National Network for Equitable Library Service

Charlie loves the bright red purse that his grandmother let him have. One day, he decides to take it to school. First his father, then his friends, and even the crossing guard question him about his “strange” choice. After all, boys don’t carry purses. They point out that they, too, have things they like, but that doesn’t mean they go out in public wearing them. But Charlie isn’t deterred.   Before long, his unselfconscious determination to carry a purse starts to affect those around him.

Life in the high Arctic is beautifully captured in this classic picture book, read aloud in digital form by award-winning Inuit author Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak. The year is 1955 and Arvaarluk and his friends watch as Rocky Parsons lands his plane on the ice in Repulse Bay, a tiny community “smack dab on the Arctic Circle.”  Having never seen trees before, the children try to guess what the six green spindly things are that Rocky delivers.

Even Joshua Bell makes mistakes, but there is always a second chance. As a young student of the violin, Joshua Bell learns about an international competition to be held in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He chooses a piece of music, which his teacher suggests may be too difficult, but Joshua is determined. It’s a piece of music he loves. At the competition, Joshua experiences the usual jitters. Once his name is called, he strides to the stage and begins to play, but almost immediately, he makes a mistake. As he is about to walk off the stage, he asks the judges if could try again.

Thomas would do anything to make his mother come back. On his fifth birthday, Thomas’s mother left, and he hasn’t seen her since. The last thing he remembers is her making a delicious dish of poutine for his birthday. Into the concoction of French fries, gravy and melted cheese curds, she stuck five green candles for him to blow out. On the day of this twelfth birthday, Thomas comes up with the idea of setting a Guinness world record for the biggest poutine in the world. Maybe then, his mother will come back and his emotionally distant father will pay attention to him.

A hilarious portrait of a modern, mostly happy family, in all its glorious messiness. Meet the Figgs. June, the family's matriarch, looks forward to a quiet retirement--if only she can get her three adult children to finally, finally, move out of the house. But her dreams are shattered when her son Derek unexpectedly becomes a single father. Now there's a newborn baby at home, and Derek's older siblings are showing no sign of going anywhere either. In the midst of the chaos, June's husband, Randy, has a shocking revelation--he has another son, who was given up for adoption.

Welcome to the tiny villages of Eldorado and Elkville, in the shadow of the glacial Valhalla mountain range. Everyone knows everyone and the place is wall-to-wall with lovable, weird and wacky eccentrics, many of them refugees from the Sixties and Seventies. A close-knit community, where you're as likely to encounter angry loggers as aging hippies. The central character, a journalist named Roy Breen, is nearly worn out after 15 years working at a big city daily newspaper.

The first time Brian Guillemot ever spoke to his mother, he was thirty years old, reading a European re-imagining of the X-Men and sitting on the john. An adopted only child, Brian "Gumbo" Guillemot's teenage hobby was searching for his birth parents. But when he finally finds his birth mother, Kim, he's unprepared for the instant family that comes with her. No one knows anything about Brian's birth father and Kim's penchant for divulging too much information disappears whenever he is mentioned.

Cobra Clutch is a murder mystery set in the world of independent pro-wrestling. The protagonist, "Hammerhead" Jed Ounstead, is a former pro-wrestling star who left the industry due to a tragedy, just as his career was taking off. Haunted by his past, Jed reluctantly agrees to re-enter the pro-wrestling scene when an old friend begs for his help. When that friend is brutally murdered, Jed swears justice and becomes determined to find the killer himself as he believes he is better suited to navigate the pro-wrestling landscape in search of the truth than the police.

2016 Unhanged Arthur Award for Best Unpublished First Crime Novel — Winner When a phantom stalker targets her friend, Lacey McCrae’s crime-busting skills are tested to their limits. With her career in tatters and her marriage receding in the rear-view mirror, ex-RCMP corporal Lacey McCrae trades her uniform for a tool belt, and the Lower Mainland for the foothills west of Calgary. Amid the oil barons, hockey stars, and other high rollers who inhabit the wilderness playground is her old university roommate, Dee Phillips.

“If you like your crime hard and fast, Kalteis is for you.” — The Globe and Mail

Set to the cranking beat and amphetamine buzz of Vancouver’s early punk scene, Zero Avenue follows Frankie Del Rey, a talented and rising punk star who runs just enough dope on the side to pay the bills and keep her band, Waves of Nausea, together. The trouble is she’s running it for Marty Sayles, a powerful drug dealer who controls the Eastside with a fist.