws, unmapped and unprotected groundwater reserves, agricultural pollution, industrial-waste dumping, boil-water advisories, and the effects of deforestation and climate change.

An intimate and uplifting book about finding renewal and hope through grief and loss. "It was a terrible life; it was an enchanted life; it was a blessed life. And, of course, one day it ended." -Sharon Butala In the tradition of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, Diana Athill's Somewhere Towards the End, and Atul Gawande's Being Mortal comes a revelatory new book from one of our beloved writers. When Sharon Butala's husband, Peter, died unexpectedly, she found herself with no place to call home.

Four men in a rowboat make an historic attempt on the Northwest Passage to focus global attention on an environmental catastrophe. "Vallely transports the reader to places few will ever go: the very edges of the earth and of human endurance." -Evan Solomon In this gripping first-hand account, four seasoned adventurers navigate a sophisticated, high-tech rowboat across the Northwest Passage.

From an award-winning essayist and acclaimed poet comes this radiant, observant, and warmly funny memoir about childhood, family, and small-town life. Carla Funk grew up in a place of logging trucks and God, pellet guns and parables. Every Sunday, she sat with her mother and brother in the same pew at the Mennonite church while her dad stayed home with his cigarettes and a fridge full of whiskey.

How do you find yourself when the world tells you that you don't exist' Samra Habib has spent most of her life searching for the safety to be herself. As an Ahmadi Muslim growing up in Pakistan, she faced regular threats from Islamic extremists who believed the small, dynamic sect to be blasphemous. From her parents, she internalized the lesson that revealing her identity could put her in grave danger. When her family came to Canada as refugees, Samra encountered a whole new host of challenges: bullies, racism, the threat of poverty, and an arranged marriage.

Most of What Follows Is True is an examination of the complex relationship between fact and fiction, between the "real world" and the stories we tell to explain the world to ourselves. Drawing on his own experience appropriating historical characters to fictional ends, Michael Crummey brings forward important questions about how writers use history and real-life figures to animate fictional stories. Is there a limit to the liberties a writer can take with the real world? Is there a point at which a fictionalization of history becomes a falsification of history?

Public access to government information forms the foundation of a healthy liberal democracy, but because this information can be precarious, it needs stewardship. Government Information in Canada provides analysis about the state of Canadian government information publishing. Practitioners from across the country draw on decades of experience and hands-on practice to offer a broad, well-founded survey of history, procedures, and emerging issues--particularly the challenges posed by the transition of government information from print to digital access.

To understand why prisons are frequently overcrowded and expanding, we need to recognize the processes that populate them. How do societies decide whom to criminalize? What does it mean to accuse someone of being an offender? Entryways to Criminal Justice analyzes the thresholds that distinguish law-abiding from criminalizable individuals. Contributors to the volume adopt social, historical, cultural, and political perspectives to explore the accusatory process that place persons in contact with the law.

In this practical guide to the law for Canada's young people, Ned Lecic and Marvin Zuker provide an all-encompassing manual meant to empower and educate children and youth. The authors address questions about how rights and laws affect the lives of young people at home, at school, at work, and in their relationships and draw attention to the many ways in which a person's life can intersect with the law. Deliberately refraining from moralizing, the authors instead advocate for children and their rights and provide examples of how young people can get them enforced.