Young Adult Fiction

Annie Berkley, a schoolmate of Shelby's who has appeared in previous books, lives in a foster home and has become depressed. Shelby is concerned and eventually wins over Annie's trust in order to find out what's bothering her.

Annie's mother disappeared several years ago, leaving with her boyfriend when Annie was 8. she was never in touch with her daughter again. But now, the boyfriend has returned, saying that he lost touch with the mother and doesn't know what happened to her.

Shelby suspects that something more sinister is going on, and as she digs through clues, discovers that the boyfriend knows far more about the mother's whereabouts than he's letting on. But the attept to uncover secrets puts Shelby and Annie's lives in danger.

Winner of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre Choice: Best Books for Kids & Teens

David Baird, a talented young rock musician, accompanies his estranged father to Wales. Fleeing after a quarrel, David has a bizarre motorcycle accident which hurls him back in time to medieval Prydein. A variation on the Arthurian legend, The Minstrel Boy introduces us to Merlin as a stern music teacher who takes David under his wing and a young King Arthur who becomes his friend. David eventually wins the respect of the town with his strange but beautiful songs, becoming a popular minstrel boy and quickly settling into the rhythm of this ancient society. Amidst a whirlwind of conflict and romance, David discovers a new path for his music, the source of his troubled dreams, and the heart he never knew he had.

Commended for the 2011 Best Books for Kids and Teens

Living in grim Depression-era Toronto with her actress mother, Frannie, Ivy Chalmers has never met her father. In 1931, Frannie sends twelve-year-old Ivy to stay with her paternal grandmother in Larkin, Ontario, while she seeks stardom in New York City. When Ivy’s father, Alva, arrives unexpectedly in Larkin, he turns out not to be the Prince Charming she imagined, but an illiterate peddler. Rescuing Ivy from her uncompromising grandmother, Alva takes her with him for the summer, wandering the countryside by horse-drawn caravan, selling shoes.

Back in Larkin at summer’s end, Ivy meets teenager Charlie Bayliss, orphaned as an infant and raised by his aunt on a farm outside town. Ivy has a flair for writing and boundless imagination, while Charlie loves baseball and loathes farming. Unknown to both of them, though, is a secret connection they share. When the final pieces of the puzzle of their lives fall into place, nothing will ever be the same.

In 1910, while twelve-year-old Addy McLeod waits in a cabin in the Kootenay wilderness of southeastern British Columbia for her brother, Cask, to send for her, she fends off the unwanted advances of her alcoholic stepfather. When tragedy strikes, she is forced to flee and disguise herself as a boy.

Addy’s determined search for Cask becomes a journey of self-discovery as she encounters a tough trapper woman who cares for her when she’s ill, works in a hotel in the silver town of Kaslo on Kootenay Lake, and meets her first love, Ian.

But just as Addy’s search for Cask is about to end, the First World War breaks out and her world is torn apart once again. With great resolve she devotes herself to joining the war effort on the home front and eventually learns what forgiveness is all about.

As the second semester at the Vancouver International Ballet Academy approaches, how will four maturing dancers face the new challenges that await them?

The Vancouver International Ballet Academy has opened its doors after the winter break, and everyone is back!

Julian is finding it difficult to concentrate on dance because of his family; his teachers think he could be great if he could just focus. Kaitlyn believes she’s the best dancer, but her body type is getting in the way of her (and her mother’s) dance ambitions, tempting her to lie. Alexandra is as focused as usual, but others don’t seem to understand how much time and energy she has to give to ballet if she wants to be the best. While Taylor is still criticized at VIBA, she’s getting a lot of positive attention from outside – especially from a recently retired Canadian ballerina who’s taken an interest in her and Julian.

Who will get noticed in competition and the spring seminar? Whatever happens, someone’s going to lose and someone’s going to win.

Maggie Davis is a young girl who lives in Chester, Nova Scotia, near Halifax, when her beloved Uncle Nick is killed by diabetes. Maggie's father, a doctor, is greatly saddened by his brother's death, and soon has to deal with his own daughter's diagnosis with the dread disease. Various remedies are tried, including starvation diet popular at the time, but nothing works and Maggie's condition worsens. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Banting and other doctors work night and day to perfect insulin. Will they succeed in time to save Maggie and thousands of others?

The discovery of an old Ouija board sends three kids back in time to wartime 1915 to help a spirit find peace.

Maggie’s life has been anything but easy lately. So when her best friend Gillian discovers a Ouija board in the attic, it’s a welcome relief. While they’d rather be at the mall than babysitting Maggie’s brother Cole, the girls figure it will be a fun way to spend a Saturday – asking questions about boys and other teenage dilemmas. After all, it’s just a game. Or is it?

Thinking nothing could possibly go wrong, the kids dive in, eager to test the new game, but discover the board will change their lives in ways they couldn’t have imagined. The trio ends up with more than they bargained for and are thrust into a whirlwind journey. One from which they might never return, if they aren’t careful.

Short-listed for the Forest of Reading Red Maple Award, 2012

Before you judge me, there are two things you should know about why I did it.

Shana Tremain is a good kid. She knows right from wrong and she’s never been in any serious trouble. But when her best friend, Carrie, comes to her for help, Shana agrees to break the law to save Carrie from a molester. She even feels good about it for a while.

Then trouble starts. Someone in their group of friends is stealing from the others. As she searches for the truth, Shana uncovers evidence that raises a terrifying question: Has she made a horrible mistake?

Faced with the reality of what she’s done, Shana finds herself trapped in a web of her own lies and deceit. Can she convince the right people that she’s telling the truth now? Either way it’s clear someone is going to pay a terrible price for her crime.

Ellie Quinn has spent most of her sixteen years behind the scenes, helping her father manage a crew of four-legged movie stars. Although she longs to be acknowledged as an animal trainer in her own right, she often gets stuck babysitting actors’ personal pets and is known around the studio as “the dog sitter for the stars.”

When teen megastar Kate Montgomery’s sidekick gets fired while filming a pilot, Ellie is forced to temporarily fill-in. The producers seem to be enamored with Ellie—and so do Kate’s two love interests on the show, “it boy” Logan Canfield and brand-new actor Cam Alvarez—causing trouble on and off the set.

Now Ellie must decide between living the drama in front of the camera or behind it. If she quits and the pilot fails, she and her father will have to close their failing business and move to her grandfather's lettuce farm. But if she stays on the road to stardom, it could mean losing the boy she's fallen for—and herself—in the process. Can she save the TV show and her father's business without losing everything else?

In 1909, 13-year-old Luc Godin arrive in British Columbia from Quebec only to discover that the house they thought they'd move into hasn't been built. So the Godins have to make due with living in a railway boxcar with three other families.

Luc's father and the many other newcomers to the Fraser Valley have come to work in the lumber industry. Their new home still has vestiges of the wilderness, and Luc and his family find find pioneering life difficult, especially as French speakers in a world of English. Luc's father, who becomes a teamster in one of the many lumber mills, is old-fashioned. Horses are what he knows, while Luc has an eye for the modern, particularly the new-fangled bicycles and occasional automobiles.

However an accident with a bicycle has profound consequences for Luc and highlights the clash between the old and the new, the settled East and the brash frontier.

Rosemary Watson lives in the small town of Clarksbury, where news travels fast and gossip sticks around. Years before, her brother Theo suffered a nervous breakdown, and Rosemary, now entering junior high, is constantly teased about it. She wonders if she might go crazy like her brother, and she feels guilty for not being able to save him. She tries to hide in books, but even there she’s uneasy: she can’t stand to see characters suffer. She’s happiest in the cool world of fact and figures.

Rosemary and Peter - the new kid in school with issues of his own - are thrown together, and soon find themselves on a life-or-death quest to rescue Rosemary’s brother, who has lost himself in a book. With the help of Peter and her guide, faerie shape-shifter Puck, Rosemary must face the storybook perils of the Land of Fiction and learn to open her heart, before it is too late.

