National Network for Equitable Library Service

In a rehabilitation center for disabled children, twelve-year-old Nora says she loves the color pink and chewing gum and explains that the wheels of her wheelchair are like her legs. Eleven-year-old Mohammad describes how his house was demolished by soldiers. And we meet twelve-year-old Salam, whose older sister walked into a store in Jerusalem and blew herself up, killing herself and two people, and injuring twenty others. All these children live both ordinary and extraordinary lives. They argue with their siblings. They dream about their wishes for the future.

"[The Groundwork Guides] are excellent books, mandatory for school libraries and the increasing body of young people prepared to take ownership of the situations and problems previous generations have left them." -- Globe and Mail Hip hop is arguably the predominant global youth subculture of this generation. In this book Dalton Higgins takes vivid snapshots of the hip hop scenes in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and more.

Joint winner of the South Asia Book Award, longlisted for the Children's Literature Roundtables of Canada Information Book Award, selected for the IRA Notable Books for a Global Society List, the Bankstreet College of Education's Best Children’s Books of the Year 2013, the USBBY Outstanding International Book List, and the CCBC Choices List Since its publication in 2000, hundreds of thousands of children all over the world have read and loved The Breadwinner.

"[The Groundwork Guides] are excellent books, mandatory for school libraries and the increasing body of young people prepared to take ownership of the situations and problems previous generations have left them." -- Globe and Mail Twenty-seven million people -- young and old, men and women -- are locked in bondage worldwide. Slavery Today traces the products created by this inhuman system from the jungle and farm through the global markets and into our lives and homes.

"[The Groundwork Guides] are excellent books, mandatory for school libraries and the increasing body of young people prepared to take ownership of the situations and problems previous generations have left them." -- Globe and Mail Some view the systematic killing, rape and destruction of homes in Darfur as a grave humanitarian crisis. For others, it’s a clear example of the ultimate crime against humanity -- genocide. Who is right? What is genocide? What is the impact on humanity of wiping out entire groups of people?

"[The Groundwork Guides] are excellent books, mandatory for school libraries and the increasing body of young people prepared to take ownership of the situations and problems previous generations have left them." -- Globe and Mail Too many of us have no choice about the type of news we receive. Too many of us remain ignorant of major issues and diverse opinions because the news isn't providing them. Over the past twenty years the news media has become more restricted, less diverse and of steadily declining quality.

"[The Groundwork Guides] are excellent books, mandatory for school libraries and the increasing body of young people prepared to take ownership of the situations and problems previous generations have left them." -- Globe and Mail Today, more people live in cities than in rural areas. The search for better housing, transit, economic opportunity, and security within neighbourhoods forces today's city-dwellers -- in both the developed world and in megacities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America -- to confront what it means to live in our urban world.

"[The Groundwork Guides] are excellent books, mandatory for school libraries and the increasing body of young people prepared to take ownership of the situations and problems previous generations have left them." -- Globe and Mail Think Africa, and many people think of brutal war, endless famine, pervasive corruption, unworthy rulers, universal poverty, an AIDS epidemic out of control. As this book in the Groundwork Guides series shows, these characteristics are both true and a caricature at the same time.

"[The Groundwork Guides] are excellent books, mandatory for school libraries and the increasing body of young people prepared to take ownership of the situations and problems previous generations have left them." -- Globe and Mail Pornography addresses a very important issue in a rational, analytical manner. Society tells us that we aren't supposed to look at pornography -- much less talk publicly about it -- but the Internet has created unprecedented access to porn over the last few years.

A Booklist Editors’ Choice and a Society of School Librarians International (SSLI) Honor Book Street gangs have exploded worldwide. Tattoos, baggy pants, tagging, gangsta style, the unspoken threat -- it's all just around the corner in most of the world's major cities. From the streets of Los Angeles to the shantytowns of Cape Town, hundreds of thousands of "at risk" youth are deciding whether they should join their local gang.