National Network for Equitable Library Service

Established in 1896, the Stuartburn colony was one of the earliest Ukrainian settlements in western Canada. Based on an analysis of government records, pioneer memoirs, and the Ukrainian and English language press, Community and Frontier is a detailed examination of the social, economic, and geographical challenges of this unique ethnic community. It reveals a complex web of inter-ethnic and colonial relationships that created a community that was a far cry from the homogeneous ethnic block settlement feared by the opponents of eastern European immigration.

In Working for the Common Good, Madelyn Holmes details the political policy work of eight social democratic Canadian women and highlights their largely unrecognized struggles and accomplishments. Throughout their political careers, Agnes Macphail, Thérèse Casgrain, Grace MacInnis, Pauline Jewett, Margaret Mitchell, Lynn McDonald, Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough worked towards curing society's economic and social ills. They raised their voices for world peace from the 1920s to the 2000s.

With incredible wit, wisdom, and thoughtfulness, author Lillian Zimmerman exposes and challenges pervasive ageist assumptions and stereotypes that continue to permeate society. She offers positive and inspirational messages in response to alarmist and apocalyptic ways of thinking, which equate population aging with exaggerated negative consequences on families, the economy, and the health care system. Her book debunks many of these socially constructed myths and stereotypes, drawing our attention to the many generous contributions that older adults make to their families and society.

Through Harlo Jones's eyes, we explore the prairie landscape from coulee to slough; watch the construction of the first buildings, with basements dug by fresnos, and walls insulated with wood shavings; and peer inside village landmarks, from that "most excellent of jakes" with the knothole that turned the structure into a giant pinhole camera, to his father's garage, scene of many semi-official town-hall meetings.

For many Canadians, the first introduction to Viola Desmond will have been was seeing her portrait on the new $10 banknote. Those who are familiar with her life Others know that she was wrongfully arrested in 1946 for refusing to give up her seat in the racially segregated Roseland Theater in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Her singular act of courage was a catalyst in the struggle for racial equality, which ultimately resulted in the passage of human rights legislation that officially ended the practice of racial segregation in Nova Scotia.

How We Go Home shares contemporary first-person stories in the long and ongoing fight to protect Native land, rights, and life. Each of the twelve narrators' lives has been shaped by loss, injustice, and resilience—and by the struggle to share space with settler nations whose essential aim is to take all that is Indigenous. In her introduction, Sinclair writes: “These are stories about returning to place, revitalizing culture and language, and re-forming traditional support systems.

Howard Pawley, former Premier of Manitoba (1981–88), led the province during one of the most turbulent periods in its history. Elected at the outset of a serious national recession, his government successfully implemented social democratic policies that ran counter to the neo-conservative trends that dominated the period, including job creation, labour reform, and human rights legislation.

Graham McInnes was one of many talented young people recruited by the charismatic John Grierson to build the National Film Board of Canada during the heady days of WWII. McInnes’s memoir of these “days of high excitement” is an insider’s look at the NFB from 1939 to 1945, a vivid “origin” story of Canada’s emerging world-class film studio that provides the NFB with the kind of full-bodied vitality usually associated with the great Hollywood studios in their golden years.

Jen Powley was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at fifteen. By thirty-five, she had lost the use of her arms and legs. Just Jen is a powerful memoir that tells the story of Powley's life at the time of her diagnosis, and the infinite, irrevocable ways it has changed since. Powley's writing pulls no punches. She is lively, bold and unapologetic, answering questions people are often afraid to ask about living with a progressive disease. And yet, these snapshots from Powley's life are not tinged with anger or despair.

Margaret Laurence remains one of Canada’s best-known and most beloved writers. Twice winner of the Governor General’s Award for fiction, she was, as the late William French wrote, “more profoundly admired than any other Canadian novelist of her generation.” Lyall Powers is both a respected scholar of literature and a lifelong friend of Laurence’s, having met her when they were students together at Winnipeg’s United College in the 1940s.