Winner of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre Choice: Best Books for Kids & Teens

Seventeen year-old Nathan is running – running from his past and running from his present. Raised by a white mother and never having known his native father, he must cope with prejudice and stereotypes. When he meets Sally, the beautiful outsider, he finds someone who believes in him. But when Sally’s house is put to the torch by an arsonist, suspicion falls on Nathan and he finds himself embroiled in an intrigue and murder that threaten to drive the two teenagers apart.

For this young adult anthology, Ann Walsh has selected fifteen captivating stories written by well-known authors from across the country. Each contributor has penned a dramatic account of a real episode in Canadian history. From mine disasters to scarlet fever epidemics, from the Great War to the Gold Rush, these writers breathe life into the tales of our ancestors and tell stories only history could have imagined.

Life at home isn’t easy for sixteen-year-old Corey. When he sees an ad for a retreat called Camp Liberty, he can’t wait to get away. But Corey has no idea of what he’s in for, as he and his fellow campers are brainwashed into joining a racist Aryan cult. In the end, he not only hurts his family and friends but is also forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about himself. And there’s another price to be paid; the Liberty Circle knows he’s betrayed them, and they’re coming after him…

The year is 1927, and the Merril children are once again in school – but one that's unlike any other. For 10 months out of the year their school, set up in a Northern Ontario railway care that also serves as their home, is on the move. Theirteen-year-old Jenny Merrill loves life on the tracks, but she has a secret wish. She's fallen in love with a violin on page 244 of the Eaton's catalogue. But how will she get the money to pay for it?

Life is changing for Canada's Anishnaabe Nation and for the wolf packs that share their territory.

In the late 1800s, both Native people and wolves are being forced from the land. Starving and lonely, an orphaned timber wolf is befriended by a boy named Red Wolf. But under the Indian Act, Red Wolf is forced to attend a residential school far from the life he knows, and the wolf is alone once more. Courage, love and fate reunite the pair, and they embark on a perilous journey home. But with winter closing in, will Red Wolf and Crooked Ear survive? And if they do, what will they find?

Short-listed for the 2005 CLA Young Adult Canadian Book Award

Sixteen-year-old Simon has always been considered odd. Three years ago, a skateboarding accident caused some minor brain damage and made him a little stranger. His career-driven parents mostly leave him alone, and he spends much of his time living in his imagination. When Andrea, whom no one else can see, appears to Simon in class, he is fascinated by her and strikes up a friendship, even though he knows she may be pure hallucination - he's had imaginary friends before. Andrea says she is there to "help" him, but before the story ends, Simon discovers that it is he who needs to help Andrea, not the other way around.

For as long as 13-year-old Paige Morrow can remember, the tree fort in the giant oak near her cottage in Ontario's Muskoka has been her sanctuary. Now everything is changing. Its the summer of 1971, and she and her little brother, Toby, have been at their cottage with their mother since school let out. But this year, Paige feels more alone than ever. Her father has stopped coming up from the city on weekends, while her mother buries herself in whiskey and writing.

Paige retreats to her tree fort, but becomes concerned when the farmer who owns the property hires a creepy arborist – a "tree doctor," Paige's mother calls him. Is something wrong with the farms apple orchard or with her tree? When Paige befriends the arborist's troubled teenage daughter, Janine, and her group of rowdy locals, she is pulled into a maze of dark secrets and shocking truths that leads to a life-and-death confrontation.

"No one pays much attention to you if you don't have much to say, so there was no way I could have predicted what would happen when I stopped talking altogether."

When his teacher announces that it's time for the yearly class speeches, Griffin Maxwell starts to sweat. His past experience with the dreaded speech was humiliating, to say the least, and he just knows there's no way he can go through that again. So Griffin's best friend, Bryan, comes up with a solution -- one that's so simple it just has to work. But neither boy can begin to predict the bizarre chain of events that will be set in place when Griffin goes along with the idea.

From squaring off with the school bully to reading a teacher's private letters, Griffin Maxwell wil have to face things he never imagined, and all without saying a word!

“The Mirror Visitor stands on the same shelf as Harry Potter.”—Elle Magazine

In this gripping third volume of the Christelle Dabos’s best-selling saga, Ophelia, the mirror-traveling heroine, finds herself on the ark of Babel guarding a secret that may provide a key both to the past and the future.

After two years and seven months biding her time on Anima, her home ark, it is finally time to act, to put what she has discovered in the Book of Farouk to use. Under an assumed identity she travels to Babel, a cosmopolitan and thoroughly modern ark that is the jewel of the universe.

Will Ophelia’s talent as a reader suffice to avoid being lured into a deadly trap by her ever more fearful adversaries? Will she ever see Thorn, her betrothed, again?

“Ophelia is...the tiny-voiced powerhouse you can’t take your eyes off.”—The New York Times

Sarah Martin isn't the only outsider in her small Muskoka town. But when she's teamed up with Byron Hopper for a geometry project, she discovers that she's had an easier time being accepted in her new town than some long-time residents.

Byron's family has long been the subject of rumours. Some say that they are a mob family, some say they are part of a witness relocation program, some say they are just plain weird. But the most sinister rumour surrounds Byron's sister, Garnet, who many believed committed murder.

Sarah resolves to get closer to Byron to find out more about his family ... and get to the bottom of the alleged murder. In so doing, she learns that the family has another secret: they're Wiccans. As Sarah learns more about the family, she also cuts through popular misconceptions about Wicca and finds out what Wiccans believe, how they worship, and what values they hold dear.

The Hollows thrums with excitement when a famous student appears on campus. Follow Zee as she rubs elbows with royalty in Book 5 of The Zee Files!

Zee is getting ready to go back to school for spring term when the big news comes: there’s a new transfer student in year nine—and she’s a real-life princess! As everyone busily prepares for royalty to arrive, Zee can’t help but worry. She just got comfortable in England—how much will her life change now with a princess at school?

Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Bannon agrees to spend her summer as a camp counsellor at White Pine Camp with her best friend Ambie and her younger sister Leslie. But Jennifers summer in the isolated wilderness on Georgian Bay turns into a roller coaster ride of suspense and danger. Not all is as it appears, and Jennifer is quickly entangled in camp mysteries and the deep secrets of girls assigned to her cabin. There are mysterious after-lights-out activities and strange people who catch Jennifers eye, including a particular male counsellor. When Jennifer discovers somebody lurking in the woods past curfew, she knows that her first responsibility is to the girls in her charge, but she is nevertheless determined to find out what lies beneath the surface. What she discovers in the woods leads her to believe that someone is smuggling drugs and using the camp as a cover-up. As the summer heats up, suspense reaches a boiling point, and Jennifer must race to solve the mysteries of White Pine before tragedy rocks the camp.

For twenty-three years during the golden age of radio in Canada, stories for children by Mary Grannan, "Just Mary," were broadcast by CBC and beloved across the country. She retired from broadcasting in 1962 and died in 1975, but her sweet-tempered and humorous stories still have the power to entertain, while recapturing the atmosphere of another time.

Grannan published stories from Just Mary and Maggie Muggins in over thirty best-selling books, but she had other radio series that were never released in print. The "Just Mary" Reader presents for the first time a selection of her stories from two other radio drama series. Jubilee Road tells the adventures and misadventures of Johnny and Patty Little and their friend Salty Pickle. Or, as Johnny describes it: "We get into quite a few messes, but if you know us, you'll know that it's hardly ever our fault."

In Land of Supposing, Grannan retold fairy tales and legends from around the world, as well as a few legends of her own making. Previously unpublished selections from Just Mary and Maggie Muggins complete the collection.

Jessica Marsh, who is fifteen and "hasn't lost her baby-fat yet," lives with her mother on the top floor of a hundred-year-old triplex in Parkdale, a multicultural area in Toronto. Being an ear-witness to a murder is frightening, but when Raffi, a gentle black man who is her mother's boyfriend, is arrested as the killer, Jess is terrified.

