Saphire’s family has been a normal one for as long as she can remember. But when her father disappears, that family seems to fall apart. Her mom works from 4:00 pm to 1:00 am just to make enough money to support them.
Saphire’s life takes a turn to the crazy when her darling, [...]
The Boys’ Book Club, for boys in Grades 4 to 6, has started up again. Some 35 boys have joined, and, after lengthy discussions, we have agreed to start with Edo Van Belkom’s Wolf Pack, which won the Ontario Library Association’s Silver Birch prize for fiction in 2006.
While we [...]
When a little girl chooses to climb a tree to its highest bough, she comes up against the formidable Miss Nettie, who first warns of physical injury, and then accuses her of rude behaviour, before threatening dire consequences in the form of a reputation as a tomboy and the scars to go with it. [...]
Toby Tucker has lived with foster parents Don and Evie Allen for three weeks and figures he may at last have found a family. Toby knows nothing about who he is and where he comes from. All he has to connect him to his past is an old chest full of torn pieces [...]
When thirteen year-old Jules makes a list of the talents of his best friend, Chris, and compares it to a list of his own abilities, the only thing he knows he excels at, by comparison with his intelligent, athletic, good-looking, quiet friend, is talking. So when he and Chris and their impulsive, wild-child sidekick, [...]
Thirteen year-old Emmaline Cayley calls herself an aviatrix. She dreams of flying and is determined to build a flying machine! Since the year is 1894 and airplanes have not yet been invented, this is an extraordinary and, some might say, even foolhardy ambition.
Fortunately for Emmaline, she has recently come from India, where her [...]
