National Network for Equitable Library Service

This is the story of Levi Pepperfield, who tries to navigate his future while indulging in the sorrows of his past. With the intersection of parallel worlds-of age and youth, of teacher and student, of man and woman, of real and fictional characters-and the help of a female rabbi, a former student, and a succession of literary giants both real and imagined, Levi begins to find his purpose and gets a second chance at life. Perhaps.

Ninety-year-old Mitra has much history behind her. Young Sofija cannot grasp what her great-grandmother Mitra is telling her about life when Mitra was a young girl, growing up in a village back in Yugoslavia. These two are as far apart in their ways of thinking as they are in age. Inspired by a true story, Baba's Story encompasses many people and a vast geographic area, revealing differences in culture, time, and situation.

In the gay community, a young, husky man is known as a "cub" Seventeen-year-old Theo fits the definition perfectly, but he is very self-conscious about his body. So when his best friend signs him up for a cooking competition at Heat, the city's newest trendy restaurant, Theo is nervous. He's confident in his baking ability, and dreams of opening his own bakery one day, but he's not a chef, and he hates being in the spotlight.

After the death of her boyfriend, sixteen-year old Valentine stops going to school, quits seeing her friends and, finally, won't leave her bed. Desperate for her daughter to recover, Valentine's mother takes her on a trek in Thailand. In the mountains north of Chiang Mai, Valentine finds a world she didn't know existed, where houses are on stilts and elephants still roam wild. She learns about the Burmese civil war and the relentless violence against the Karen and Rohingya peoples.

Fourteen-year-old Tanya Kofsky is invisible. She hates that no one listens to her, at home or at her new school. So as student elections get underway, Tanya starts secretly painting controversial images on the walls of the school. Soon everyone is talking about this amazing artist with a lot to say. The election results turn out to be a catalyst for more rebellion. And not just from students. Teachers, tired of the principal's authoritarian leadership, start promoting self-expression.

The Occult Persuasion and the Anarchist's Solution is about a couple experiencing a mid-life crisis. The husband loses his job as editor of a financial magazine. Neither are happy with their aging bodies. He seems to have gotten by with charm and frozen emotions. The wife has no idea how angry she is with him for his detachment. It is her idea to sell the house and just travel. But he is not coping well with retirement, so he simply walks off a ferry in Australia and leaves her.

To pursue her dream of building a life free from violence for her son and herself, Yalda flees from her nightmarish past as well as her troubled homeland, Iran. But in her new haven, she realizes that nightmares haunt not only her past, but also her present and future. She does what she can to survive, but all her plans dissolve like the shadows and ghosts that follow her. Having fled from an authoritarian regime, and now living in a North America panic-stricken by global terrorism, Yalda is obsessed with all the forms and aspects of violence.

Preying on loving parents is second nature to Suzanne Foley. So is drinking to oblivion while shilling for the publicly-supported Alberta Broadcasting System (ABS). When new management from Toronto threatens to gut the station, Suzanne rallies reluctant coworkers to fight back.

Decades ago in Brooklyn, three girls demonstrated against the Vietnam War, and each followed a distinct path into adulthood. Helen became a violent revolutionary. Val wrote a controversial book, Bright Morning of Pain, which was essentially a novelization of Helen's all-too-short but vibrant life. And Olive became an editor and writer, now comfortably settled with her husband, Griff, in modern-day New Haven.

When Kimi travels to Japan to escape her problems, she quickly learns more about the mother she left behind and realizes she must figure out where her own heart lies.