October 16, 2024 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Kids’ Books
Born in Czechoslovakia, 15-year-old Max Eisen and his family were forcibly removed from their home and deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in March 1944. Eisen was the only member of his ... Read More »
Saad T. Farooqi’s debut novel White World starts right in the middle of the action – with his protagonist, Avaan, running with a gun in his hand, in a dystopian Pakistan engulfed in a civil ... Read More »
October 9, 2024 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
Noodles on a Bicycle invites readers to experience the wonder of watching delivery men balance precarious towers of boxed noodles and bowls while cycling through the busy streets of mid-20th-century Tokyo. Author Kyo Maclear tells ... Read More »
October 9, 2024 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books
Hope can be a woman’s name, and it can also be a motivating force. For Amal Elsana Alh’jooj, hope was bestowed upon her at birth when her father decided to call her Amal, which means ... Read More »
October 2, 2024 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Race & Ethnic Relations, Reviews
Eventually, whether before a move or after a loss, we all have to make difficult decisions about what stays and what goes. Jenny Haysom’s debut novel Keep begins with a literal version of this challenging ... Read More »
October 2, 2024 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
What’s in Alanna’s Secret Sauce? by Sarah Jane Conklin and illustrated by Venus Angelica is a picture book in verse that tells the story of nine-year-old Alanna and her Nan, who are looking to make ... Read More »
October 2, 2024 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books
When a novel receives multiple international awards and accolades in its original language it’s difficult not to approach the English translation with a combination of trepidation and high expectation. Will the book meet the high ... Read More »
September 25, 2024 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
The summer of 1990 was bookended by one of the most dramatic events in Canadian history. Thousands of paramilitary Quebec police and Canadian Armed Forces laid siege to the unceded territories of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke, ... Read More »
September 25, 2024 | Filed under: History, Indigenous Peoples, Memoir & Biography, Race & Ethnic Relations, Reviews
For Avery, running is the most natural thing in the world. It’s a way for her to exist outside the complexities of her life, to temporarily forget about her mother’s struggles as a newly single ... Read More »
September 25, 2024 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books
When readers first meet Plinko, the focal character of Edmonton writer Benjamin Hertwig’s harrowing and powerful debut novel, Juiceboxers, it is 1999 and he is 16 years old, a fan of The Lord of the ... Read More »
September 18, 2024 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews