National Network for Equitable Library Service

In these two plays for young audiences, award-winning playwright Erin Shields presents the challenges of friendship and communication. In Mistatim, which is based on a concept from Sandra Laronde of Red Sky Performance, two eleven-year-olds strike up an unlikely friendship at the fence between one's reserve and the other's ranch. On Speck's side, she's carved names of family members into the wooden posts as she tries to piece together her identity. On Calvin's side, he's trying to train a horse in order to prove himself to his father.

"She doesn't care about me; she doesn't even want to see me; she just pretends she does." Shy, fourteen-year-old Maddie wasn't expecting to have to worry about taking care of herself just yet. Her sixteen-year-old party-girl sister Bea has scandalously moved in with their mom's ex-boyfriend, and in turn their brassy mother Sheila has run straight to the comfort of another lover. Maddie is finding that an empty apartment is quiet and lonely, even though her time is normally spent reading comics in her closet.

From masturbation to motherhood, body shaming to burlesque, Catherine Hernandez reveals the reality of living as a queer woman of colour. Set to the music of her life, The Femme Playlist shows what it's like to be sexy and proud, slutty and loud, queer and brown. I Cannot Lie to the Stars That Made Me is an around-the-campfire guide to mourning and healing for women of colour, written after Hernandez and her daughter left an abusive relationship.

"I bore him fourteen children and he had me down here faster than lightning." In 1887, women were property and could be imprisoned for any reason. Jail was considered a place for the criminal, the disabled, the mentally ill, and the marginalized. In the basement prison below Toronto's largest market, two women named Mary-one a shunned, pregnant Irish immigrant, the other a vilified Mississauga woman-become an unlikely pair as they form a friendship within their cold, shared cell.

Two of the most produced, popular, and important Canadian plays for young audiences are back in an updated edition. In New Canadian Kid, Nick has just moved to Canada from a country called Homeland, where he is forced to grapple with his fears of a new culture and language as well as cope with classmates who taunt him for being different. After a series of confrontations, Nick, his family, and his peers start to learn how to accept one another and find a comfortable middle ground. In Invisible Kids, a group of children from a variety of backgrounds discover playground politics.

After Samantha's baba dies, her fractured family is summoned to pick through the house full of belongings and trash, leaving taped notes on whatever they want to take. Between old napkins, a closet full of ketchup packets, and a freezer full of rotting meat are gems like a grandfather clock and plastic deer statuettes that hold more sentiment. While her father David sifts through his own memories, all Samantha wants is to find a simple object that could represent her place in the family. When other family members arrive, tug of wars and passive-aggressive conversations commence.

Dr. Jon Lien is a risk-taker and respected researcher, working for over twenty years in the dangerous waters off Newfoundland to rescue massive humpback whales and save the fishing gear in which they're trapped. With his head down in freezing waters and armed only with a snorkel and knife, Lien saves the lives of over five hundred animals and earns the hard-won respect of Newfoundland's fishermen. But his toughest battle comes at the end, as his body is slowly conquered by a relentlessly progressing paralysis and dementia.

It's been over twenty years since Guy ditched his high-school sweetheart Gloria at the prom, and they haven't spoken since. Now he's a failed LA lawyer, divorced, and working at his brother's resort in the Muskokas. When a wedding conveniently brings Gloria to the resort for a weekend, Guy is determined to keep his distance. But their high-school friends Eva, Leslie, and Peggy, and Peggy's mom Jessie-the crew's former teacher-decide to play matchmakers and reconnect the long-split pair.

Mustard shouldn't still be here, but he is. Imaginary friends don't normally stay with their Person until that Person is a troubled teenager, exhibiting strangely violent behaviour. Imaginary friends don't suddenly become visible to their Person's mom and then go on a date with them, either. But Mustard is special. At least that's what he thinks. And he's not ready to leave his best friend, Thai, even though he's in deep trouble with some unsavoury characters who are ready to enforce some serious rules.

"When life comes knocking you don't want it to find you on the couch in a soiled bathrobe." Norm Foster's quick wit is strong in this lighthearted buddy comedy about living life to its fullest. Barry is annoyed that he's already living in a seniors' home at sixty-seven, but it's worth it to live near his daughter, Rosie. Rosie, who works at the home, brought him in so he wouldn't be alone in case he has a heart attack like his father, brother, and uncle did before they were sixty-five.