National Network for Equitable Library Service

Two high school friends take very different paths during WWII. The traditional Angie falls in love—forever—with a sailor, whose life is suddenly ended by a German torpedo, while her friend Dorothy attempts something unheard of in the forties: going to law school. Newfoundland during the wartime forties was hardly Rosie the Riveter Country. So, when Angie loses her sailor lover and marries the boy next door—who turns out to be a sexual sadist—she fears there is no way out. She turns to her friend Dorothy, a woman lawyer at a time when such aspirations seemed impossible.

Set between Kansas and Saskatchewan in 1907, this middle-grade novel follows a young boy who gets separated from his family en route to Canada and must find his way alone across the immense prairie landscape. Following the sudden death of his eldest brother, twelve-year-old Peter is chosen by his father to travel by train from Kansas to Saskatchewan to help set up the new family homestead. But when Peter's boxcar becomes uncoupled from the rest of the train somewhere in South Dakota, he finds himself lost and alone on the vast prairie.

A Lethal Lesson(#8). Back home in the Kootenays after her Arizona honeymoon, Lane offers her assistance when neither the outgoing teacher, Rose, nor her replacement, Wendy, show up at the local schoolhouse one blizzardy Monday in December. But when she finds the teachers' cottage ransacked with Rose unconscious and bleeding, and Wendy missing, Lane delivers Rose to the hospital in Nelson and turns the case over to her exasperated husband, Inspector Darling, and his capable colleagues, Sergeant Ames and Constable Terrell.

A children's book inspired by the true story of Jewish orphans who came to Canada to learn farming only to find their way to Carnegie Hall. Thirteen-year-old Jacob's life is hard in 1920s Poland, where he lives in an orphanage for Jewish children. His days are brightened by playing in the mandolin orchestra. When an American benefactor arrives with the promise of a new life at the Canadian Jewish Farm School--and even the dream of playing a benefit concert at New York's Carnegie Hall--Jacob and his friends are thrilled. But can they trust this man to keep his promises?

Roma meets A Gentleman in Moscowin this vivid portrait of the twentieth century, witnessed by one boy from his self-imposed refuge in Mexico City.Galo has not left his home on Amsterdam Street, not since the day in 1938 when a shocking act of violence split his family apart. His hermitage is made easier by the peculiar design of the street. It is shaped like an ellipse - if you walk it, you will find yourself returning to the same place again and again.

In the opening pages of this historical novel, sixteen-year-old Kate Harding is desperately trying to assist her mother who is about to give premature birth to a child in their home in the small colonial community of Victoria in 1861.The experience is gruelling for mother and daughter, and in the end, though a local midwife gets there in time to assist, the baby does not live more than a few hours. It's ironic because Kate's father is one of only a few doctors in the colony, but was out tending patients while his wife was going through this tragic ordeal.

The Byrne family is strong, but are being tested everyday as life becomes more and more desperate in 19th century rural Ireland, forcing the family to leave their homeland.

Jack is 14 going on 15. For the past seven years, he and his younger brother and sister, and his mother and father, have lived in a remote cabin on the Athabasca River west of Edmonton. It's the late 1930s, and the river is almost as wild and untamed as it was before humans began settling along the riverbanks. The reason for the Whyte family living there has a good deal to do with Malcolm, Jack's father, and what we would call his PTSD after serving in World War One.

Tulia May lives in rural Nova Scotia with her mother, who works in the laundry of the nearby Ideal Maternity Home. It's a place where unwed mothers can discreetly give birth, a place where adoptions by rich Americans can be quickly arranged. Tulia doesn't think about the workings of the home much; mostly she hates being roped in to helping scrub the endless diapers. Her friend Finny Paul has suspicions that the home is holding sinister secrets—the worst being that unadoptable babies are being buried in butterboxes—but Tulia thinks he's being ridiculous.

Two adventurous kids travel to the Klondike River Valley gold fields to see if they can find their missing father.