Children and YA Fiction

Sully, Messed Up

The debut middle-grade novel from award-winning picture-book writer Stephanie Simpson McLellan, Sully, Messed Up, begins with a Kafka-esque flourish. Thirteen-year-old Sullivan Brewster – Sully to his friends – wakes on the first morning of Grade ... Read More »

February 22, 2021 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

Like Home

By Louisa Onomé

A YA novel about gentrification might sound as sexy as a YA novel about urban planning. Yet the political is effectively intertwined with the personal in Louisa Onomé’s debut novel. Chinelo and Kate are best ... Read More »

February 4, 2021 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

My Best Friend Is Extinct

By Rebecca Wood Barrett and Cornelia Li (ill.)

In the new middle-grade novel My Best Friend Is Extinct, a lonely 10-year-old boy discovers a wounded, bear-like creature living in the snow and must nurse it back to health while facing bullies and sabre-toothed ... Read More »

January 28, 2021 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

★ The Fabulous Zed Watson!

By Basil Sylvester and Kevin Sylvester

There are few books that offer unadulterated joy from beginning to end. But The Fabulous Zed Watson! is a middle-grade wonder: a literary mystery and Onward-esque road-trip story that celebrates self-described nerds and weirdos, and ... Read More »

January 7, 2021 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

Annaka

By Andre Fenton

Sixteen-year-old Annaka has spent the last 10 years going by Anna, but when she and her mother move from Halifax back to her hometown of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to take care of her Nan, her ... Read More »

November 30, 2020 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

The Book of Sam

By Rob Shapiro

Sixteen-year-old Sam – the protagonist of Toronto writer Rob Shapiro’s new YA novel – is a bit of an outcast. Bullied by his peers and largely overlooked by his parents (when they aren’t disparaging him), ... Read More »

November 26, 2020 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

The Girl Who Was Convinced Beyond All Reason That She Could Fly

By Sybil Lamb

It may not be possible to bottle artist and writer Sybil Lamb’s imagination, but Arsenal Pulp Press has done the next best thing with this short illustrated novel. The story takes place on (and above) ... Read More »

November 19, 2020 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

You Were Never Here

By Kathleen Peacock

Cat hasn’t been back to Montgomery Falls, the town her family founded, since she was 12. That was the summer she began seeing people’s deepest desires and fears just by touching them – an ability ... Read More »

November 9, 2020 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

★ Pine Island Home

By Polly Horvath

Orphaned children and crotchety neighbours have long been popular fodder for children’s stories. In Pine Island Home, Polly Horvath brings these two elements together in a novel that is surprisingly fun and light (considering the ... Read More »

November 5, 2020 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

Magic Dark and Strange

By Kelly Powell

There’s something about the Victorian era that lures the mystery writer. Perhaps it’s the shadowy gaslit streets or the sweeping, barren countryside. Maybe it’s the age’s lurid fascination with death and spiritualism, the heavy division ... Read More »

October 22, 2020 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

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