While struggling to unravel the crimes, Jess is also dealing with other problems. She has been estranged from her lawyer father for several years, and Raffi's arrest gives her an excuse to reestablish contact. She is harassed at school. Her best friend becomes sexually active and runs away from home. And Jess herself has her own decisions to make about entering into an intimate relationship whe she is pursued by a handsome young refugee from Central America.

These problems are typical of those faced by today's teenagers. Jess handles them awkwardly, emotionally, and occasionally with considerable panache.

While everyone is busy preparing for the coming winter, two girls wander away from their camp, following a path of strange, beautiful stones. Each stone is lovelier than the last, and the trail leads them farther and farther away from camp. But what starts out as a peaceful afternoon on the land, quickly turns dangerous when the girls find themselves trapped in the cave of Mangittatuarjuk - the Gnawer of Rocks! Based on a traditional Inuit legend, this graphic novel introduces readers to a dark and twisted creature that haunts the Northern landscape and preys on unsuspecting children...

Avi Greenbaum is Jewish and lives in West Jerusalem. Moussa Shakir is Palestinian and lives in East Jerusalem. Both are 15 years old, live without their fathers, adore their older brothers, and belong to the same soccer club. Avi commemorates the Holocaust and celebrates Israeli independence, while Moussa mourns on Nakba Day, marking the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948. Their lives are parallel lines: they have everything in common and nothing at all. Each is oblivious to the other’s existence.

As Avi and Moussa go about their daily routines in the spring of 2006, they face reminders of the conflict that has dogged the region for the past three generations — the security wall, suicide bombings, police operations, and the looming shadow of war. While navigating this legacy of suspicion and violence, they must decide what their own roles in the stalemate will be.

Thirteen-year-old Darrell Connor is a troubled girl, still haunted by the motorcycle accident that took her father's life and part of her leg three years ago. She is not pleased when her worried mother sends her to board at Eagle Glen School for the summer.

But there is a sense of mystery at the school that appeals to Darrell, and as she investigates, she finds adventure and begins to form a few tentative friendships. When she stumbles upon a passage through time, she begins to wonder - is it possible to change her own past?

In this gripping finale to Christelle Dabos’s international best-selling Mirror Visitor saga, the mirror-traveling heroine Ophelia and her husband Thorn discover that the truth they have been seeking has always been hidden behind the mirror.

Ophelia and Thorn, at the center of a great universal game in which the stakes are life and death, arrive at the observatory of the Deviations, an institute shrouded in absolute secrecy and overseen by a sect of mystical scientists who secretly conduct terrifying experiments. There, Ophelia and Thorn hope to put a stop to the destruction and death and bring balance and harmony to their world.

“A hallucinatory marriage of Pride and Prejudice and A Game of Thrones.”—Matthew Skelton, author of the Endymion Spring books

Thirteen-year-old Casey Templeton has recently moved with his family to the southeastern Alberta town of Richford. One night Casey seeks refuge from a snowstorm in an abandoned farmhouse and stumbles upon his nearly frozen, unconscious science teacher, Mr. Deverell. Casey attempts to revive his teacher and searches the house for something to make a fire with. In the attic he makes a frightening discovery – a sophisticated office filled with computers, a printer, and racist posters and flyers!

Richford is harbouring a vicious cell of white racists who are targeting everyone they deem "alien." Somehow Mr. Deverell is connected to the dangerous organization, and so, too, are other residents, young and old, in Casey’s new town.

Soon the RCMP and Casey’s hacker brother, Hank, get involved in the mystery, but it’s Casey who leads the investigation into a warped world where hate is marketed on the Internet and innocent people are preyed on by bigots and bullies blinkered by their own prejudices.

After the success of Seeds of Time and Secret of Light, kc dyer returns with Shades of Red, the final instalment in the Eagle Glen Trilogy.

Darrell is back in the twenty-first century and back at Eagle Glen school. But her last trip through time was disastrous: her arch-enemy, Conrad Kennedy, slipped through with Darrell and her friends ... and apparently met his demise. But when the gang travels to the time of the Spanish Inquisition, Darrell discovers that Conrad may have survived. Her quest to right a wrong takes her to England during the reign of Henry VIII, where she becomes a confidant of the ill-fated Anne Boleyn. With lives in peril, the story dramatically concludes at the Tower of London.

Winner of the 2003 Ann Connor Brimer Award, short-listed for the 2004 White Pine Award

Martin Emerson's family, friends, and even his therapist have trouble figuring him out. He never showed much of a reaction to the death of his mother, and his behaviour of late has been getting more and more bizarre.

And yet, his website -- Emerso.com -- has made him something of a cult figure to followers who believe that, if not having all the right answers, "Emerso" at least has all the right questions.

Shoulder the Sky is a rarity among young adult novels - it challenges the reader with philosophical thought and complex observations.

Flames follow high schooler and aspiring movie star Harry Flanagan wherever he goes.

Despite a disastrous attempt at driving a bike through a burning refrigerator box in second grade, high schooler Harry Flanagan never gives up his goal of becoming a movie star or at least a stuntman. However, since the bicycle episode, it seems as if fires pop up everywhere Harry goes, earning him the infamous nickname of "Harry Flammable."

Now a shed at Harry’s school has been set on fire, destroying Work Experience Counsellor Shamberg’s new mountain bike – and Harry’s charred cap was found at the scene. Harry’s dream Work Experience placement with Pocket Money Pictures is given to another student, and Harry is forced to take a position with Chef Antonio at the restaurant in The Ritz, the hotel Pocket Money Pictures’ staff is staying at while filming a historical adventure flick set in China.

Will Harry find a new way into the movie of his dreams, or will he be forced to endure a placement he hates and an inevitable kitchen fire … or two?

TV stardom – fame, fortune, and Hollywood! It’s the chance of a lifetime for Kate Merriman when she lands a small role in a new TV series called Backbeat.

But it’s less fun when Kate finds out her best friend Maria has turned down the part she’s been offered in the show. They’re always there for each other. How can Kate succeed when Maria’s not there to share this new adventure. And why doesn’t their friendship seem to work any more?

In her first novel in the Backbeat series, Kathryn Ellis provides a lively look into the world of TV shows – and close friendships.

The Emerald Key is lost, and James must leave Ireland for Canada to rescue his brother and the treasure.

In 1847, after a confrontation with British soldiers, Jamie Galway awakens from a coma to find his brother, Ryan, and the ancient Irish text they had sworn to protect are missing. Jamie learns that his brother has been forced onto a ship bound for Canada. The ancient script, one of the keys to the secret location of a priceless treasure, has gone with him. On the advice of a secretive band of priests called the Brotherhood, Jamie crosses the Atlantic to find his brother and the lost key.

Unaware that Jonathon Wilkes, a ruthless treasure hunter is also on the trail, Jamie must find Ryan first, before Wilkes, in his desperation to find the elusive treasure, resorts to murder. Jamie, followed by Wilkes, must race across an ocean and throughout Canada to see who will be the one to claim the Emerald Key.

The highly anticipated continuation of the Starcrossed saga, the #1 international bestselling series. Perfect for fans of Alexandra Bracken and Chloe Gong.

            A fate avoided...

After successfully using a clever bit of trickery to avoid all-out war with the gods and defeat Zeus, Helen sets out to enjoy her final year of high school with Lucas and her friends.

            A debt owed...

But happily ever after eludes her. Zeus has found a way to strike back at Helen from inside the prison she devised for him. Growing weaker with every one of Zeus’ attacks, Helen scrambles to complete the three tasks she owes to the Titans, hurling through time on Cronus’ bidding.

           A promise broken...

But Helen’s odyssey proves to be more challenging than she could have imagined, because Lucas has mysteriously started pulling away from her, burdened by a secret that threatens to tear them apart.

Rosemary Watson and Peter McAllister think their future is clear: they’re finally heading off for university. They’re thinking about finding apartments, picking courses, living like adults.

