“When twelve-year-old Flick Hudson accidentally ends up in the Strangeworlds Travel Agency, she uncovers a fantastic secret: there are hundreds of other worlds just steps away from hers. All you have to do to visit them is just jump into the right suitcase. Then Flick gets the invitation of a lifetime: join Strangeworlds’ magical travel society and explore other worlds. But, unbeknownst to Flick, the world at the very center of it all, a city called Five Lights, is in danger. Buildings and even streets are mysteriously disappearing. Once Flick realizes what’s happening she must race against time, travelling through unchartered worlds, seeking a way to fix Five Lights before it collapses into nothingness-and takes her world with it”–

Meet the incredible Brontë family: Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell Brontë are no ordinary children. Growing up on the wild, lonely moors of Yorkshire, they have nothing to entertain them but their imaginations and each other. So they invent extraordinary imaginery worlds, full of wars and love stories, soldiers, heroes and villains, ruled over by powerful women. As they grow up, the Brontës discover that the real world isn’t such a great place to be a girl. But they are so determined that their voices be heard, they overcome almost unbeatable odds to be bestselling authors.

Many people attempted daring escapes over the Berlin Wall, and most failed, giving their lives for the hope of freedom. This is the true story of one child, Peter Wetzel, and his family’s daring escape from East Berlin to West Berlin via handmade hot air balloon in 1979.

In this poignant, empowering picture book debut, a girl and her beloved abuelita lean on each other as they contend with racism while running errands in the city.

Seventeen year old Nigerian Canadian Adanna Nkwachi must deal with an estranged older brother, uncertainty about her future, and helping her cousin plan a big Nigerian wedding.

A collection of tanka poems, illustrations, and photographs explore biomimicry and show how plants, animals, and objects in the natural world have inspired human made inventions. Includes additional backmatter information about biomimicry, tanka and the natural and human-made objects featured.

The resilience of two cousins is tested when one of them is lost at sea and washes up on a deserted island while the other remains at home, holding on to the belief that her beloved cousin is still alive.

Two families flee extreme weather in India and come together on a mountaintop.

Dounia is the story of a little girl who loves her home city of Aleppo, Syria, and its many smells, sights, and traditions. But when war breaks out, Dounia and her grandparents must flee Aleppo to find safety. Before they go, their neighbour reads their future in a cup of coffee, she sees a long difficult journey ahead of the family and a blue house awaiting them at the end. Taking only a bird carved from Aleppo soap and four little barake seeds in her pocket, Dounia faces dangerous waters, a camp surrounded by barbed wire, and unfriendly soldiers, and she wonders where she and her family belong in the world. Remembering the ancient knowledge that barake seeds ward off evil, she pulls one from her pocket to use for each of the threats they face. Magically, the seeds from their faraway home help them along their way, until they finally find the blue house at the end of their journey. In her new home, Dounia plants her final seed in a pot so it can grow and offer more seeds, while also keeping a piece of Aleppo with her. The baraké seeds represent the Syrian culture. Although Dounia is fleeing her country, she carries with her the strength of her people. It is by tapping into her roots, represented by the seeds, that she finds her own strength and resilience. The magical moments brought about by the baraké seeds can be interpreted as Dounia’s imagination it’s a way of seeing the war and the migration from a six year old’s perspective. Dounia does not understand everything that is going on, but she is not a powerless victim. By using the seeds, she feels she is taking an active part in her own destiny. In the end, whether it is magic or Dounia’s imagination at play, it’s a story about obstacles faced by migrants and about the courage they have in facing these obstacles. As Marya puts it in her article for TBI Magazine, it reverses the common narrative in North American media that Syria is synonymous with devastation and destruction, and that Syrian refugees can only be victims of their circumstance, rather than brave, vibrant heroes who can take charge of their own stories.

A little girl and her grandfather rediscover the Cree language together.

Featured in August 2023’s WOW Dozen on books about Language Learning and Communication.