National Network for Equitable Library Service

Submarine Outlaw takes young adult readers on a unique journey when Alfred, a young boy who wants to be an explorer — not a fisherman, as his family demands — teams up with a junkyard genius to build a submarine that he sails around the Maritimes. The book takes the reader through the hands-on process of submarine construction into the world of real ocean navigation, replete with a high-seas chase, daring rescue and treasure hunting.

In this fast-paced novel for readers ten and up, James Graham, a Canadian journalist, is kidnapped in a market in Buenaventura, Colombia, right in front of Marco, his thirteen-year-old son. When the kidnappers try to grab Marco, his father yells at him, “Run Marco, run!” Marco manages to escape, and seeing no possibility of help in Colombia, he stows away on a freighter headed to Vancouver where a good friend of his father is living and who may be able to help.

In this new collection of stories, F.B. Andre explores what it means to "belong." Frequently his stories portray individuals involved in mixed relationships, of different cultures and races or backgrounds, of people struggling to feel at home with themselves and their situations. Andre depicts characters newly arrived in Canada as well as those who have called Canada home for generations. With his wonderful ear for dialogue, Andre allows us to listen in on things that are deeply felt, and we are reminded that the unsaid often reveals more than that which is said.

In Jack Hodgins’ new novel, Cadillac Cathedral, he is at his humorous best in describing the eccentric but lovable characters in the little town of Portuguese Creek on Vancouver Island. Arvo is the main figure, a Finn who has worked in logging camps all his life and who now spends his retirement fixing old cars, often ones that he finds discarded in the bush. Along with Arvo there is a collection of friends who meet at Arvo’s garage to discuss the world as it passes by on the highway.

In Outlaw in India, the fifth volume in the best-selling Submarine Outlaw series, Alfred and his crew of Seaweed the seagull and Hollie the dog begin their exploration of India with a piece of bad luck when they surface behind a frigate and bring the wrath of the Indian navy down upon them.

Falling in love creates an enchanted time, and when it’s on the magical Sunshine Coast of British Columbia during WWII, it is never to be forgotten. The increased emotions of a country at war are always present, as well as the heartache as the young men who joined up to serve their country return wounded—or not at all. For Meg, who is seventeen and beginning to go to dances and to meet interesting young men, the time appears filled with possibilities. She longs to enter the world of adults but with an education that will allow her a fulfilling life.

This historical time-travel novel, for children ten and up, is the third volume in Cathy Beveridge's ongoing series on Canadian disasters. Once again we meet Jolene and her twin brother Michael, this time in an RV on the shores of the Great Lakes, where her father and grandfather are conducting research into the Great Storm of 1913. When Grandpa discovers a time crease that enables them to step back into 1913, Jolene embraces the opportunity but soon finds herself, along with her brother and a new friend, inadvertently on board ship in the midst of the Great Storm.

The second volume in the trilogy that revisions Homer’s Odyssey is once again told from the viewpoint of Alexi, the young Trojan boy. Captured by Odysseus after the fall of Troy, Alexi is forced to accompany the Greeks on their sea journey home to Ithaca.

Lois Donovan’s new historical fiction, The Journal, begins in 2004 when thirteen-year-old Kami receives a bizarre offer involving a historic house in Edmonton, from her estranged grandfather. A move to Edmonton was definitely not part of Kami’s “best-year-ever” plan, but her mother insists it is an opportunity to reconnect with the father she hasn’t heard from in two years. When Kami discovers a journal from 1929, newspaper clippings inside send Kami hurtling back in time where she becomes an eye-witness to two of Alberta’s biggest stories of the year.

What thirteen-year-old boy wants to travel on a hopeless quest to India with his grandmother? Not Ben Leeson, whose anger about his father’s recent death has led him to escape into the isolated world of computer games. India is the last place Ben ever thought of visiting and his grandmother is the last person he’d ever dreamed of travelling with, but the ticket is already bought and Ben finds himself in India on a search for Gran’s long lost pen pal, Shanti.