But what happens when the future becomes the past? While helping Rosemary’s brother move into an apartment in Toronto, Peter and Rosemary fall into an underground river and are swept back in time, to Toronto in 1884. It’s a struggle to survive and adapt to the alien culture of the late nineteenth century. Peter and Rosemary are forced to work together, to live together, and to become the adults they’ve only been pretending to be.

As the days stranded turn to weeks, then months, Rosemary and Peter begin to wonder if they’re really ready for a future together - and what they will do if they can’t get back.

Then someone brings them a watch, powered by a battery, made in Taiwan.

Fourteen-year-old Jennifer Bannon cannot face another boring summer in Springhills. She convinces her mother to let her spend July at her grandmother’s cottage in Hawk’s Creek. She does not reveal that her plan is to live with her grandmother forever in order to avoid the problems back home. But Hawk’s Creek holds dark secrets, and Jennifer is soon drawn into the troubled world of Audrey Musquash, a Native girl accused of stealing and being out of control. In this tale of suspense and haunting friendship, Jennifer must face truths that will change her perspective on life forever.

In the fourth and final instalment in the Jennifer Bannon mystery series, Jennifer begins Grade Eleven at Springhills High, where her life is far from settled. Her mother has moved to L.A. with her new husband, Jennifers boyfriend moves to McGill to study pre-med and Jennifer fears their relationship will not survive the separation. She’s worried about her best friend Ambie who has been secretly e-mailing the biological father she has never met. This story deals with themes of belonging, friendship and loss. While Jennifer struggles to find her place in a family separated by divorce and with friendships marked by change, she must learn how to rely on herself.

Short-listed for the 2004 Chocolate Lily Book Award

Darrell Connor is back for another term at Eagle Glen, but is shocked to find that along with her friends Brodie and Kate, her nemesis, Conrad Kennedy, has enrolled at the school.

The memory of her recent visit to medieval Scotland is still fresh, and when Darrell and her dog, Delaney, investigate an abandoned lighthouse, they discover another route into the past. Lost in the magical beauty of Renaissance Italy, Darrell meets a young artist with fiery ambition named Leonardo Da Vinci.

Does Leonardo hold the key to resolving the tragedy of her own past? Ignoring the advice of a kindly stranger, Darrell embarks on a desperate journey to find the answers to her own fears, unaware of the price she and her friends will pay for dancing with time.

In this dark and moving young adult novel, sixteen-year-old Naomi’s best friend has moved away, and Naomi herself is starting at a new high school. Curtis, the artistic guy she likes, seems to be avoiding her, making her feel alone and lonely. On top of lots of difficult homework and an awful part-time job, she also has problems at home. Her dying aunt has come to live with her family, Naomi’s mother seems to be on the verge of a breakdown, and her Polish father is absent and unsupportive. How can Naomi overcome all these negatives in her life? Over three harrowing months on the eve of the new millennium, the story emerges of a young woman finding strength and of a broken family mending. The action and circumstances of the book are laid bare in a series of diary entries, not only by Naomi, but also by her boyfriend, her mother, her mothers boyfriend, and Naomi’s employer, giving the reader a much fuller understanding of what brings Naomi and her mother to the brink of despair - and back.

A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of "peace, love, rock and roll," and the Vietnam War.

It’s the summer of 1971, and fifteen-year-old Darlene travels with her mother to cottage country. This year her wild cousin, Elizabeth, is staying with them in the hopes that time away from Toronto will straighten her out – but Elizabeth has other plans. It’s her summer mission to torment Darlene by manipulating her friends and seducing every eligible male in her path. Meanwhile, Darlene is captivated by the mysterious strangers who rent the cottage down the road, particularly free-spirited Candy, who tells stories of traipsing across the United States with rock stars. Darlene is also friends with a reclusive journalist who will stop at nothing to pen the ultimate anti-war story. She, too, secretly dreams of becoming a writer, but knows that her father will never allow it. When the connections between the young strangers and the war start to become clear, Darlene is presented with more choices than she would like.

Although it is 1969 and the end of a decade that has brought tremendous social change even in southweatern Ontario, 14-year-old Annie Ward has experienced little of "love, peace, and understanding." A diehard Beatles fan and highly intelligent but lacking in social graces, Annie is still grieving over the death of her father and also misses Zoe, the one "best" friend she ever had, who has moved away due to less-than-friendly circumstances.

Lonely but proud, Annie has distanced herself from everyone, even her mother. then, amid highschool rumours of her supposed homosexuality, Annie is challenged by her guidance counsellor to confront her "problems" by writing about them. In an awkward attempt to make friends, she is drawn to a group of ragtag local hippies. One of them, Sweet William, is even more bereft than Annie, and not by choice. The 1960s may have jump-started a cultural revolution, but for many people the old prejudices are slow to let go. Still, perhaps "all you really need is love ..."

Eleven-year-old Josie Grun escapes from Communist East Germany with her mother and father one dark night in 1989 just months before the Berlin Wall comes tumbling down. Braving border guards, barbed wire, and rifle shots, Josie reluctantly turns her back on her best friend, Greta, and all that was once familiar. She crosses the ocean to join her uncle in Calgary, attempts to learn a foreign language, and overcomes the prejudices of her schoolmates in order to forge a new life. Clinging to the passion that has always been a comfort, her figure skating, she enters a local competition to prove that she is free on the ice and off.

The students of VIBA face a new ballet, potential scholarships, and increasing drama within the academy.

The students of Vancouver International Ballet Academy are preparing to perform the ballet Coppelia. A ballet about dolls, love, and trickery, Coppelia doesn’t have a moral, and neither do the rehearsals. If Taylor, Julian, Alexandra, and Kaitlyn don’t rise to meet the challenges this ballet is putting them through, they might not make it on stage. The dancers might be fully alive, but they have more than enough real-life drama to keep them busy. The casting of the principal role of Swanhilda keeps getting changed, but is it really about who’s the best dancer right now, or is something else influencing the casting decisions?

Summer school acceptances and rejections are in, but who’s telling the truth about where they’re going? And who’s coming back to VIBA after the summer?

After a shipwreck in 1809, Peter finds himself the victim of amnesia. The sea captain who finds the teenager gives him the only name he knows, while others derisively dub him Peter No-Name. Eventually, Peter finds employment in a Montreal tavern where he meets a French voyageur called Boulard who changes his life irrevocably.

Boulard works for fur trader David Thompson, soon to become one of the world's most famous explorers and mapmakers. Thompson is impressed with the teenager and enlists him in his obsessive quest to establish an overland "northwest" passage to the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia River.

With Thompson, Peter embarks on an amazing series of adventures that brings him face to face with hostile Natives and exposes him to the hardships and life-threatening challenges of formidable mountains and primeval forests as the intrepid outdoorsmen canoe, ride, and sled across a continent still largely untouched by European civilization.

On the surface, Peter McAllister has a good life: a good school, good friends, good times. So what if his best friend is a girl — and sort of a geek? And so what if she might be more than a friend.

Underneath, it's a different story. It's been years since the death of his parents landed him in this small town with his hardly-there uncle, but he still feels as if his life in Clarksbury is just an inch deep. Does he really belong? Only Rosemary seems real. But that reality comes crashing down the first time he kisses her — and she rejects him.

Then a mysterious woman named Fiona appears. She tells him he's a changeling — a fairy child left to live in the human world — and that it's time to come home. Can Rosemary convince him that Fiona is lying? Or is it possible that Fiona is telling the truth?

In The Ruby Kingdom, readers were captivated as Amelia Hammer and her cousin, Simon, and friend, Ike, discovered a secret gate leading from the small, southern-Ontario town of Dunstone to the extraordinary land of Mythrin - a world populated by dragons. Now, dragon leader, Mara, seeks the help of Amelia and her friends again. This time, a peculiar race of humans from a world called Cassar is searching for the Prism Blade - a legendary weapon forged at the beginning of time. Both the dragons and the Casseri seek the Prism Blade for their own protection; both the dragons and the Casseri fear the Blade falling into each others' hands.

