Genre

Catalog sorted by genre

Wild Orchid

Shortlisted for Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book of the Year Award 2007 Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award nominee 2007 Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice Willow Awards nominee Canadian Children’s Book Centre Our Choice Starred Selection White Pine nominee, 2007 McNally Robinson announced that Wild Orchid was one of the top five best selling books in Saskatechewan in 2006. Taylor Jane Simon is 18 years old and spending the summer with her mother in Prince Albert National Park. The holiday has been planned so Taylor’s mother can spend time with her latest boyfriend, Danny, and work in the pizza restaurant near the park that Danny runs. Taylor would just as soon stay at home in Saskatoon, but because she suffers from an autistic condition called Asperger’s Syndrome, she can’t stay on her own. Taylor’s mother encourages her daughter to explore the park’s possibilities on her own. For Taylor, whose life experience has been seriously limited, this means facing the test of meeting new people who work in the park’s nature center – and facing it alone. Summer also holds out the possibility of finding her own boyfriend, though Taylor isn’t quite sure what that may involve. What she discovers will change her life forever. Written as an epistolary novel, Wild Orchid is frank but optimistic, literal yet innocent. A courageous wit attends Taylor’s gradual emergence as her own person, and the reader will find the exploration of Taylor’s mind a revealing and heartwarming encounter.

Kissing The Witch: Old Tales In New Skins

Cinderella forsakes the handsome prince and runs off with the fairy godmother; Beauty discovers the Beast behind the mask is not so very different from the face she sees in the mirror; Snow White is awakened from slumber by the bittersweet fruit of an unnamed desire. Acclaimed writer Emma Donoghue spins new tales out of old in a magical web of thirteen interconnected stories about power and transformation and choosing one’s own path in the world. In these fairy tales, women young and old tell their own stories of love and hate, honor and revenge, passion and deception. Using the intricate patterns and oral rhythms of traditional fairy tales, Emma Donoghue wraps age-old characters in a dazzling new skin.

Bettina Valentino and the Picasso Club

A controversial new teacher at Bayside Preparatory School introduces the exciting world of art to aspiring artist Bettina Valentino and her fifth-grade classmates, encouraging them to see everyday life in a different way.

Ivy

Ivy is used to being overlooked. The youngest in a family of thieves, scoundrels, and roustabouts, the girl with the flame-colored hair and odd-colored eyes is declared useless by her father from the day she is born. But that’s only if you look at her but don’t see. For Ivy has a quality that makes people take notice. It’s more than beauty — and it draws people toward her.

Which makes her the perfect subject for an aspiring painter named Oscar Aretino Frosdick, a member of the pre-Raphaelite school of artists. Oscar is determined to make his mark on the art world, with Ivy as his model and muse. But behind Ivy’s angelic looks lurk dark secrets and a troubled past — a past that has given her an unfortunate taste for laudanum. And when treachery and jealousy surface in the Eden that is the artist’s garden, Ivy must learn to be more than a pretty face if she is to survive.

Julie Hearn, author of The Minister’s Daughter and The Sign of the Raven, has created a memorable tale of nineteenth-century England with a character destined to take her place alongside Dickens’s Pip and Oliver Twist.

Blade: Playing Dead

bladeNobody knows the city like Blade. You have to when you’re on your own, when you can’t trust anyone, when you’ve got a past you need to hide. Blade is practically invisible, perfectly alone, living only by his wits—just the way he likes it. Until the day a chance encounter sends his world crashing down around him and he finds himself on the run again. Yet he’s not alone this time. Suddenly he’s got Becky and her daughter, Jaz, weighing him down. But is he running from his past or from Becky’s? Blade knows he should drop these two, but he can’t. With people depending on him, he’ll need to find a way to outsmart the thugs who are hot on both of their heels, lurking around every corner.

On The Road Again!: More Travels With My Family

Charlie and his family are taking another trip — this time to spend a year in a tiny village in southern France. Typically suspicious and resentful at first (they’re going all the way to France, and they’re not even going to be living in Paris!), big brother Charlie soon finds himself drawn into life in sleepy Celeriac. The family experiences the spring migration of sheep up to the mountain pastures, Dad is threatened by a raging bull, a spring flood makes a mess, and everyone forages for snails and mushrooms and has other adventures large and small. Most of all, though, Charlie and his little brother, Max, make friends of their eccentric new neighbors — the man who steals ducks from the local river, the neighbor’s dog who sleeps in the middle of the street, and their new pals Rachid and Ahmed, who teach them how to play soccer using the open front door of the Catholic church as the goal! It’s enough to make Charlie wonder if it’s really so important to get to Paris. On the Road Again’s mix of rollicking humor, comic characters, and universal concerns like making new friends and living in a new place are a welcome addition for Gay’s many fans.

Olly And Me 123

A renowned picture book creator makes learning numbers a breeze by weaving them into the familiar scenes of a young child’s world. One is me, Katie. Here I am, all by myself. But I’m not by myself for long. Katie and her baby brother, Olly, make two, which is a good thing when they want to play hide-and-seek. Like every young child, Katie has plenty of things to count, like a friend’s four kittens, six guests at a tea party, or ten people on a crowded bus. Shirley Hughes’s sure, simple language and beguiling, realistic illustrations add up to a gentle story that easily builds preschoolers’ familiarity with numbers.

The Amber Cat

While two friends convalesce from chicken pox, one boy’s mother tells them of a summer, long ago, when she was eleven–just their age–offering a story about a girl named Harriet who would mysteriously come and go at the beach. Who was Harriet? An underlying poignancy adds depth to this winning story with its surprise ending.

How Robin Saved Spring

If Lady Winter has her way, the world will stay covered in blankets of snowy white and icy blue. Sister Spring will slumber forever and the winter will never end. Can Lady Winter really keep spring from coming or is there something the animals might do to help? Led by harbinger Robin, the animals are determined to wake Sister Spring, but what price will they each have to pay? Through beautiful words and pictures, this enchanting tale about the battle of the seasons highlights one special bird who saves much more than just the day.