★ Little Fish

“How do we think about our past?” asks Wendy in the opening scene of Little Fish. She is having drinks with a small group of close-knit Winnipeg transwomen, musing darkly on the way that they ... Read More »

May 14, 2018 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Motherhood

By Sheila Heti

Halfway through her latest novel, Sheila Heti asks, “Should I? Should I? Should I choose it? Should I? But the real question is, could you?” Heti is familiar with asking questions. Her novel How Should ... Read More »

May 10, 2018 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Funeral

By Matt James

Many of our experiences with death begin with a phone call. On the very first page of The Funeral, the words “RING RING” emanate from a large apartment building. While the rotary phone, in the ... Read More »

May 10, 2018 | Filed under: Picture Books

Margaret Laurence and Jack McClelland: Letters

By Laura K. Davis (ed.); Linda M. Morra (ed.)

In the 1960s Margaret Laurence was the most highly praised female novelist in the country, the author of such important works as The Tomorrow-Tamer, The Stone Angel, A Jest of God, and The Fire-Dwellers. This ... Read More »

May 7, 2018 | Filed under: Anthologies, Memoir & Biography

The Space Adventurer’s Guide: Your Passport to the Coolest Things to See and Do in the Universe

By John Holinaty (ill.); Peter McMahon

Despite the best efforts of people like Chris Hadfield, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and J.J. Abrams, we’ve been living through a bit of a space enthusiasm desert. These days, young people are more focused on the ... Read More »

May 7, 2018 | Filed under: Picture Books

Mighty Mission Machines: From Rockets to Rovers

By Dave Williams; Loredana Cunti; Theo Krynauw (ill.)

May 7, 2018 | Filed under: Picture Books

★ Why Indigenous Literatures Matter

By Daniel Heath Justice

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve no doubt encountered ongoing public conversations about Indigenous writing and storytelling. What is it? Whom should we read? And perhaps the most contentious debate: who gets to ... Read More »

May 3, 2018 | Filed under: Native Peoples, Politics & Current Affairs

The Bagel King

By Andrew Larsen; Sandy Nichols (ill.)

Andrew Larsen’s The Bagel King is the endearing tale of a zaida and his grandson Eli, and how they bond over a Sunday ritual of eating bagels: “Warm. Chewy. Salty. Bagels.” Until one day Zaida ... Read More »

May 3, 2018 | Filed under: Picture Books

★ Boys: What It Means to Become a Man

By Rachel Giese

Will boys be boys? In the face of rising feminist visibility and the concomitant backlash against it, what it means to grow up male is increasingly under interrogation. Boys: What It Means to Become a ... Read More »

April 30, 2018 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Politics & Current Affairs