Caught in the middle, Amelia, Simon, and Ike are also caught by surprise when they discover that the Prism Blade has been hidden for centuries in their own town ... and is one of the most treasured objects in all of Dunstone.

Fifteen-year-old Rowan, the daughter of foreign correspondents in Africa, finds herself beached for a summer with her cousins near Tofino, British Columbia. Desperate for a summer project, she camps on a neighbouring island to monitor the progress of an endangered group of sea otters, further threatened by the development plans of a real estate agent trying to sell the property for tourism.

Short-listed for the 1997 Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice

On the run from the authorities and the angry townspeople of Weasel City, British Columbia, in the early 1940s, teenage Loretta and her younger brother, Teddy, travel with their gambling stepfather, "Bean-Trap" Braden, as he strikes out in search of a good poker game in the Canadian and American West.

Loretta and Teddy try to adjust to life on the run as they shuttle from ghost town to ghost town, jumping borders and stowing away on trucks, sleds, and trains. As the children make friends in places like Butte, Montana; Spokane, Washington; and Ferguson, British Columbia, Bean-Trap creates enemies wherever they go. Loretta and Teddy try to persuade their father to keep on the straight and narrow, but instead Bean-Trap schemes to stay one step ahead of all the sore losers who are right behind him and hot on the trail of his gold.

When Shelby Belgarden's peaceful hometown of Little River is shaken by a series of robberies, suspicion falls on Amber Chapman, a new girl in town who has alienated others with her standoffish attitude. Shelby's own dislike of the newcomer is fed by jealousy as she begins to suspect a relationship growing between Amber and Greg Taylor.

But as evidence against Amber mounts, leading to her eventual arrest, new clues cause Shelby to question her own judgement. Shelby races against time to free her, and soon realizes that in order to do so, she must uncover a dark secret known only to the thief.

Lexie Malton is an average Vancouver teen with fairly typical issues. Her stepmother is far from her favourite person, she has a sister with special needs, and life outside the home is the usual mix of school, friends, and social events.

But Lexie has a secret. Her ex-boyfriend, Devlin Mather, is now a heroin addict living on the street, and only Lexie knows that she’s the one who put him there. Guilt makes her give in to Devlin’s demands for money time and time again, even though she knows how dangerous his drug use is.

Lexie finally gathers the strength to stop enabling Devlin. But when he seeks treatment for his addiction, Lexie finds herself drawn back to him, never guessing what a dark and deadly path she has just chosen.

Devlin relapses, and his desperation leads to an act that will change both of their lives forever.

Eric Zweig is a managing editor with Dan Diamond & Associates, consulting publishers to the National Hockey League. He has written about sports and sports history for many major publications, including the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail His non-fiction sports books for young people include Star Power: The Legend and Lore of Cyclone Taylor and Crazy Canucks. He lives in Owen Sound, Ontario.

Short-listed for the 2006 Red Maple Award Tom Blake is a likeable but shy high school student, who fantasizes about adventure, romance, and discovering "portholes" to the past. Little does he know that all are about to come his way. Tom discovers that a local computer company is conditioning his fellow students for what he suspects is some evil purpose. He soon finds himself up against a corrupt organization with an agenda of genetic experimentation. Mercury Man evokes all the excitement of the best scifi, fantasy, and hero myths while never losing touch with ordinary urban contemporary reality.

In a world where magic is common, people’s destinies are something they can only follow, with no chance of changing them. However, one girl decides that her life is not something others should own. Medani, a young ward of a royal family, runs away from her escort only to meet a half-demon boy named Siris. Together with a shape shifter and a poor pilferer, the outcast princess faces many obstacles in order to finally regain freedom. Along the way, she decides to trust even non-human comrades. However, what she doesn’t know is that all the secrets those strange creatures keep will bring a chain of terrific events that endanger not only the life of the girl but throw the whole world into chaos.

Logical to its core, The Sign explores the logic that holds everything in place. Everything that seems off and every event that seems too convenient takes on a different meaning as readers look a little deeper. Through the characters’ journeys, The Truth is eventually uncovered. But, it’s hard to say whether that Truth is better than the Lies that keep this world together…

Should a girl have to choose between a passion for fashion and prospecting for fossils?  Not in 40 billion years!

The summer before her junior year, paleontology geek Natalie Page lands a coveted internship at an Ice Age dig site near Austin, Texas. Natalie, who’s also a plus-size fashion blogger, depends on the retro style and persona she developed to shield herself from her former bullies, but vintage dresses and designer heels aren’t compatible with digging for fossils.

But nothing is going to dampen her spirit. She’s exactly where she wants to be, and gets to work with her hero, the host of the most popular paleontology podcast in the world. And then there’s Chase, the intern, who’s seriously cute, and Cody, a local boy who’d be even cuter if he were less of a grouch.

It’s a summer that promises to be about more than just mammoths.

Until it isn’t.

When Natalie’s paleontologist hero turns out to be anything but, and steals the credit for one of her accomplishments, she has to unearth the confidence she needs to stand out in a field dominated by men. To do this, she’ll have to let her true self shine, even if that means defying the rules and risking her life for the sake of a major discovery. While sifting through dirt, she finds more than fossils—she finds out that she is truly awesome.

Short-listed for the 2005 Snow Willow Award and for the 2006 Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award

Cole Fennety doesn't know it, but he is about to have the strangest summer of his life. His little sister, Jessie, is driving him crazy, his mother is too wrapped up in the world of daytime soaps to intervene, and his best friend, Wayne, is out of control. Worst of all, his boss, Sam Kerrigan, is the meanest man in town. But beneath Sam's crusty exterior lies a kind heart -- as well as a terrible secret that forces Cole to face questions to which there are no easy answers.

Legend has it that a paymaster lost his gold during the War of 1812, and Sam, Eadie, and Ben are determined to find it.

The Jackson family has moved into an old house on Commissioners Road near London, Ontario, and twins Sam and Eadie discover an exciting legend that involves their new home. Their neighbour, Ben, tells them that a skirmish in the War of 1812 took place right in front of their house, and that, during the fight, it is thought that an army paymaster lost a chest of gold that has never been recovered.

Sam, Eadie, and Ben decide to solve the legend and find the lost gold. But almost two hundred years have passed. How will they know where to look? What clues are there to follow? With the help of the Internet, Dave at the library, and some clever sleuthing with maps and a metal detector, they make some progress. But why are all the most likely places to find the gold off-limits?

FROM THE AWARD-WINNING ANIMATION TEAM BEHIND THE FILMS KHUMBA, ZAMBEZIA, AND SEAL TEAM

2024 YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens

2023 ALA Best Graphic Novels for Children

Pearl has always felt more comfortable in the sea than surrounded by the people in her sleepy South African town who always seem to let her down. But when a new friend from below the surface is taken by poachers, Pearl may need a little help after all.

Since her mother left, Pearl has spent more and more time in the ocean, fishing to help her father pay the bills. But when she gets mixed up with a group of illegal abalone poachers and starts diving near a restricted wreck, Pearl meets an ancient sea monster named Otto—who isn’t quite as monstrous as she thought. And when Otto’s enemies come back to finish what they started, Pearl is the only one who can save him, but only if she has the courage to let go of her past and open up to others—including the girl from class she’s got a crush on. 

With her one-eyed pup sidekick and a whole lot of nerve, Pearl may just be able to save Otto and finally tell the truth to her father… and, more importantly, to herself. With vibrant full-color illustrations, Pearl of the Sea is a South African adventure story exploring how we are both bound to and freed by nature, seen through the eyes of a tough teen-aged heroine determined to live life by her own rules. 

Mountains, travel, adventure — Amelia Hammer wants it all. Instead, her globe-trotting parents have dumped her in tiny, boring Dunstone, Ontario, in the middle of winter with her grandmother and her geeky cousin Simon. Simon isn't having much fun either, saddled with a sulky stranger in black leather and with neon hair.And he has to be nice to her.

