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It's the summer of 1988 and 15-year-old aspiring artist Adam Zapotica has a big problem. He's crazy about dinosaurs, and a team of paleontologists and scientists at Milk River Ridge near Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park in southern Alberta has recently unearthed a major cache of dinosaur eggs. They need volunteers to assist them at the dig, but there's a catch — you have to be 18!

Commended for the 2008 Best Books for Kids and Teens The year is 2099. North America is in chaos, ruined by years of war, terrorism, and ecological destruction. Marauding motorcycle gangs roam the land, while a secret society of mutants who practice devilish rites terrorize the innocent. Young Toby Johnson lives with his father, one of the Old Believers, a religious sect that clings to stern moral values. Although embarrassed by his father’s quaint ways, Toby is horrified when a motorcycle gang attacks their modest homestead.

Commended for the 2006 Canadian Children’s Book Centre Our Choice Selection The year is 2014. Dylan Gibson is 16 and knows there is something unusual about him, but he doesn’t know what - aside from his fascination for things like insects, opera, old Japanese sci-fi movies, playing the didgeridoo, and the Loch Ness monster. After being dumped by his girlfriend, Caroline, who thinks he’s too strange, Dylan meets Robyn, who’s something of an outcast herself. Dylan’s father works for a big drug company, and his mom, a former geneticist, dropped out of research after a mysterious event.

At last, Shelby Belgarden has put her crime-solving behind her and has returned to the life of an ordinary teenager. Now 16, she has taken her first job: working at a new local restaurant called The Steak Place. But when one of her co-workers — a waitress named Nadine — goes missing, Shelby suspects foul play. The police won't believe her. Neither will Shelby's boyfriend, Greg, who grows frustrated with her search for a criminal who may not exist.

Commended for the 2008 Best Books for Kids and Teens On the surface, Peter McAllister has a good life: a good school, good friends, good times. So what if his best friend is a girl — and sort of a geek? And so what if she might be more than a friend. Underneath, it’s a different story. It’s been years since the death of his parents landed him in this small town with his hardly-there uncle, but he still feels as if his life in Clarksbury is just an inch deep. Does he really belong? Only Rosemary seems real.

Although it is 1969 and the end of a decade that has brought tremendous social change even in southweatern Ontario, 14-year-old Annie Ward has experienced little of "love, peace, and understanding." A diehard Beatles fan and highly intelligent but lacking in social graces, Annie is still grieving over the death of her father and also misses Zoe, the one "best" friend she ever had, who has moved away due to less-than-friendly circumstances. Lonely but proud, Annie has distanced herself from everyone, even her mother.

Legend has it that a paymaster lost his gold during the War of 1812, and Sam, Eadie, and Ben are determined to find it. The Jackson family has moved into an old house on Commissioners Road near London, Ontario, and twins Sam and Eadie discover an exciting legend that involves their new home. Their neighbour, Ben, tells them that a skirmish in the War of 1812 took place right in front of their house, and that, during the fight, it is thought that an army paymaster lost a chest of gold that has never been recovered. Sam, Eadie, and Ben decide to solve the legend and find the lost gold.

When Clair discovers a book of spells, she quickly learns that she can’t solve her problems with magic. Teased by her older brother, bullied by the popular girls at school, and plagued by a blistering pimple that has surfaced on the tip of her nose, twelve-year-old Claire Murphy wishes she could shrivel up and die or spontaneously combust. But when a mysterious book appears at her feet in the checkout aisle of a grocery store, Claire is confident all her troubles are over.

Short-listed for the Forest of Reading Red Maple Award, 2012 Before you judge me, there are two things you should know about why I did it. Shana Tremain is a good kid. She knows right from wrong and she’s never been in any serious trouble. But when her best friend, Carrie, comes to her for help, Shana agrees to break the law to save Carrie from a molester. She even feels good about it for a while. Then trouble starts. Someone in their group of friends is stealing from the others.

The Night Drummer is the story of two teenage friends—white, middle-class Peter Ellis, and Otis James, a native boy adopted by an older evangelical Christian couple. Peter and Otis grow up in small town Ontario in the 1970s, and the novel follows them through their high school years where both confront challenges that require them to decide who they are and who they want to be, decisions that will have profound consequences not only for themselves, but for their friends and family.