National Network for Equitable Library Service

Briony, a prairie girl with a disfigured face, is adopted when she is nine by a childless older couple, Dagget and Moll, who appear mysteriously one day at her orphanage. They take her to their remote town of Crowsbeak in northern Saskatchewan where Briony, tormented by her schoolmates for her scarred face and dark skin, struggles to fit in. Briony soon learns that Dagget is in fact a renowned bush pilot and, partly as a means of escape, she begins flying with him.

It’s spring break, and 14-year-old Hannah Anderson is spending it with the “Coast-Is-Clear” program, a group committed to cleaning Pacific Rim National Park Reserve’s beaches of debris that has drifted across the Pacific from the tragic Japanese tsunami of 2011. Soon after Hannah arrives, Jack, her raven sidekick, discovers something washed up in the surf: a luminous glass ball marked with a strange Japanese character. Immediately, unusual things start to happen, beginning with the arrival of “Kimiko,” a Japanese girl with a secret past.

The Kingdom of No Worries is the story of three young friends who create their own kingdom on a piece of land that emerges in the middle of the river that runs through their city. Inspired by their actions to create a democracy that is a model of social tolerance and global thinking, the surrounding community turns out in the thousands to participate in what becomes a radical cultural hub of the city. Over the course of one hot summer the boys grapple to learn what a democracy is and to oversee its demands.

Submarine Outlaw takes young adult readers on a unique journey when Alfred, a young boy who wants to be an explorer — not a fisherman, as his family demands — teams up with a junkyard genius to build a submarine that he sails around the Maritimes. The book takes the reader through the hands-on process of submarine construction into the world of real ocean navigation, replete with a high-seas chase, daring rescue and treasure hunting.

In this fast-paced novel for readers ten and up, James Graham, a Canadian journalist, is kidnapped in a market in Buenaventura, Colombia, right in front of Marco, his thirteen-year-old son. When the kidnappers try to grab Marco, his father yells at him, “Run Marco, run!” Marco manages to escape, and seeing no possibility of help in Colombia, he stows away on a freighter headed to Vancouver where a good friend of his father is living and who may be able to help.

In this new collection of stories, F.B. Andre explores what it means to "belong." Frequently his stories portray individuals involved in mixed relationships, of different cultures and races or backgrounds, of people struggling to feel at home with themselves and their situations. Andre depicts characters newly arrived in Canada as well as those who have called Canada home for generations. With his wonderful ear for dialogue, Andre allows us to listen in on things that are deeply felt, and we are reminded that the unsaid often reveals more than that which is said.

In Jack Hodgins’ new novel, Cadillac Cathedral, he is at his humorous best in describing the eccentric but lovable characters in the little town of Portuguese Creek on Vancouver Island. Arvo is the main figure, a Finn who has worked in logging camps all his life and who now spends his retirement fixing old cars, often ones that he finds discarded in the bush. Along with Arvo there is a collection of friends who meet at Arvo’s garage to discuss the world as it passes by on the highway.

In Outlaw in India, the fifth volume in the best-selling Submarine Outlaw series, Alfred and his crew of Seaweed the seagull and Hollie the dog begin their exploration of India with a piece of bad luck when they surface behind a frigate and bring the wrath of the Indian navy down upon them.

Falling in love creates an enchanted time, and when it’s on the magical Sunshine Coast of British Columbia during WWII, it is never to be forgotten. The increased emotions of a country at war are always present, as well as the heartache as the young men who joined up to serve their country return wounded—or not at all. For Meg, who is seventeen and beginning to go to dances and to meet interesting young men, the time appears filled with possibilities. She longs to enter the world of adults but with an education that will allow her a fulfilling life.

This historical time-travel novel, for children ten and up, is the third volume in Cathy Beveridge's ongoing series on Canadian disasters. Once again we meet Jolene and her twin brother Michael, this time in an RV on the shores of the Great Lakes, where her father and grandfather are conducting research into the Great Storm of 1913. When Grandpa discovers a time crease that enables them to step back into 1913, Jolene embraces the opportunity but soon finds herself, along with her brother and a new friend, inadvertently on board ship in the midst of the Great Storm.