But life in safe little Dunstone turns dangerously exciting when Mara comes to town. Amelia is enchanted by this tall, proud, fearless girl, but Simon worries that Mara might be mixed up in something weird. He’s right. Mara is not what she seems, and neither is the shape-shifting assassin who’s tracking her. When the cousins take Mara's side in a war for an alien world, Amelia has to spread her wings — literally — and Simon must find out how far he will go to save a cousin who has become a friend.

High school senior Hallie Mayhew spends her days traipsing from one lavish Montecito estate to the next . . . spraying ant poison.

Between her dad’s pest control company, her mom’s pond cleaning service and her side gig at Caddysnack (Santa Barbara’s premier small plates and minigolf destination) Hal puts the “work” in working class. But Hal has qualms about gassing gophers. She’s tired of ditching friends to skim dead fish from fountains. And she’s freaking weary of divorced-parent politics. So Hal has a plan: win the prestigious Verhaag Scholarship, go to an east coast school, never come back.

But the Verhaag Scholarship has a proud history of nepotism and a last-minute contender just crawled out of the woodwork. Hal’s parking lot nemesis usurps Yearbook Committee, depriving Hal of her only extracurricular credit. Her Montecito clients are in a defensive frenzy over a rash of estate burglaries and, if her jobs keep making her tardy, she may not even graduate. To salvage her scholarship, Hal needs the help of Spencer Salazar, the dim, infuriating (and kinda hot) rich kid next door. To save her college prospects, she must restore the natural order of Yearbook Committee. To preserve her graduation eligibility, she needs a happy first period history teacher. And, ideally, she’ll avoid death by doberman. Now, in her non-existent spare time, Hal is adding private eye, matchmaker, and rat commando to her list of side gigs and wondering—maybe too late—if she misjudged the boy next door.

"I knew one thing -- I wasn't going to be rotting in that place for the rest of my life. I was getting out of there. That place turned people into the living dead. In that neighbourhood, it was hard to hear anything that didn't carry the sound of defeat."

Sixteen-year-old Porter Delaney has his future figured out, but his nice, neat plans are shaken when a man he believes may be his father suddenly appears in his Toronto neighbourhood. Porter knows that he wants nothing to do with the deadbeat dad who abandoned him and his sister twelve years earlier, but curiosity causes him to re-examine the past.

Unfortunately, actual memories are scarce and confusing, and much of what he knows is based on things his mother told him. As Porter looks for answers, it begins to seem that all he's ever going to find are more questions.

Book Two in the Internationally Bestselling Mirror Visitor Quartet
WINNER of the 2021 Prix Albertine Jeunesse

In book two of the bestselling Mirror Visitor Quartet, “the plots multiply, the world of the Arks gains depth, details abound, and the story envelops the reader as the pages fly by.” (Le Monde des ados)

When Ophelia is promoted to Vice-storyteller by Farouk, the ancestral Spirit of Pole, she finds herself unexpectedly thrust into the public spotlight. her gift—the ability to read the secret history of objects—is now known by all, and there can be no greater threat to the nefarious denizens of her icy adopted home than this.

Beneath the golden rafters of Pole's capitol, she discovers that the only person she may be able to trust is Thorn, her enigmatic and emotionally distant fiancé. As one influential courtier after another disappears, Ophelia again finds herself unintentionally implicated in an investigation that will lead her to see beyond Pole's many illusions to the heart of a formidable truth.

In this epic conclusion to The Ables series, old and new generations of Ables must overcome their personal challenges and work together to stop a sinister plot to destroy all of the world’s custodian heroes.

For many years, Phillip Sallinger was one of the greatest custodians on Earth, using his superpowers to save countless lives. But after a personal tragedy, Phillip has spent the last decade living off the grid with his two children, Winnie and Henry. Phillip tries to ignore his powers and the increasing destabilization of the country, stubbornly believing he can shelter his family from harm simply by staying out of the public eye. But when Phillip is visited by a rush of familiar faces, they reveal the undeniable devastation of the looming crisis. The country’s leader, calling himself the Superintendent, has hatched a diabolical plan to rid the world of custodian heroes once and for all.

Finally convinced of the unprecedented threat to humanity, Phillip can no longer pretend that his family is safe. Actively hunted by evil government forces and dealing with a host of new and complicated relationship dynamics, Phillip must cut through the noise of his own self-doubt and join the fight to save the world one more time.

Short-listed for the 2004 Rocky Mountain Book Award and for the 2003 Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award and long-listed for the 2002 CBC Canada Reads People's Choice Book

Kataryna Baliuk, a gifted fine arts student, is hoping to have a fresh start at Cawthra School for the Arts after a less-than-successful year at the neighbouring Catholic high school.

But her hopes for a peaceful Grade 10 are shattered when she comes home from her first day at Cawthra and finds the RCMP interrogating her grandfather, Danylo Feschuk. Kat learns that Danylo is accused of being a policeman for the Nazis in World War II Ukraine, and what's worse, he is suspected of having participated in atrocities against civilians.

When the story is exposed in the local newspaper, Kat and her family become the centre of a media storm. Her grades in school and her relationships with friends suffer. Her only support comes from her family and Ian, a classmate with whom she discovers she has more in common than just artistic promise.

“A hallucinatory marriage of Pride and Prejudice and A Game of Thrones.”—Matthew Skelton, author of the Endymion Spring books

In this gripping finale to Christelle Dabos’s international best-selling Mirror Visitor saga, Ophelia, the mirror-traveling heroine, and Thorn discover that the truth they have been seeking has always been hidden behind the mirror.

Christelle Dabos takes us on a journey to the heart of a great game to which the all-too-human affairs of her book’s protagonists are ominously connected.

The distrust between them has been overcome and now Ophelia and Thorn love each other passionately. However, they must keep their love hidden. Only in this way can they continue their journeys toward an understanding of the indecipherable code of God and the truth behind the mysterious figure of the Other, whose devastating power continues to bring down entire pieces of arks, plunging thousands of innocents into the void.

Ophelia and Thorn arrive at the observatory of the Deviations, an institute shrouded in absolute secrecy and overseen by a sect of mystical scientists who secretly conduct terrifying experiments. There, Ophelia and Thorn hope to discover truths that will halt the destruction and death and bring the world back into balance.

It’s junior year in Quapaw City, Arkansas. With it comes a new foe that even the Freaks cannot thwart--adulthood. As they ponder what the future will be like with college and careers looming, they must contend with the ever-more-perilous threat of The Team, the shadowy government agency bent on saving the world from supernatural menaces. At the same time, they must face their most dangerous adversary yet, a creature of scales and wings that threatens every life in town—just for starters. New questions arise: can the Freaks achieve a common goal when they no longer agree on precisely what that goal should be? And what happens when they realize they just might be the villains in someone else’s story?

Fifteen-year-old Paula's perfectionism drives every facet of her life, from her marks in Grade 10 to the pursuit of a "perfect body." A history project brings her face to face with her grandmother's early life and, as she delves deeper, she is disturbed to find eerie parallels between her own struggles and what she learns of the past.

After a thousand years in space, the Eden colonists have finally found a world to call their own—if they can survive it. 

With one side constantly drenched in light, the colonists’ new world seems like their best option to begin again, and most don’t question what happened to its previous inhabitants. A thousand years of searching has made them impatient to start fresh, but theirs isn’t the first attempt to colonize this world, and they aren’t alone.

To celebrate their new beginning, the Prem’yera decree a bonding between Wylie, the lowest-caste girl, and their son, Finn. On the eve of their bonding, Wylie discovers a dragon and unwittingly unleashes a killer—or so it would seem.

Exiled to the dark side of the world, Wylie is left to die—a reality Finn refuses to accept. Surrounded by enemies hiding among friends, Finn is no longer sure who he can trust, or who should be saved first—Wylie, his people, or himself. 

Mike Watson's team has just won the Alberta Bantam Provincial box lacrosse championships. The euphoria of victory and plans for next season are short-lived when Mike's father, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, is transferred to Inuvik, Northwest Territories.

