National Network for Equitable Library Service

For many Canadians, the small province of New Brunswick on Canada's scenic east coast is "a nice place to visit but no place to live," plagued for generations by outmigration and economic stagnation. In The Fiddlehead Moment Tony Tremblay challenges this potent stereotype by showcasing the work of a group of literary modernists who set out to change the meaning of New Brunswick in the national lexicon.

La démocratie représentative canadienne se heurte à de grandes difficultés. Au sommet de leur liste figure l'incapacité croissante du gouvernement national à remplir ses rôles les plus essentiels, soit planifier des actions collectives qui ont un écho dans toutes les régions, en plus de mettre ces mesures en application.

Caught Between Two Devils is based on the real-life experiences of Antanas Paskevicius, his wife Jadwyga, and his sister Maria. In April of 1944, their lives were forever altered when they were sent to a work camp in northeast Germany where they struggled for ten months. Despite the risk of betrayal, torture, and death, they stole a Wehrmacht truck in February 1945 and, along with other prisoners, fled and headed for Bavaria. The struggles of Antanas, Jadwyga and Maria are not unique; there were six million foreign prisoners compelled to work for the Third Reich.

How do we understand the boundaries of individual creatures? What are the systems of interdependency that bind all living creatures together? Plants were among the the first to colonize the planet. They created the soil and the atmosphere that made life possible for animals. They are some of the largest and oldest life forms on Earth. In spite of their primacy, Western cultures have traditionally regarded plants as the lowest life forms, lacking mobility, sensation, and communication.

In 2011, political protests sprang up across the world. In the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, the United States unlikely people sparked or led massive protest campaigns from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street. These protests were made up of educated and precariously employed young people who challenged the legitimacy of their political leaders, exposed a failure of representation, and expressed their dissatisfaction with their place in the aftermath of financial and economic crisis.

Starting in 1837, rebels in Upper and Lower Canada revolted against British rule in an attempt to reform a colonial government that they believed was unjust. While this uprising is often perceived as a small-scale, localized event, Revolutions across Borders demonstrates that the Canadian Rebellion of 1837-38 was a major continental crisis with dramatic transnational consequences.

Civilians play crucial roles in building empires. Constructing Empire shows how Japanese urban planners, architects, and other civilians contributed to constructing a modern colonial enclave in northeast China, their visions shifting over time. Japanese imperialism in Manchuria before 1932 resembled that of other imperialists elsewhere in China, but the Japanese thereafter sought to surpass their rivals by transforming the city of Changchun into a grand capital for the puppet state of Manchukuo.

An explosive book that exposes the abuses of institutionalization."How many brothers and sisters do you have?" It was one of the first questions kids asked each other when Catherine McKercher was a child. She never knew how to answer it.Three of the McKercher children lived at home. The fourth, her youngest brother, Bill, did not. Bill was born with Down syndrome. When he was two and a half, his parents took him to the Ontario Hospital School in Smiths Falls and left him there.

Indianthusiasm refers to the European fascination with, and fantasies about, Indigenous peoples of North America, and has its roots in nineteenth-century German colonial imagination. Often manifested in romanticized representations of the past, Indianthusiasm has developed into a veritable industry in Germany and other European nations: there are Western and so-called "Indian" theme parks and a German hobbyist scene that attract people of all social backgrounds and ages to join camps and clubs that practise beading, powwow dancing, and Indigenous lifestyles.

"What is the secret that allows L'Arche to exist? I'll tell you: pleasure!" explains Jean Vanier, founder of the international federation of L'Arche communities where people with and without intellectual disabilities share their lives. Vanier's spiritual vision and playful sense of humour shaped L'Arche, but the organization was also informed by its surprising history with the United Church of Canada.