Canada

Materials from Canada

Malaika, Carnival Queen (The Malaika Series, 4)

Malaika learns about her father, who came to Canada as a migrant farm worker when she was just a baby and who shared her love of carnival. Malaika dreams about a man with a basket of fruit and guesses that the dream is about her father. Mummy explains that her daddy passed away long ago, and Grandma decides it’s time Malaika knew more about her father’s life. The family drives to a far off farm where they receive a warm welcome and visit the orchard where Malaika’s father picked fruit. The farm workers tell Malaika that her daddy had always dreamed of celebrating carnival there, just like back home. Will Malaika agree to be their Carnival Queen for the harvest festival?

Maggie Lou, Firefox (Maggie Lou, 1)

Maggie Lou’s grandpa doesn’t call her Firefox for nothing. She’s always finding ways to make life more interesting even if this means getting into big trouble. When her grandfather Moshôm finally agrees to teach her how to box, she decides that the rank odors, endless drills and teasing won’t stop her from wearing a tutu to the gym. Joining her father’s construction crew uncovers a surprising talent — besides learning how to use a broom and a great source of scrap wood to build a canine hotel for her dogs. And when she turns thirteen, she figures out an ingenious way to make some smokin’ good camouflage to wear on her first deer hunt, where she joins a long family tradition. Through it all she is surrounded by her big extended gumbo soup of a family, pestered by annoying younger siblings, and gently guided by her strong female relatives her mother, her kohkom and her ultra-cool cousin Jayda. “Keep taking up space,” Maggie’s mother says. “You’re only making room for the girls behind you.” A heroine for today, Maggie Lou discovers that with hard work and perseverance she can gain valuable new skills, without losing one iota of her irrepressible spirit.

Alone: The Journeys Of Three Young Refugees

Each year, more than 400 minors arrive alone in Canada requesting refugee status. They arrive without their parents, accompanied by no adult at all. Alone relates the journey of three of them: Afshin, Alain and Patricia. Their story opens a window onto the many heartbreaks, difficult sacrifices and countless hardships that punctuate their obstacle filled path. But Alone most especially tells of the courage and resilience that these young people demonstrated before being able to finally obtain a life where threats and danger are no longer a part of their everyday existence.

The Little Green Envelope

Olive’s friend has moved away, and Olive wishes she could visit her. A little green envelope, lost in the bottom of the desk drawer, knows how Olive feels. It, too, wants so much to travel, and imagines zipping up and down conveyer belts and bouncing along in a mail bag, on its way to deliver an important letter. An old postcard reassures that for every occasion, there is an envelope but it seems like it will never be the little green envelope’s turn. When Olive’s grandpa suggests writing her friend a letter, the little green envelope hopes and hopes that it will be chosen to carry the letter to its destination but will it be a perfect fit?

Cleaning Up

Jess finds a secret diary and imagines what it would be like to be a girl who has everything. Will she become so wrapped up in someone else’s life that she misses a chance to create her own? Jess cleans houses to save money for college, because her dad, unemployed and off the wagon yet again and has moved the two of them out of the city into a decrepit borrowed tent and trailer. Jess wavers between anger at her father and fear that poverty and addiction may be her fate, too, and she decides she will do whatever it takes to avoid it. She gets a gig cleaning a gorgeous country home and discovers the trashed bedroom of the teenaged daughter, Quinn. Jess wonders how a girl with a perfect life, private school, horseback riding and could have wrecked such a beautiful room. As she cleans, she finds troubling clues, including, tucked behind the bed, a diary.

Gradually Jess learns that Quinn’s life is not what it’s supposed to be. Jess begins to imagine becoming friends with Quinn, and when she begins to write down a new story for Quinn, she risks turning her back on the opportunities that are right in front of her new friends, new interests, a fresh beginning.

Hopeless In Hope

We live in a hopeless old house on an almost-deserted dead end street in a middle of nowhere town named Hope. This is the oldest part of Hope; eventually it will all be torn down and rebuilt into perfect homes for perfect people. Until then, we live here: imperfect people on an imperfect street that everyone forgets about. For Eva Brown, life feels lonely and small. Her mother, Shirley, drinks and yells all the time. She’s the target of the popular mean girl, and her only friend doesn’t want to talk to her anymore. All of it would be unbearable if it weren’t for her cat, Toofie, her beloved nohkum, and her writing, which no one will ever see.

When Nohkum is hospitalized, Shirley struggles to keep things together for Eva and her younger brother, Marcus. After Marcus is found wandering the neighbourhood alone, he is sent to live with a foster family, and Eva finds herself in a group home. Furious at her mother, Eva struggles to adjust and being reunited with her family seems less and less likely. During a visit to the hospital, Nohkum gives Eva Shirley’s diary. Will the truths it holds help Eva understand her mother?

The Remembering Stone

Alice keeps a perfectly round skipping stone in her pocket to remember her grandfather by but the stone goes missing. It looked just like a regular stone, but Alice knew it was different: It was perfectly round so you could use it to trace circles, and sometimes she could trick her dad into thinking it was a quarter. It was also how Alice remembered her grandpa, who taught her how to skip stones, and who passed away last winter.

Alice brings the stone to school for Show and Share, but when her classmate asks to see it again at recess, Alice discovers that the stone is gone! Her friends search high and low and can’t find the stone but their friendship gives Alice an idea of another way that she can remember. A gentle look at loss, grief and how small everyday actions can connect us to those we love.

This book is part of the Worlds of Words Global Reading List for 2023/24.