The transition to life inside the Arctic Circle is a tough one. With temperatures of -30 Celsius, a hulking monster named Joseph Kiktorak threatening him at every turn, and not a lacrosse ball in site, Mike's resentment at moving north escalates.

As his friendships with local youth develop, Mike is introduced to the amazing spectacle and athleticism of traditional "Arctic Sports." When his father witnesses the natural talent of Mike's new friends, the idea of an Inuvik lacrosse team is born! With hearts full of desire, the motley group of athletes heads south to participate in the Baggataway Lacrosse Tournament, and to face Mike's former team, The Rams.

Sarah Martin is bored. Thanks to her father's transfer from an inner-city police division to a small-town detachment, she is forced to to live in Muskoka - no friends, no mall, no life.

But when Sarah does make a new friend - Mindi - life gets considerably more interesting, as the two become aware of suspicious activity surrounding Mindi's mother's boyfriend and an old barn on his property. When Sarah discovers that the barn actually holds a dozen wild black bears, she will stop at nothing to save them from their fate at the hands of an organized poaching ring. But in her efforts, she puts lives in peril.

“smart, thought-provoking, and unique… readers won’t want to put this eye-opening, explosive story down.” —School Library Journal

In a world of secret superheroes who protect mankind unknowingly, Phillip and his friends —the Ables— must overcome more than villains if they are to defeat the growing evil threatening humanity.

I did have fantastic hearing, mostly by virtue of being blind. But that couldn't actually mean that he's trying to tell me I have super powers, right? Because that would be ridiculous.

It wasn't the "sex talk" he expected. Phillip Sallinger's dad has told him he's a custodian--a guardian--and his genetically inherited power is telekinesis. He'll learn to move objects with his mind. Excited to begin superhero high school until he discovers he's assigned to a "special ed" class for disabled empowered kids, he suddenly feels like an outsider. Bullied, threatened, and betrayed, Phillip struggles, even as he and his friends--calling themselves the Ables--find ways to maximize their powers to overcome their disabilities, and are the first to identify the growing evil threatening humanity. As vital custodians disappear and the custodian leadership is mired in indecision, a mysterious and powerful figure taunts Phillip, and the enemy is poised to strike. But what if the next "one who does all," the multi-gifted custodian predicted to come, is one of the Ables?

Amazon Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book of 2018

One of Entertainment Weekly's 10 Best YA Books of 2018

One of Publishers Weekly's Best YA Book of the Year

A National Indie Bestseller

Longlisted for Irish YA prize Great Reads Award

Lose yourself in the fantastic world of the arks and in the company of unforgettable characters in this French runaway hit, Christelle Dabos’ The Mirror Visitor quartet.

Plain-spoken, headstrong Ophelia cares little about appearances. Her ability to read the past of objects is unmatched in all of Anima and, what’s more, she possesses the ability to travel through mirrors, a skill passed down to her from previous generations. Her idyllic life is disrupted, however, when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, a taciturn and influential member of a distant clan. Ophelia must leave all she knows behind and follow her fiancé to Citaceleste, the capital of a cold, icy ark known as the Pole, where danger lurks around every corner and nobody can be trusted. There, in the presence of her inscrutable future husband, Ophelia slowly realizes that she is a pawn in a political game that will have far-reaching ramifications not only for her but for her entire world.

The World of the Arks

Long ago, following a cataclysm called the Rupture, the world was shattered into many floating celestial islands, now known as arks. Over each, the spirit of an omnipotent and immortal ancestor abides. The inhabitants of these arks each possess a unique power. Ophelia, with her ability to read the pasts of objects, must navigate this fantastic, disjointed, perilous world using her trademark tenacity and quiet strength.

An unforgettable heroine, a rich and bountiful universe, intrigue and suspense: A Winter’s Promise is perfect for readers of Margaret Rogerson’s An Enchantment of Ravens, Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood, V.E. Schwab’s “Shades of Magic” series, Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone, Kenneth Oppel’s “Airborne” series, and N.K. Jemisin “Broken Earth” series.

Extract:

I think we could have all lived happily, in a way, God, me and the others, if it weren’t for that accursed book. It disgusted me. I knew what bound me to it in the most sickening of ways, but the horror of that particular knowledge came later, much later. I didn’t understand straight away, I was too ignorant.

An unexpected delivery from the florist points to a secret admirer for Shelby Belgarden, but when an ominous phone call and a disturbing email follow, the teenaged sleuth and her family realize that the dangerous obsession of a stalker lies behind them. While the messages become increasingly sinister, the police are unable to uncover the culprit’s identity, and Shelby finds her world has turned into a nightmare of fear and betrayal.

When an arrest is made, it seems that life can return to normal for the Belgarden family, but the stalker proves more cunning than anyone could have imagined. Just when it seems she is safe again, Shelby finds herself at the mercy of a twisted but brilliant mind. Time is running out, and with no one to help her, Shelby must outwit her captor before he can carry out his deadly plan.

“…a stunning read.” —Kirkus Reviews

The Escape of Light is a compulsively-readable marvel that demands to be read in one sitting."—Dan Loflin, screenwriter, the CW’s SUPERNATURAL and THIS IS JANE

Wilder Tate just wants a normal life with a normal face...

Burns have disfigured him, his father has passed away, and his mother now works so many jobs, he feels like he’s living alone. He expects more of that same loneliness as he starts at a new high school, but Wilder surprises even himself as he finds a new best friend, discovers a knack for basketball, and catches the eye of the coolest girl in school. All the cruelty and bullying seems reserved for the enigmatic Lane McKenzie, and Wilder is all too happy to let her take the heat. But sometimes Wilder is his own worst enemy, and his scars run far deeper than just physical damage. He’s haunted by a secret he thinks he can erase with a bold and risky plan to fix his disfigurement for good—a plan that may cost him far more than he ever imagined.

Filled with twists, heart, and humor, The Escape of Light is a bold and unexpected story of resilience, love, and basketball from the acclaimed author of The Heart Does Not Grow Back.

Gold Medal Winner, Young Adult Fiction — Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Independent Publisher's Moonbeam Children's Book Awards

One thousand years after a cataclysmic event leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, the descendants of the chosen survivors take refuge in thirteen contingency shelters buried deep underground, at the bottom of the ocean, and in the far reaches of outer space. In the underwater 13th Continuum, sixteen-year-old Myra Jackson has heard rumors and whisperings all her life of a magical place called "The Surface” where people could breathe fresh air, feel the warmth of something called sunlight on their skin, and see things known as stars and trees and mountains. Myra has never dared to ask whether the stories are true, since the act of speaking such words aloud is an offense punishable by death. But after she discovers that the air supply aboard her underwater colony is running out, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to find this mysterious place. To get there, she must first recover the only guide to the Surface—the Beacon, an ancient device that also connects her to Captain Aero Wright, a dashing young soldier from one of the only remaining space colonies. With the fate of all humankind depending on them, Myra and Aero must escape the tyrannical forces that rule their colonies, journey through the black depths of the ocean and across the cold void of space, to find each other on the Surface that their ancestors once called home.

After being magically transported to another world with two other high school students, perennial outsider Billy Smith has become the unlikely king of a goblin civilization. With the help of his first day of high school crush, Lexi Aquino, now a powerful wizard, quarterback turned warrior Kurt Novac, and a cowardly but wily goblin named Hop, Billy has successfully repelled a human invasion of the goblins’ underground city, Kiranok. But the leader of the attacking Hanorian Army, Lord Marshal Jiyal, has returned to the Hanorian capital, Gran Hanor, where he’s preparing for a second invasion. Billy decides the only way to end the war is to neutralize Jiyal’s powerful ally, a young wizard named Mig. Billy and Kurt set off for Gran Hanor to find Mig and trick her into drinking a potion called the Final Drop which will nullify her magic forever. But after their departure, the Dark Lady, the mad elven wizard who started the war, reappears in Kiranok and reclaims her place as the goblins’ leader. She coerces Lexi, who’s struggling with madness from using too much magic, into helping her raise a skeletal army, then she and her Marching Dead force the goblins to march on Gran Hanor. Now Billy must find a way to stop the Dark Lady and her skeletal army, neutralize Mig, help Lexi regain her sanity, save the goblins, and make peace with the Hanorians before a cataclysmic final battle destroys them all.

