National Network for Equitable Library Service

Living through the Nazi occupation of Holland and arriving in Montreal with little more than a film reel under his arm, Co Hoedeman had a dream to work for the National Film Board of Canada’s renowned animation unit. It was there where he became part of the vanguard in Quebec animation, launching a distinguished career combining animated film, writing and directing. Shortly after joining the National Film Board, he began to make film history with his innovative techniques and his films based on Inuit legends.

Robert Pasternak (NAK) is a virtuoso of the sequential art form. An adept panelologist and painstaking craftsman. Despite a loyal and attentive following, awareness of his work is limited. In many ways, what may appear to be a constraint is part of the NAK mystery and lore. The abstract comics medium is highly complex and only vaguely understood. For NAK, it’s merely a brushstroke. Yet, to define this artwork as abstract could be considered derivative. To the observer, NAK is ocular candy. Psychedelic sensuality.

With sensitivity and tenderness, Starkie Mak has captured a tale of the immigrant experience, from the eyes of a child. Masterfully rendered with careful homage paid to the children’s books that have touched the hearts of so many, Mak’s brush strokes and calligraphy evoke the turbulent emotions and difficulties a child must surely experience when having their little world upended, only to have a much larger and foreign world unfold before them. In a heartbreaking parting, a child says goodbye to her family and is left with her imagination as guide.

A bilingual collection of renga poetry by two of Canada’s most celebrated poets in English and in French, each writing in his respective language in response to the other. A project of discourse itself that explores Novalis’ definition of poetry as “the truly absolute real.” Léveillé and Blodgett share an unprecedented dialogue that possesses both paradox and complete clarity of word. Ce recueil est un échange de poésie dans le style renga entre deux poètes canadiens réputés, chacun correspondant dans sa propre langue.

A Chinese medical student, a Jamaican Tim Horton's manager, an Indian father of three, and a 17-year-old Syrian refugee walk into a curling club. It's Monday night at a small-town rink and it's the first-ever Learn to Curl class for new Canadians. Inspired by the local refugee resettlement program, community-minded Marlene organized this evening to welcome newcomers and "diversify the club." But when she slips on the ice and breaks her hip, the club's ice-maker, Stuart MacPhail--who also happens to be Marlene's ex-husband--is forced to step in as head coach.

In Better Angels: A Parable, Akosua Mansa leaves Ghana to work for Greg and Leila Tate in the tony suburbs of a metropolitan city. But she soon finds herself in an impossible situation: like more than forty million people, she's become trapped in modern-day slavery. Taking cues from the spider god, Anansi, Akosua will take her destiny into her own hands. Eating Pomegranates Naked examines two couples and their single frenemy as they scratch the surface of their relationships over too much wine. What do infertility, religion, toxoplasmosis, and ice-cream have to do with Tulipmania?

From biographer Joe Mackintosh comes a second work of non-fiction, an inspirational and heart-rending story of an icon in the world of running. As an elite All-America runner from Oklahoma, Chris McCubbins won the gold medal in the 3000-metre steeplechase at Winnipeg’s 1967 Pan American Games attaining a time that placed him among the world’s best. After serving as a member of the U.S. Army’s Modern Pentathlon Team, Chris moved to Winnipeg in 1970 bringing his passion for running, his enthusiasm for coaching and his rigorous training regimes.

The Desirable Sister uses the framework of "colourism" to expose the circumstances of two sisters who are born into the same family with two different skin tones: one with skin fair enough she passes for white, the other with skin dark enough that she is instantly labelled as Indian, and contextualizes how the women view themselves, each other, and are viewed by society. The novel starts by following Kasim Pirji, an Indian immigrant arriving to Canada in the 1970s. Later we later meet his daughters - one of which is granted immediate acceptance into Canadian society.

« Le Canada a engendré plusieurs héros. La série de la bande dessinée historique Personnages illustres du Canada met de l'avant quelques-uns des Canadiens qui se sont illustrés sur la scène nationale et mondiale, en contribuant de manière importante aux arts, à la politique, à l'éducation, au développement d'une conscience humaniste, à la culture canadienne en général et à son évolution. »--

1657. Marie, a gifted healer of the Deer Clan, does not want to marry the green-eyed soldier from France who has asked for her hand. But her people are threatened by disease and starvation and need help against the Iroquois and their English allies if they are to survive. When her chief begs her to accept the white man’s proposal, she cannot refuse him, and sheds her deerskin tunic for a borrowed blue wedding dress to become Pierre’s bride. 1675. Jeanne, Marie’s oldest child, is seventeen, neither white nor Algonquin, caught between worlds. Caught by her own desires, too.