National Network for Equitable Library Service

Before beginning his training as a Seeing Eye dog, Shakespeare, a labrador retriever who understands human speech, is placed for his first year of life with a foster child who has never learned to love.

When Patricia's mother sends her to her cousins' cottage for the summer, Patricia doesn't want to go. She doesn't know her cousins at all, and she's never been good at camping or canoeing, let alone making new friends. When she arrives at the cottage, her worst fears come true: her cousin Kelly teases her; Aunt Ginnie and Uncle Doug feel sorry for her. She doesn't fit in. Then Patricia discovers an old watch hidden under a floorboard. When she winds it, she finds herself taken back in time to the summer when her own mother was twelve ...

Foster child Min Randall's life is not easy as she has to deal with a number of foster parents and Children's Aid, but things take a turn for the better when she finds an injured dog.

"Nine-year-old Anna has always been the clumsy one in the family - somehow she can never do anything right. She bumps into tables, and she can't read the chalkboard at school. Her perfect brothers and sisters call her 'Awkward Anna.' When Papa announces that the family is moving from Germany to Canada - he's worried about what the Nazis' rise to power will bring - Anna's heart sinks. How can she learn English when she can't even read German properly? But when the Soldens arrive in Canada, Anna learns that there is a reason for her clumsiness.

In this sharply observed and erotically charged debut collection, Journey Prize-winner Yasuko Thanh immerses us in the lives of people on the knife edge of desire and regret, hungry for change yet still yearning for a place to call home, if only for a little while.

An updated and whimsical new take on what it means to be Canadian. Lau alludes to the personal and political histories of a number of young Asian Canadian characters to explain their unique perspectives of the world, artfully fusing pure delusion and abstract perception with heartbreaking reality. Lau's stories feature the children and grandchildren of immigrants, transnational adoptees and multiracial adults who came of age in the 1990s--all struggling to find a place in the Western world and using the only language they know to express their hopes, fears and expectations.

Henry and Jenny are married after years apart and the only thing that could make them happier would be to have a child, but Jenny age and the fact her body was ravage by cancer is working against her wish.

Jeremy lives in a small community where winters are long and stray dogs roam the streets. When peer pressure leads Jeremy into a bad prank, he is immediately struck with guilt - and that's when Jeremy's life changes forever. Trying to make amends Jeremy befriends Yellow Dog - and in the process meets a curious old man who introduces him to the adventures of dog sledding. Soon Jeremy is forming his own old-time dog team with Yellow Dog at lead - and in the process discovers more about himself - and the old man - than he ever thought possible.

The first exciting adventure of Shepherd and Wolfe. High school student, Sheri Beckman, has disappeared. After a massive search turns up nothing, her boyfriend, Tony Shepherd, joins forces with the wise-ass troublemaker, Charlie Wolfe, to find out what happened. However, Charlie's way isn't always lawful, so when another missing girl shows up dead, Tony must decide whether doing right sometimes means doing wrong. Against a ruthless killer, they must work together and stop him before someone else dies. These aren't your parent's boy detectives.

Magpies have an eye for shiny things. They search for bright bits of meaning amongst the dirt and filth of their world. Living in a small town on the outskirts of Saskatoon with his emotionally distant and alcoholic father, Ben struggles with his increasingly somber view of society. He is haunted by the death of his older brother and the mysteries of his mother’s suicide. Unable to live life like the other magpies around him, he slips deeper into the darkness of his own mind.