Angela Wroboski has recently moved with her mother from their small hometown into the city to rid them of a dark past. Now, Angela must deal with the fact that her home will be anything but "normal." Her dad, the infamous Nick "The Weasel" Wroboski, has served three jail terms for various crimes, including robbery, during her lifetime, and on June 5, Angela's fifteenth birthday, he's released from a two-year sentence in Fort Gavin Prison.

Arriving home with an attitude and attire that's sure to mess up her friendships and future, The Weasel tries in his own way to prove that this time he's going straight. But the influence of the old gang, led by notorious Uncle Al who's now operating an enigmatic "business" that's more than a little shady, remains a constant threat to Nick's future as a family man. When Angela learns that a crime is being planned that could blow apart her family, she must quickly decide how to intervene without breaking her father's code to "never discuss family business outside the home."

Reaching the surface was just the beginning.

As Myra Jackson and her friends set out to find the First Continuum, Captain Aero Wright and two companions from the outer space Second Continuum find themselves banished for treason and stranded on Earth. Wright has vowed to complete his late father’s mission to recolonize their ancestral planet, but his true mission is to find the mysterious girl who haunts his dreams. Meanwhile, Myra and the young refugees of the underwater Thirteenth Continuum must make an unlikely ally if they are going to survive the hostile surface world and reach their destination, the nexus of humanity’s hope for survival. As their paths begin to converge, the Beacons that guide and connect Myra and Aero begin to prove their power, and a shadowy force with a centuries-old grudge reveals itself.

“Smart, thought-provoking, and unique… readers won’t want to put this eye-opening, explosive story down.” —School Library Journal

"Jeremy Scott brings his familiar snark from his CinemaSins YouTube channel to the book’s epic battles, plot-twists and super-villains.”—San Francisco Book Review

Three years after the showdown with Finch razed their hometown of Freepoint and changed their lives forever, Phillip & the rest of The Ables gang find another school year interrupted by a growing threat. Relations with the government have never been more strained and the political rhetoric has shifted to a more hostile tone when discussing those with special abilities. A new branch of Homeland Security has been empowered to investigate custodial acts of heroism and even detain suspects indefinitely. While juggling his leadership responsibilities over the dozens of Ables members, a new crush, and a growing anxiety problem... Phillip will have to decide how much of The Ables' time will be spent training for simulation games and how much will be spent stepping into the real-world crime-fighting holes created by the custodians that have disappeared--presumed to be imprisoned or worse. Confronted with a mysterious new villain wielding a previously unknown power, Phillip, Bentley, & Henry will be forced to stretch their abilities and their bonds further than ever before.

Ellie Quinn has spent most of her sixteen years behind the scenes, helping her father manage a crew of four-legged movie stars. Although she longs to be acknowledged as an animal trainer in her own right, she often gets stuck babysitting actors’ personal pets and is known around the studio as “the dog sitter for the stars.”

When teen megastar Kate Montgomery’s sidekick gets fired while filming a pilot, Ellie is forced to temporarily fill-in. The producers seem to be enamored with Ellie—and so do Kate’s two love interests on the show, “it boy” Logan Canfield and brand-new actor Cam Alvarez—causing trouble on and off the set.

Now Ellie must decide between living the drama in front of the camera or behind it. If she quits and the pilot fails, she and her father will have to close their failing business and move to her grandfather's lettuce farm. But if she stays on the road to stardom, it could mean losing the boy she's fallen for—and herself—in the process. Can she save the TV show and her father's business without losing everything else?

“Like The Breakfast Club set during a New England summer...One Stupid Thing captures the nuances of power and self-doubt that shape the lives of today’s text-obsessed youth." —Foreword Reviews

It was just one stupid thing that happened…

Summer on Nantucket island. Three high school friends drinking warm beer on a rooftop. Everything is cool, until a seemingly innocent game takes a sinister turn, and the course of their lives is changed forever.

For a year, they keep it a secret, until the following summer when they meet a mysterious girl with her own dark past who may have the answers they are looking for.

A story about friendship, mistakes, and the quest for redemption, One Stupid Thing follows Jamie, Sophia, Trevor and Violet as they contend with the consequences of their choices, navigate the drama in their individual lives and try to uncover what really happened on that fateful night.

After serving his country as an Army Ranger, high school principal Josiah Rollins quits in disgust over the broken educational system he can no longer serve. Little does he know this impulsive act would lead him to an unbelievable opportunity to change everything and serve his country and students in the way he had always dreamed. Inspired and funded by a now billionaire war buddy, Josiah tests his educational theories in a place with low standards and poor student performance: the American Caribbean Islands.

The mission is simple: give teachers autonomy and freedom to teach and provide the community the power to make schools the center of their community. But many on the Island are not happy about the project, nor do they trust the white man selling them new ideas. Within Blank Check, learn how Josiah wins over the people and the students, transforming the community and the economy into the American Dream.

Now available in paperback!

Based on the acclaimed animated film Amaqqut Nunaat: The Country of Wolves, this visually stunning graphic novel takes readers on a mysterious adventure with two brothers who are lost at sea. It begins as an average hunting trip for two young men. But when they find themselves adrift at sea, the only safe haven to be found for miles - a mysterious village filled with the sounds of drum dancing and revelry - turns out to be even more dangerous than the frigid ocean.

After being magically transported to another world with two other high school students, perennial outsider Billy Smith has become the unlikely king of a goblin civilization. With the help of his first day of high school crush, Lexi Aquino, now a powerful wizard, quarterback turned warrior Kurt Novac, and a cowardly but wily goblin named Hop, Billy has successfully repelled a human invasion of the goblins’ underground city, Kiranok. But the leader of the attacking Hanorian Army, Lord Marshal Jiyal, has returned to the Hanorian capital, Gran Hanor, where he’s preparing for a second invasion. Billy decides the only way to end the war is to neutralize Jiyal’s powerful ally, a young wizard named Mig. Billy and Kurt set off for Gran Hanor to find Mig and trick her into drinking a potion called the Final Drop which will nullify her magic forever. But after their departure, the Dark Lady, the mad elven wizard who started the war, reappears in Kiranok and reclaims her place as the goblins’ leader. She coerces Lexi, who’s struggling with madness from using too much magic, into helping her raise a skeletal army, then she and her Marching Dead force the goblins to march on Gran Hanor. Now Billy must find a way to stop the Dark Lady and her skeletal army, neutralize Mig, help Lexi regain her sanity, save the goblins, and make peace with the Hanorians before a cataclysmic final battle destroys them all.

“I am the stuff of your nightmares . . . you have been writing my name on the walls of your fear your entire life.”

When seven-year-old Jamie falls down a very long hill, he finds himself trapped in a world of strange creatures, harsh landscapes, and near-perpetual darkness. Lost and confused, Jamie is desperate to get home. The nightmares, fears, and all manner of what-ifs that inhabit this shadow world are unfamiliar to him—all except one: the Lairdbalor, Jamie’s personal nightmare, once relegated to his dreams. In this fantastical land, however, the Lairdbalor and all the fears and nightmares of children are very real.

But Jamie’s nightmare is different. It is the sum total of the anger and anxiety that imprisoned him in his former life, and it threatens to consume and rule the nightmare realm, a place where time passes differently. With each slumber, Jamie finds himself inexorably changed. The farther he travels through this terrifying world, the better he understands the one he left behind.

Crossing genres of folklore, horror, fantasy, and magical realism, The Lairdbalor is a story for anyone who lives with anxiety and fear and has ever wondered “what if?” It is the story of a child not meant for children and a darkly imaginative meditation on life, death, fear, and the nature of reality.