National Network for Equitable Library Service

Johnny Maverick and his friends play for the Timberwolves peewee hockey team in the small town of Howling. Tom Morgan has just moved from Toronto and is a talented player. Tom is also very competitive and seems determined to pick on Stu Duncan, who is slightly overweight. Johnny suggests a race between Tom and Stu. Tom eagerly accepts; Stu is reluctant but Johnny convinces him to trust his best friend's advice. On race day Tom is surprised by both the race and its outcome and learns that teamwork pays off.

Seven-year-old Leland has trouble writing, but he loves drawing. He so dislikes his teacher that he conjures up Delilah, an imaginary seeing-eye dog to help him into class each day. When a neighborhood painter recognizes Leland's gifts as an artist, Leland grows more confident about the world as he uniquely sees it. And when his family's cat goes missing, it is Leland's keen observation skills that lead to finding him. Leland's newfound confidence helps him both confront and sympathize with his teacher, who only wishes Leland could be a bit more focused.

Twelve-year-old Astrid has come to Ghana with her family in 1979 so that her father can help oversee Ghana's first democratic election. Astrid and her brother, Gordo, were told it would be a great family adventure, but they soon find out that everything about Ghana is difficult--the heat, the food, the threat of disease, the soldiers on the roads, the schools. Gordo fits in more easily than Astrid, who is often left to look after her baby sister, Piper, as their mother begins to fall apart under the strain of living in Ghana.

Daniel’s Crazy about Mac. She’s smart, funny, loyal and fiercely independent. The only problem is, when life gets too hard for Mac, she runs away. But she always comes back. Except now Mac’s grandmother is dead, their house is about to be torn down, and she’s been humiliated in front of the entire school. When Daniel finds out Mac has been saying goodbye to her friends, she realizes she’s planning on leaving for good. But can he find Mac before he loses her forever?

In the final months of World War II, ten-year-old Peggy shelters with her mother and baby brother in a London butcher's shop during an air raid. They survive, but their home and everything in it are lost, including Peggy’s most treasured possession, a biscuit tin of letters from her father. Their lives change dramatically and Peggy makes friends with a boy named Spud who has a passion for scavenging bombsites, leading to more than one surprising discovery.

Arlo thinks his mother is crazy for taking a job in a small town, far away from his old home and his good friends. And to make matters worse, the students at his new school are crazy, hockey crazy. Arlo has never laced up a pair of skates in his life, and he's not about to start. To avoid making a complete fool of himself in front of his classmates, Arlo joins a group of misfits called the Dumpster Dudes, who set him a series of wild initiation tests that unleash mayhem on the school.

The year is 1935 and Maggie Sullivan's world has fallen apart. Maggie has grown up in a close-knit mining community perched atop a mountain in British Columbia. But now her father has been killed in a mine explosion and she is being forced to leave the only home she has ever known. To make matters worse, she must also leave behind her best friend Lucky, the three-legged dog that was a special gift from Pa.

D'Arcy's dad is dead. She desperately wants it to have been an accident, but she is not sure. And when she learns the truth, things become even more difficult. Why would her father choose suicide? Why didn't she see the signs? Her father had always helped her get through everything in her life -- five minutes at a time. Can she do it alone? And then she meets Seth. When will things get back to normal? Learning to live without her father while her mother struggles with her own pain, D'Arcy finds an inner strength she wasn't aware of.

On her seventh birthday, Pauline rode across the lawns on her street followed by her best friend Henry, he on the blue wooden horse, she on the red. On the seventh lawn at the top of the street, she collapsed, becoming a sudden victim of the polio outbreak of the summer of 1954.Five years later, when In the Clear begins, she has survived, but paid a heavy price. A brace on her left leg allows her to walk, but she confines herself to her house, humiliated at the notion of being seen.

The city is cracking down on graffiti and guerilla art. Between that and cutbacks to the local art gallery it seems like nothing is safe. But Oswald, masquerading as a graffiti artist known as The Wiz, is fighting back, by painting elaborate murals in public places and planting art in the galleries, and then by taking on the mayor himself. As the fight escalates and the stakes become higher, Oswald gets in deeper than he meant to and needs to rely on his friends to get him out of his latest mess.