Dragonfly Song

By Wendy Orr

Ancient Minoan civilization comes to life in this highly anticipated new middle-grade novel by the author of Nim’s Island. Aissa is the first-born daughter of the high priestess of her island nation, destined to inherit ... Read More »

October 10, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

The Kingdom of No Worries

By Philip Roy

When a small island appears in the middle of a river running through their town, 12-year-old best friends Billy, Charlie, and Sami lay claim to it – and the Kingdom of No Worries is born. ... Read More »

September 20, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Sit

By Deborah Ellis

Children, like dogs, are often told to “sit.” But in Deborah Ellis’s new collection of 11 short stories, the kids are much too rambunctious for that. In “The Glowing Chair,” Miyuki is a 12-year-old Japanese ... Read More »

September 18, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Spirited Away: Fairy Stories of Old Newfoundland

By Tom Dawe; Veselina Tomova (ill.)

In Newfoundland, fairies are dangerous. They steal babies, play wild music that forces people to dance till they drop, and lead travellers over cliffs to their deaths. Sometimes they spirit people away completely: heedless berry ... Read More »

September 14, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

The Night Garden

By Polly Horvath

Children’s literature abounds with magical gardens: from the walled plot that Mary Lennox coaxes back to life in The Secret Garden, to the setting for a time-travelling friendship in Tom’s Midnight Garden, to Oxford’s Botanic ... Read More »

September 12, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power!

By Brooke Allen (ill.); Mariko Tamaki

In 2013, comic publisher Boom! Studios started an imprint called Boom! Box – a space for experimental, creator-driven work by writers and artists from outside the mainstream industry. Their second title, Lumberjanes (2014), was a ... Read More »

September 11, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

The Painting

By Charis Cotter

Like its well-received predecessor, The Swallow, Charis Cotter’s new novel involves untimely death, ghosts, and two isolated tween girls who narrate the story in rapidly alternating sections. Both of The Painting’s 12-year-old heroines have issues ... Read More »

August 30, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

The Mosaic

By Nina Berkhout

In her first YA novel, Archibald Lampman Award–winning poet Nina Berkhout builds on the promise of her adult fiction debut, The Gallery of Lost Species, trimming away the extraneous language in that novel to deliver ... Read More »

August 30, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

House of Ash

By Hope Cook

No matter the era, life as a teenager is fraught with peril. Take Curtis and Mila, the protagonists of House of Ash, the powerful new YA fantasy from Edmonton writer Hope Cook. Curtis, in the ... Read More »

August 14, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Caterpillars Can’t Swim

By Liane Shaw

Liane Shaw, a former special-education resource teacher, has never shied away from tough topics. Her previous novels have tackled foster care (Fostergirls), physical and emotional limitations (The Color of Silence), and autism spectrum disorder (Don’t ... Read More »

August 14, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

★ The Marrow Thieves

By Cherie Dimaline

In the latest YA novel by Métis writer and editor Cherie Dimaline, the world has been ravaged by global warming. Cities have crumbled from the coastlines, “breaking off like crust,” and hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis ... Read More »

August 14, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Zero Repeat Forever

By G.S. Prendergast

The first novel in G.R. Prendergast’s Nahx Invasions series introduces readers to a dystopian Earth under attack from an alien species. No one knows why the Nahx are invading, only that the siege is ruthless ... Read More »

August 9, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

★ The Agony of Bun O’Keefe

By Heather Smith

When an author creates a character who is naive for their age, who has been sheltered from the world at large, and is unfamiliar with common idioms or pop-culture references, there’s a risk that character ... Read More »

July 17, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Thin Places

By Lesley Choyce

Declan Lynch, the protagonist of Lesley Choyce’s new novel-in-verse, is a relatively straightforward 16-year-old. He lives in a (deliberately) generic North American city with his parents – his father is a university physics professor and ... Read More »

July 17, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

The Theory of Hummingbirds

By Michelle Kadarusman

The Grade 6 experience is vast in the sense that kids can be anywhere on the innocence spectrum. Some are still playing with toys and seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses while others are coming ... Read More »

July 13, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Holly Farb and the Princess of the Galaxy

By Gareth Wronski

There are worse sources for an author to borrow from than the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by the late Douglas Adams. Though Adams was ostensibly writing for adults, his irreverent approach to the ... Read More »

July 12, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Clutch

By Heather Camlot

Not yet 13, Joey Grosser feels he must become the man of the house when his father dies. This means working at the family grocery store, helping his sick mother, and tending his younger brother, ... Read More »

July 4, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Hit the Ground Running

By Alison Hughes

In Hit the Ground Running, the latest YA novel from Alberta author Alison Hughes, protagonist Dee is told by her aunt that “every family needs an anchor.” At 16, Dee doesn’t expect to be that ... Read More »

July 4, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Saints and Misfits

By S.K. Ali

In Saints and Misfits, the first YA novel from Simon & Schuster’s new Muslim-focused Salaam Reads imprint, Toronto author S.K. Ali delivers a contemporary coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old Arab-Indian-American girl named Janna Yusuf. Janna ... Read More »

June 22, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Heartwood Hotel: The Greatest Gift

By Kallie George; Stephanie Graegin (ill.)

If there’s one thing Vancouver author Kallie George knows, it’s how to craft a tale full of whimsy. Her Magical Animal Adoption Agency series for beginning readers is full of the kind of subtle quirkiness ... Read More »

June 21, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Heartwood Hotel: A True Home

By Kallie George; Stephanie Graegin (ill.)

If there’s one thing Vancouver author Kallie George knows, it’s how to craft a tale full of whimsy. Her Magical Animal Adoption Agency series for beginning readers is full of the kind of subtle quirkiness ... Read More »

June 21, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Love Is Love

By Mette Bach

Navigating adolescence, testing your boundaries, and figuring out who you are is hard. For LGBTQ+ teens, it’s even more difficult, and potentially much more dangerous. Love Is Love and Rough Patch are two books that ... Read More »

June 19, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

Rough Patch

By Nicole Markotic

Navigating adolescence, testing your boundaries, and figuring out who you are is hard. For LGBTQ+ teens, it’s even more difficult, and potentially much more dangerous. Love Is Love and Rough Patch are two books that ... Read More »

June 19, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books

Short for Chameleon

By Vicki Grant

Cam Redden is something of a chameleon. It’s his job as a part-time employee of the Almost Family Surrogate Agency to blend into other people’s lives, whether he’s hired to play a bereaved-but-stoic grandson or ... Read More »

June 12, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

★ Stay

By Katherine Lawrence

At first glance, Stay appears to be modest in length, form, and story. But within the spare pages of this middle-grade novel in verse is a powerful narrative about a family in transition, and the ... Read More »

June 7, 2017 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction