National Network for Equitable Library Service

2016 Speaker's Book Award — Shortlisted 2016 Heritage Toronto Book Award — Nominated An account of the women working in high-security, dangerous conditions making bombs in Toronto during the Second World War. What was it like to work in a Canadian Second World War munitions factory? What were working conditions like? Did anyone die? Just how closely did female employees embody the image of “Rosie the Riveter” so popularly advertised to promote factory work in war propaganda posters?

This special 3-book bundle collects three masterful novel by one of Canada’s finest writers of literary fiction. A Certain Mr. Takahashi: To Mrs. Hopper, Yoshi Takahashi may be just another name from her daughters’ past, but for Jean and her sister, Colette, he stands for much more. Years ago, Mr. Takahashi moved into their Toronto neighbourhood and sent the adolescent lives of Jean and Colette into a tailspin. They weren’t content merely to befriend the Japanese pianist - in their infatuation they sought to mirror his life as closely as possible.

With murder, everyone pays a price ... Why would a killer ignore expensive jewellery and take a pair of turtledoves as the only bounty? This is only one of the questions that piques Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune’s interest after a senior attaché with the Mexican Consulate is found murdered alongside the director of a local bird sanctuary. The fact that the director’s death has opened up a full-time research position studying birds hasn’t eluded Jejeune either. Could this be the escape from policing that the celebrated detective has been seeking?

In Hate Cell, thirteen-year-old Casey Templeton has recently moved to the southeastern Alberta town of Richford. One night Casey seeks refuge from a snowstorm in an abandoned farmhouse and stumbles upon his nearly frozen, unconscious science teacher, Mr. Deverell. Casey attempts to revive his teacher and searches the house for something to make a fire. In the attic he makes a frightening discovery — an office filled with computers, a printer, and racist posters and flyers!

After fifty years of guilt over his brother’s brutal murder in Civil Rights–era Mississippi, Warren Williams decides to renews his fight to bring the men responsible to justice. His efforts put him face -to- face with one of the murderers, Earl Olsen, in a remote Ontario town, where a contest of wits will end in death. One Night in Mississippi is the story of a young activist named Graden Williams, who was brutally murdered in Mississippi during the sixties.

As the old saying goes, "You can pick your friends, but not your relatives." In tranquil Northumberland County, Ontario, two families are well acquainted with the grim truth of that innocuous-sounding expression. They are the descendants of the first, and only, man executed in Northumberland's history. In a sordid true-crime tale of poison and philandering in 1850s Ontario, the respected Dr. William Henry King astonished the countryside with the sinister murder of his wife and with his subsequent attempts to evade justice.

The Class of 2000 held one final party in the old gym before the high school was abandoned and boarded up. At midnight, the school emptied for the last time. Or so everyone believed. Fifteen years later, the building is scheduled for demolition. When a salvage team discovers a skeleton curled up in a locker, a hole in the left temple, Lockport’s chief of police, Neil Redfern, is called in to investigate. When Redfern learns that his girlfriend, Bliss Moonbeam Cornwall, also graduated that fateful year, he reveals details of the grisly discovery.

Seventeen-year-old Gwen is settling into her new home in Oregon and looking forward to senior year when she is kidnapped by Kian, who warns her that she is in terrible danger. An ancient war was fought between magical Celtic warriors and three evil magicians, who are alive and well and need Gwen’s magic to regain their power. If they succeed, they’ll be unstoppable. To save the world, Gwen must unlock the magic trapped in her memories of a past life in Britannia. As Gwen starts to recover her lost memories, she suffers the consequences of a divided soul.

This three-book bundle collects the adventures of 12-year-old adventurer and bone expert Peggy Henderson. In Reading the Bones, due to circumstances beyond her control, Peggy has to move to the quiet town of Crescent Beach, B.C., to live with her aunt and uncle. She learns that her home and the entire seaside town were built on top of a 5,000-year-old Coast Salish fishing village. With the help of an elderly archaeologist, Peggy comes to know the ancient storyteller buried in her yard in a way that few others can – by reading the bones.

This special two-book bundle collects the adventures in crime of opera star Marta Hendriks. In The Fallen One, Marta is onstage at the Metropolitan Opera in New York when she learns of her beloved husband’s death in a house fire. Fast-forward two years and countless therapy sessions, Marta is ready to resume her career. In a stroke of luck, she’s hired at the last moment to sing Violetta for the Paris Opera. She manages to keep her emotions under tight control and triumphs in the opening-night performance. During one of her rare days off, Marta spots someone: her husband.