National Network for Equitable Library Service

“My mother told me about the good old days of long ago, which she’d heard about from her own mother and grandmother, when our ancestors were rootless, roaming mongrels known as the St. John’s water dogs. That was before some Lord High Mucky-muck across the ocean got fancy on us and started calling us Labrador retrievers. When we were the old water dogs, she said, we developed our famous, justly admired webbed toes to help us swim out in the oceans and ponds and rivers and rescue people all the time . .

Ghost stories are found in every corner of Newfoundland and Labrador, and no one knows them better than storyteller and folklorist Dale Jarvis. In this collection of ghostly tales, Jarvis introduces you to old legends, including spectral Viking longships, encounters with ghostly ferrymen, and strange voices on the trapline, while exploring classic elements of local folklore such as tokens and premonitions, bad weather lights, and the Old Hag herself.

John Whelan, champion oarsman, has all but given up on competitive rowing. On the cusp of forty, the Outer Cove fisherman is trying to accept that his time as a rower has passed. His wife agrees, telling him, “Breaking your back down on that pond, that’s a young man’s sport.” But a fracas with the Torbay rowing crew in a St. John’s tavern rekindles his desire to beat his long-time rivals in the upcoming St. John’s Regatta. With the regatta just ten months away, can he and cox Watt Power assemble a championship crew in time? The answer is the stuff of legends.

From the author of the bestselling Far From Home comes an unforgettable volume of Christmas stories and poetry set in modern-day Newfoundland. While drawing on her own memories of growing up in outport Newfoundland, Nellie Strowbridge recaptures sights and sounds of the festive season that will fascinate and tantalize even readers from afar with nostalgic reverie. As an added treat, contained herein are her poems and musings on the true meaning of Christmas. This book is a gift of love from an author who holds dear to her heart the time-honoured values of family and home.

Bill McGill, a lawyer living in St. John’s, has been asking himself this same question for more than twenty years, since the day he saw—or thought he saw—something large and monstrous rise up out of the water and pluck a hapless seagull from the air. Today the memory resurfaces as his niece, Esme, finds herself on the wrong side of the law and charged with murder—one that took place on the shores of that very same pond. With solid evidence against her, and a dogged prosecutor bent on making an example of the young woman, Esme’s fate is sealed. But her uncle refuses to give up hope.

The legend of Sheila NaGeira looms large in the early history of the New World. And it stretches back to Ireland in the 1500s and an ancient crone, Sheila Na Gig, whose form still haunts church doorways. NaGeira tells two interlocking stories. The first is of eighty-year-old Sheila, a midwife and healer living apart from a settlement at the North American Bristol plantation in 1660. The second, a parallel tale, tracks Sheila's early life in Dublin's English Pale where she is caught in the crossfire of politics and tragedy.

Who says you can’t go home again? Sylvia can’t imagine why anyone would ever try. She had left rural Newfoundland as a scrawny, shy girl who was too smart for her own good. When she dragged herself home for her cousin’s wedding, she couldn’t believe how much had changed—or how much had stayed the same. Ten years older but no less fixated on an exit strategy, Sylvia returns to confront the person she left behind: her younger self. When she left, she was Miss Sylvia Pride, a fisherman’s daughter without an education, money, or any sophistication. Returning now, she is a different person.

Winner of the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award In his first year in high school, Hubbo O'Driscoll is torn between his poor but fun friends and the shallow but rich kids. In this novel based on Great Expectations, Brian Doyle does a brilliant job of dealing with the issue of class and all its implications. Poverty, social climbing and the connotations of each are presented through the classic Doyle blend of humor and gravity.

Shortlisted for the CLA Book of the Year for Children Award and the IODE Violet Downey Book Award. Selected for the Bankstreet College of Education's Best Children’s Books of the Year 2013. Readers rejoice -- Primrose Squarp is back! The wise and curious heroine of the Newbery Honor Book Everything on a Waffle is facing another adventure-filled year in Coal Harbour. Even though her parents, once lost at sea, are home, there's a whole slew of problems and mysteries to keep Primrose — and eager fans — busy.

Etseh, Etsi and their three grandchildren have just embarked on a month long canoe trip in the Northwest Territories -- from the town of Rae to Hottah Lake. They are following the Idaa trail, a trade route that the Dogrib people have traveled for hundreds of years.