National Network for Equitable Library Service

A brutal serial killer is murdering women in Vancouver's West End. On a seemingly insane rampage, he leaves their headless bodies to be found and writes taunting letters to the police. It soon becomes apparent that all his victims are members of the neighborhood fitness center. Sebastian Casey, a reporter with the weekly community newspaper, has just begun to work out at the center. As he gets to know some of the others who use the facility, Casey finds himself drawn into the search for the killer.

Since moving hundreds of miles to a new school, Daria has become increasingly dependent on her cell phone. Texts, Facebook and phone calls are her only connection to her friends in Calgary, and Daria needs to know everything that is going on at home to feel connected to her old life. Her cell phone habit looks a lot like addiction to her mother and to her new friend Cleo. Daria dismisses the idea of technology addiction as foolish until her habit puts a life in danger.

Dinah Galloway, budding diva, enthusiastic gourmand and amateur detective, is back. This time she has taken to the high seas with a gig in the lounge of an Alaska-bound cruise ship. Also aboard are her mother and her older sister Madge, a moody professor of First Nations art, an elderly woman with romantic intentions toward an even older man, an aspiring thief with gooseberry-colored eyes, and a priceless Native mask that seems to be attracting far too much attention. Also on the ship is Talbot St. John, class heartthrob, with whom Dinah has a running feud.

More than anything, Max wants to play hockey like he used to. But since the death of his dad, Max has to take his special-needs brother, Duncan, with him everywhere he goes. The team needs Max to win an upcoming game, but one practice with Duncan makes it clear that it’s not safe to leave him unattended on the sidelines. With only a week to figure out how he can play in the big game, Max is feeling the pressure. Will he find a way to be a good teammate, a good brother and a good son? Or is it too much for one kid?

The year is 1909 and Joseph has just immigrated to the United States from Russia. He thinks that life in New York City will be wonderful, but he has not bargained for the challenges of learning English and of resisting the pressures to skip school, steal and fight to earn a place among the boys in his neighbourhood. Just Call Me Joe presents a full picture of life in New York City for the working poor. Anna, Joe's older sister, struggles to cope with the terrible factory conditions of the time. Aunt Sophie must take in boarders to make ends meet.

A sailing trip to the Caribbean might sound great, but sixteen-year-old Rachel can't stand being trapped on a small boat with her family. She misses her best friend and feels guilty about leaving her older sister Emma, who lives in a group home. Her father is driving her crazy with his schedules and rules, her brother is miserable, and there is never anyone her own age around. Worst of all, there is nowhere to go when her parents fight.

Life is smoothest for thirteen-year-old Ellie when she keeps her opinions to herself, gets good grades and speaks carefully when her parents ask her to settle their arguments. She feels guilty that she welcomes the chance to spend the summer in another city with her mother's older sister, Jeanette. Ellie makes a new friend and learns to play an Argentine instrument called the bandoneón, which she finds in her aunt’s basement.

Sixteen-year-old Sid barely remembers his birth mother and has no idea who his father was. Raised on an idyllic island by loving foster parents, Sid would be content to stay there forever, drawing, riding his bike, hanging out with his friend Chloe and helping out with Fariza, a newly arrived foster child. But when a stranger named Phil arrives on the island with disturbing news about his birth family – including a troubled younger brother – Sid leaves all that is familiar to help find the sibling he didn't know existed.

Nicole Patterson is a young, green and very eager probationary constable with the Ontario Provincial Police. Although she spends much of her time breaking up bar fights, giving out traffic tickets and finding lost kids, she dreams of one day becoming a detective. Late one bitterly cold winter night, she comes across the body of a young woman lying on the edge of a snow-covered field on the outskirts of town. The girl appears to have been strangled. Nicole recognizes the victim as a local high school student with a somewhat sullied reputation, the daughter of the town drunk.

At the end of The True Story of George, George, a small plastic man, went for a ride on a rocket and flew apart. Now, with Katie and Mackenzie’s help, all his parts must find each other. But his head has been frozen deep in a bag of blackberries. Will he ever be whole again?