National Network for Equitable Library Service

On Cinco de Mayo, people celebrate Mexican culture. Easy text and full-color photographs give young readers an up-close look at this lively holiday.

For centuries Montreal reigned as Canada's most beguiling city. Inspired by the pages of the Gazette, Canada's oldest daily newspaper (founded in 1778), here are seventy-five true tales to inspire, amuse, horrify and captivate. Stories include humourist Stephen Leacock's flinty bitterness at being forced into academic retirement; a boat race through downtown Montreal in the dead of winter; a duel sparked by a society ball; and city-wide celebrations marking the end of World War II.

Heartbreaking and wicked: a memoir of stunning beauty and remarkable grace. Improbable friendships and brushes with death. A schoolgirl affecting the course of aboriginal politics. Elvis and cocktails and Catholicism and the secrets buried deep beneath a place that may be another, undiscovered Love Canal? Lewiston, New York. Too Close to the Falls is an exquisite, haunting return, through time and memory, to the heart of Catherine Gildiner's childhood. And what a childhood it was.

The early 1970s marked the beginning of Newfoundland's cultural renaissance. And in 1974, amidst the music, literature, and burgeoning patriotic pride, a young, upstart Reach for the Top team from Canada's newest province had eliminated competitors from across the country, setting the stage for a showdown with the defending champions in the final match. In Game, Joan Sullivan tracks the signs of a culture coming into its own, and the team that held an entire island in rapt attention.

This story of family and identity, migration and integration, culture and self-discovery is told through family history, memory, and the occasional recipe. Diamond Grill is a rich banquet where Salisbury Steak shares a menu with chicken fried rice, bird’s nest soup sets the stage for Christmas plum pudding; where racism simmers behind the shiny clean surface of the action in the cafe. An exciting new edition of Fred Wah’s best-selling bio-fiction, on the 10th anniversary of its original publication, with added text and an all new afterword by the author.

[This is the story of] Edie Murphy, an indomitable and engaging heroine who leaves Newfoundland on the cusp of womanhood. Against the backdrop of the history-making "Uprising" of 1909 and the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (1911), Edie begins to find her own voice, hone her already-strong will, and learn about the true nature of home. A celebration of the strength of women and the power of community.

Ian Williams's Not Anyones Anything is a trio of trios: three sets of three stories, with three of those stories further divided into thirds. Mathematical, musical, and meticulously crafted, these stories play profoundly with form, featuring flash cards and musical notations embedded in texts, literal basements, and dual narratives, semi-detached. Roaming through Toronto and its surrounding suburbia, Williams's characters wittily and wryly draw attention to the angst and anxieties associated with being somewhere between adolescence and more-than-that.

For years Bilal Hasham and his wife Mariam have lived contented, quiet lives in the sleepy rural village of Babbel's End. Now all that is about to change. On her deathbed, Bilal's mother reaches for his hand. Instead of whispering her final prayers, she gives him a task: build a mosque in his country village. Mariam is horrified by Bilal's plan. His friends and neighbours are unnerved. As outrage sweeps Babbel's End, battle lines are drawn. His mother's dying wish reveals deeper divisions in their village than Bilal had ever imagined.

Victorian England, 1846: A gripping and powerful story about one woman's incredible courage in the face of heartbreak, and a secret that – if revealed – could destroy everything. Six years ago, Bella Farrow lost everything. Desperate and starving, she made a terrible mistake that forced her to abandon her home, her livelihood and her family. And when the only person she trusted – her beloved, steadfast husband – was killed in a tragic accident, Bella was left alone. She had to make her own way, while keeping her past hidden upon risk of imprisonment, or worse...

Adventurer and TV presenter Alice Morrison takes the reader on three remarkable and inspirational journeys across Morocco, from the Sahara to the Atlas Mountains, to reveal the growing challenges faced by our planet. Accompanied only by three Amazigh Muslim men and their camels, Scottish explorer Alice Morrison set off to find a hidden world. During her journey along the Draa river, she encountered dinosaur footprints and discovered a lost city, as well as what looked like a map of an ancient spaceship, all the while trying to avoid landmines, quicksand and the deadly horned viper.