National Network for Equitable Library Service

The seated child. With a single powerful image, Deborah Ellis draws our attention to nine children and the situations they find themselves in, often through no fault of their own. In each story, a child makes a decision and takes action, be that a tiny gesture or a life-altering choice.Jafar is a child laborer in a chair factory and longs to go to school. Sue sits on a swing as she and her brother wait to have a supervised visit with their father at the children’s aid society. Gretchen considers the lives of concentration camp victims during a school tour of Auschwitz.

Wordplay and outrageous adventures rule the day in these three humorous stories from Margaret Atwood, with illustrations by Dušan Petričić. Now published together in a chapter book for the first time!In Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes, Ramsay runs away from his revolting relatives and makes a new friend with more refined tastes.The second tale, Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda, features Bob, who was raised by dogs, and Dorinda, who does housework for relatives who don’t like her.

Spud Sweetgrass and his friends Connie Pan and Dink the Thinker are back. And this time Spud is in some frigid trouble. One morning Spud sees a terrible crime. And he can't get it out of his mind. Detective Kennedy wants him to tell her what he saw, but he's afraid of the man with the most beautiful hair in the world -- afraid for himself, and afraid for Connie Pan. How will Spud find his way our of the mess he's in? Another masterful book by award-winning author Brian Doyle, Spud in Winter combines rollicking humour, chilling mystery, and delight in human foibles.

Up to LowYoung Tommy and Baby Bridget, the girl with the trillium-shaped eyes, discover that living, healing and dying are not always what they seem. And they make that discovery with the help of a wonderful cast of characters, including Crazy Mickey, Frank and the Hummer.Uncle RonaldOld Mickey is one hundred and twelve years old.

Finalist for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award Orphaned and plagued with the grief of losing everyone he loves, fifteen-year-old Abdul has made a long, fraught journey from his war-torn home in Baghdad, only to end up in The Jungle -- the squalid, makeshift migrant community in Calais. When an altercation at the soup kitchen ends up with him accidently stabbing a policeman, Abdul has to flee, and in desperation he takes a spot in a small boat heading to England.

In 1981, sixteen-year-old Sally McLean is in a car full of teenagers when it plunges through the ice to the bottom of Mistik Lake. Sally is the only survivor. Many years later, Sally's teenaged daughter, Odella, is left wondering whether the accident is to blame for her mother's life as a sad alcoholic who eventually abandons her family and flees to Iceland with another man. When Sally suddenly dies in an accident, Odella, her father and her two younger sisters are almost overwhelmed with grief and confusion, until three people provide help and healing in unexpected ways.

The third book in the internationally-bestselling series that includes The Breadwinner, Mud City and My Name Is ParvanaParvana’s best friend, Shauzia, has escaped the misery of her life in Kabul, only to end up in a refugee camp in Pakistan. But she still dreams of seeing the ocean and eventually making a new life in France. This is the dream that has sustained her through the terrible years in Kabul.

Spud SweetgrassSpud gets angry when he sees Dumper Stubbs, a creepy delivery man, dumping oil into a storm drain and causing terrible pollution in the river. When Spud blows the whistle, he loses his job. Enlisting the help of his buddy, Dink the Thinker, and Connie Pan, Spud thinks he has a chance of regaining his job . . . and stopping the Dumper's harmful activities.Spud in WinterSpud Sweetgrass and his friends Connie Pan and Dink the Thinker are back. And this time Spud is in some frigid trouble. One morning Spud sees a terrible crime. And he can't get it out of his mind.

Terence isn't cool like his best friend, Tom, but at least he's not a weirdo like Lucy, who sees life upside-down and thinks she's a bat. Yet Lucy knows things that other people don't -- about the gaps in life, and seeing things more clearly with your eyes closed, and how you have to learn to fly on your own if you want to survive. Sarah Withrow has penned a startling novel about extraordinary Lucy, who believes she's a bat, and ordinary Terence, who believes in believing.

Winner of the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award, and a Horn Book Fanfare Selection Old Mickey is one hundred and twelve years old. He can't remember what he ate for lunch today, but he can remember every detail of what happened one hundred years ago, when he and his mother ran away from his violent father to take refuge in the hills north of Ottawa. Brilliantly combining humor and tragedy, the award-winning Uncle Ronald is one of Brian Doyle's most emotionally powerful novels.