National Network for Equitable Library Service

About one million years ago, when Homo Erectus decided to walk on two legs, he must have sensed that things would never be the same for him again - -that he could kiss his old ape habits goodbye. No more swinging from tree branch to tree branch, no more throwing his feces around. He would have also been the first to admit that he wasn't quite ready yet for martinis, smoking jackets and Masterpiece Theatre.

At the age of three, Arthur Biyarslanov fled with his family from the war-ravaged frontier of Chechnya. Narrowly escaping bullets and a bomb that destroyed the car in front of his family, Arthur and his brother ran to the border and forded a freezing river to safety. He became a refugee first in Azerbaijan, and ultimately in Canada. In spite of these difficult experiences, and the trials that confront any child refugee in strange lands, Arthur thrived on the discipline and camaraderie of sport, taking up first competitive soccer and then boxing.

This is an enhanced ebook with a read-along function. Celebrated artist Robert Bateman is renowned internationally for bringing the natural  world to life on the canvas. A naturalist and painter from his youth, Robert has for decades used his recognition to shed light on environmental issues and advocate for animal welfare. Robert Bateman: The Boy Who Painted Nature is the story of how a young child achieved his dream of painting the world around him and became one of Canada's most famous artists.

Before opioids destroyed Grant Matheson's career, he was a pillar of his community. Respected physician, loving husband, devoted father, and trusted friend. Grant was a straight-laced kid who grew up to be a clean-living adult. No drinking, no smoking, and certainly no drugs. It took everyone by surprise, most of all himself, when he became addicted to narcotics in his 30s.

Adrian Smith was raised in what seemed to be a very traditional, Roman Catholic upbringing. His father, Adrian Smith Sr, was very religious. He had studied to be a priest and left the seminary only 6 months before his ordination. After he left the seminary, Adrian Sr then worked for 30 years as a child psychologist for PEI's Department of Education. He died at the age of 58 from a brain tumor. A week later after his death, Adrian Jr discovered that his father had been living a lie and that he was homosexual; he had kept it hidden his whole life.

The Only Film in Town is a memoir about the making of a small-town feature film with heart. When Stuart Cresswell of Simple Films Ltd. decided to make The Only Game in Town in and around Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, he did not anticipate the ups and the downs he would encounter, including the scrapping of the province's film tax credit. Inspired by his own family, Cresswell recruited young and sometimes inexperienced talent, and he forged ahead. His film is the story of Cormack Vertue, an autistic teenager with a unique ability: his super skill at solitaire.

Not all dreams have happy endings. Sailing in Circles, Goin' Somewhere is the funny, bittersweet memoir of a Prince Edward Island man who, over seven years, builds a classic 1930s wooden sailboat and, in 2004, attempts to circumnavigate eastern North America. The author leaves a small fishing port on the Island and tracks along the rugged coast, up the St. Lawrence River, and through the Great Lakes. Alone, he encounters heavy fog, near-collisions with freighters, mechanical breakdowns, enormous seas, several brushes with disaster, and even a hostile reception at one French-speaking port.

In this unique and exhilarating autobiography, Allan Jones - Canada's first blind diplomat - vividly describes how an untreatable eye disease slowly decimated his visual world, most challengingly during his postings in Tokyo and New Delhi, and how he discovered and took to heart the revelatory Indian philosophy that changed his life. Advaita Vedanta, the most iconoclastic and liberating of the classical Indian philosophies, profoundly altered the author's experience of self and world.

To most Canadians, the Molson name is part of the very fabric of Canada. Since 1786, when John Molson founded his first brewery in Montreal, it has become synonymous with beer, hockey, and philanthropy. Few realize, however, how close the family came in recent years to losing control of the enterprise. Back to Beer...and Hockey offers intimate details of the life and work of Eric Molson, who not only saved the company, but positioned it to thrive as a global brewery into the twenty-first century.

Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries in Europe, not all women fit the stereotype of passive housewife and mother. Many led bold and dynamic lives. In this collection of historical portraits, Maria Teresa Brolis tells the fascinating tales of fashion icons, art clients, businesswomen, saints, healers, lovers, and pilgrims - both famous and little known - who challenge conventional understandings of the medieval female experience.