Boney, Itchy and Squeak are neighbours and best friends. All three boys are odd; Boney, whose parents disappeared when he was a baby, lives with his neurotic aunt and her long-suffering husband, Squeak, whose mother ran off to work in a travelling cabaret, views the world from behind World War I goggles fitted with lens [...]
After a year in Balgownie, a small town in the highlands, soon-to-be thirteen-year old Laurel “Lemmie” Ferguson is still haunted by what happened in Edinburgh before she and her parents moved away. Ridiculed for her highly artistic approach to dressing, and her unusual, exuberant and sometimes clumsy behaviour, by the time Laurel left her private [...]
Grade 10 student Meghan Ball is perfecting the art of invisibility. Her extreme obesity makes her both the target of vicious verbal attacks by J-Bar, Valley Regional High’s star athlete, and renders her a non-person in the eyes of staff and fellow students. Abandoned in Grade 7 by her only friend, Meghan strives to pass [...]
Conditioned by his experiences, both at school and at home, eleven-year old Billy Ray has learned not to expect much from life. His inability to read more than a handful of simple words or to recall numbers, and his hyperactivity in class have made him the butt of his classmates’ taunts and putdowns. At home, [...]
For thirteen-year old Charley Callaghan, the new school year is proving tough. A recent immigrant from Dublin, he has made one good friend only to see him depart Vancouver for Ontario. Though his father has found employment, he isn’t making much money and has to be away from home several nights a week. And, worst [...]
From the moment he sets eyes on Will Reid, Shane has him in his sights. With his old-man clothes, his preoccupation with ants, and his secret writing of poetry, Will is an obvious target for Shane’s bullying. Though he was accepted, or, at least, tolerated, in elementary school, Will finds himself on his own in [...]
Since their mother’s death, three years before, eleven year-old Corrie and her five brothers and sisters have had only one another to hold onto. Lost in his classes and his research and his book, their professor father seems largely oblivious to them, the sad state of the house and garden, and the terrible meals [...]
Ten year-old Lucas Clarke loves dinosaurs, so when he comes across a website advertising a dinosaur-making kit for $19.95, he digs out the last of his birthday money and sends away for it. Lucas is disappointed what arrives in the mail. The small test tube filled with a clear liquid seems to prove his [...]
Constantly picked on, called names and beaten up by Dec Bowker and his gang, fifteen year-old Moo Nelson has retreated into a solitude that is punctuated only by music, food, and his nightly visits to a footbridge over the nearby A12 motorway. From that bridge, Moo watches the vehicles, observes the ebb and flow [...]
Jenny and Alexandra are best friends. They sit together on the school bus, play cards in Jenny’s tree house, spy on Alexandra’s brother, skip rope, and play Jenny Tag. Both girls are creative; Jenny makes puppets and invents games, and Alexandra draws and paints. Though the girls have had their disagreements, they [...]
