Canada

Materials from Canada

Animals That Changed The World

How animals big and small have shaped today’s world. From furry felines to hard-working horses, animals have had a tremendous impact on world history. For example, rats, through the diseases they carry, have probably killed more people than any war or natural disaster, goats may have been the first to discover coffee and, thanks to camels, people were able to survive for long periods in the desert and open up trade routes between Europe and Asia. However, animals can also be destructive. Mosquitoes spread deadly diseases — and may even have killed Alexander the Great. Some animals have changed the environment by damaging whole ecosystems, creating deserts in their wake. Others, like the elephant, have been used as weapons of war. Among the more than 20 animals featured in this book are dogs, sheep, dolphins, silk moths and beavers, all of which have changed the course of history for better or for worse. Lighthearted and humorous, with intriguing photos and informative sidebars, this book ensures that readers will appreciate all animals with newfound awe and respect.

The Trouble With Marlene/Film Studies

Parents have a lingering impact on their teen children. If you act like Marlene, you end up like Marlene — messed up, lonely and broke. No wonder Samantha rejects her mother’s lifestyle. In The Trouble with Marlene, mother and daughter share one thing — thoughts of suicide. Marlene never stops talking about it, but for Samantha, it’s a private affair. There’s one other private thought for Samantha: putting a pillow over her mother’s face and bringing the madness to an end. How far is she prepared to take her fantasy?

Half Brother

For thirteen years, Ben Tomlin was an only child. But all that changes when his mother brings home Zan — an eight-day-old chimpanzee. Ben’s father, a renowned behavioral scientist, has uprooted the family to pursue his latest research project: a high-profile experiment to determine whether chimpanzees can acquire advanced language skills. Ben’s parents tell him to treat Zan like a little brother. Ben reluctantly agrees. At least now he’s not the only one his father’s going to scrutinize. It isn’t long before Ben is Zan’s favorite, and Ben starts to see Zan as more than just an experiment. His father disagrees. To him, Zan is only a specimen, no more, no less. And this is going to have consequences. Soon Ben is forced to make a critical choice between what he is told to believe and what he knows to be true — between obeying his father or protecting his brother from an unimaginable fate. Half Brother isn’t just a story about a boy and a chimp. It’s about the way families are made, the way humanity is judged, the way easy choices become hard ones, and how you can’t always do right by the people and animals you love. In the hands of master storyteller Kenneth Oppel, it’s a novel you won’t soon forget.

Too Late/Train Wreck

Some mistakes can never be repaired. The narrator of Train Wreck is looking back at the year she was 15 and in love with a bad boy named Johnny. Johnny’s friends play a cruel trick on a misfit named Suzy by convincing her that Johnny is attracted to her. When the prank goes too far, the narrator wants something big to happen to prove Johnny still loves her. The prank goes tragically wrong when Suzy is gang-raped. The narrator, now married to Johnny, reflects on the day she watched the horrific attack and did nothing.

In Too Late, 15-year-old Greg is in a teen sex offenders’ facility because of an assault on his stepsister. He hates the professionals who try to help him and can’t wait to go home. When he enters a room for a meeting, his mother is there crying. Her partner, whom Greg calls Step Dude, sits at her side. They have come to tell Greg they don’t want him back. It’s too late to be good, they say. Greg comes to the crippling realization of what he has become: the father he has both hated and feared.

Each book in the Single Voice series consists of two separate but thematically connected stories with distinct inverted covers in an alluring “flip-book” format. Exploding with the urgency, drama and confusion of adolescence, these books will appeal to both avid and less experienced readers.

The Dark Deeps: The Hunchback Assignments 2

A fantastic Steampunk adventure in the deeps. Transforming his appearance and stealing secret documents from the French is all in a day’s work for fourteen-year-old Modo, a British secret agent. But his latest mission—to uncover the underwater mystery of something called the Ictneo—seems impossible. There are rumors of a sea monster and a fish as big as a ship. French spies are after it, and Mr. Socrates, Modo’s master, wants to find it first. Modo and his fellow secret agent, Octavia, begin their mission in New York City, then take a steamship across the North Atlantic. During the voyage, Modo uncovers an astounding secret. The Dark Deeps, the second book in Arthur Slade’s Hunchback Assignments series, is set in a fascinating Steampunk Victorian world. Modo’s underwater adventures and his encounters with the young French spy Colette Brunet, the fearless Captain Monturiol, and the dreaded Clockwork Guild guarantee a gripping read filled with danger, suspense, and brilliant inventions.

The Game

The Game is just the beginning? It’s the year 2154. Lisse and her friends have been deemed unemployable in the eyes of society. Now they must scavenge the disintegrating city for food and shelter, just to make ends meet. But their dismal existence starts to look up when Lisse and her friends are invited to participate in The Game, an experience highly regarded in their society. The Game is a virtual reality experience where they are challenged to survive. But as they spend more time in The Game, the line between reality and fantasy starts to blur. What started as a simple exercise quickly becomes a test of endurance, trust, and their will to live.

Lizards In The Sky

Fish in trees? Frogs underground? Who knew?No one would expect to see a bird at the bottom of a stream, yet that is precisely where the American dipper hunts for food. How about a tortoise that lives in the desert? The way it keeps cool is even more surprising.Readers will be amazed to discover how the 36 animals featured in this book have evolved in order to live in hostile environments. From searing heat to glacial cold and from high in the sky to deep in the earth, these species endure extreme weather conditions and make their homes in the unlikeliest of places in order to hide from predators or to hunt for food.Some of the animals featured in the book are: Northern shrews whose brains and internal organs shrink during hibernation Snakes in Borneo that fly through the air Freshwater eels that travel over land to find food or a new source of water Salamanders that can go without food for 10 years!The full-color photographs and surprising, informative text will appeal to animal lovers of all ages.

In The Company Of Whispers

Straddling the genres of fiction, memoir, photography and travel,”In the Company of Whispers” looks at the future through the eyes of the past. In the late 1950’s, a young girl moves with her family to Rangoon, Burma. Ninety years later finds her living in the overpopulated Greater East Coast Metropolis, planted firmly in the past inside her small house until her her granddaughter, Zeyya, arrives on her front porch. In 2047, Zeyya has been living like millions of other people in a towering high rise, until her parents are taken by a Quarantine Squad. She retreats to her eccentric ninety-eight-year-old grandmother’s home, the last freestanding house in the Metropolis. But whatever respite she envisions finding there is immediately imperiled by the appearance of the intricately tattooed and possibly delusional Jonah. When Granna invites him into her home, Zeyya is sure that her world will finish unraveling, but despite Zeyya’s resistance, she, Granna, and Jonah become inextricably bound together. Ironically, what binds them is not what is, but what has been. The past intertwines itself into the present as Granna bequeaths her memories of a childhood spent in Burma to Jonah and Zeyya. And in the end, it is both Jonah’s and Granna’s pasts that determine Zeyya’s future.

My Kokum Called Today

A telephone call from her grandmother has a young native girl in the city looking forward to visiting the reserve. In gentle, joyous ways we see how women — especially grandmothers — are often the spiritual glue when families are separated by long miles.