The Great Famine in Ireland was a catastrophe of immense proportions. Eviction, emigration and death from starvation were widespread. Landlords, eager to dispose of 'surplus' tenants, engaged in 'assisted passages', whereby tenants were given financial incentives to emigrate. The clearances of uneconomic tenants from the 85,000-acre Coolattin Estate in County Wicklow by Lord Fitzwilliam were the most organised in Ireland during and after the Famine years. From 1847 to 1856 Fitzwilliam remo...

Set against the backdrop of the 2008 Great Recession, this story follows twelve-year-old Anne. Watch as her world changes in an instant! After her father loses his job, she watches him slowly unravel, turning to alcohol in a desperate attempt to cope with the weight of providing for his family. With money tight and tension rising at home, Anne, a brave and resilient young girl, must sacrifice her summer plans and work in her grandfather's onion patch to help pay for her sister Libby's pres...

A veteran of the foster care system, 10-year-old Jake "McMagic" is also a story-teller. As Jake settles into his new foster home on a family dairy farm, his story of traveling fish is cut short by hearing his new older brother is leaving, and his baby brother-adopted by another family years before-is in a hospital somewhere! Determined to find and rescue his little brother, Jake must decide: can he trust others to help, or should he again strike out on his own? Readers will cheer on Jake a...

Too often, we think of school as a fixed-rail path we all have to follow: teachers teach, students learn, exams are taken, futures set. That's how it's been since the introduction of compulsory schooling in the 19th century.But parents, teachers and corporations around the world are now voicing their dissatisfaction with education systems that are no longer fit for purpose. Too many of our young people are not being adequately prepared for the unprecedented challenges they will fac...

Alice doesn’t like noise, smells or strangers. She does like rules. Lots of rules.Nobody at her new school knows she is autistic, and soon Alice finds herself in trouble because the rules here are different. When she meets Megan in detention, she doesn’t know what to make of her. Megan doesn’t smell, she’s not terribly noisy, and she’s not exactly a stranger. But is she a friend? Megan seems fearless to Alice; but also angry or maybe sad. Alice isn’t sure which. Wh...

A quirky collection of stories about teens in lust and in love. From the first stirrings of same-sex desire to paternity questions around a teen pregnancy, 101 Ways to Dance reflects the spectrum of teen sexuality from the sweet to the scary.

Your mother's suicide attempt has left her in a coma from which she's never waking up. You know that she wouldn't want to live like this, but could you really help her die? Here you are, making the hardest decision of your life and there's no one to help you: Your father has disappeared into depression. Your best friend is becoming someone you no longer want to know. There is a girl who could help, maybe, if you'd let her. But in the end, it's all up to you.A free-verse novel from ...

The adorable My Pet Human series continues at school, where Oliver and Freckles star in the pet club's talent show.Freckles is new at her elementary school, and Oliver wants to be sure she finds her niche. So when she joins the pet club and gets roped into putting on a talent show to raise money for the local animal shelter, Oliver has no choice but to help out. What he doesn't bargain for is that Freckles takes in a foster kitten! Turns out, while Oliver values his...

The first full-scale biography of Canada’s first prime minister in half a century by one of our best-known and most highly regarded political writers.The first volume of Richard Gwyn’s definitive biography of John A. Macdonald follows his life from his birth in Scotland in 1815 to his emigration with his family to Kingston, Ontario, to his days as a young, rising lawyer, to his tragedy-ridden first marriage, to the birth of his political ambitions, to his commitment to the all-but-...

Most of us know bits and pieces of our history but would like to be more sure of how it all fits together. The trick is to find a history that is so absorbing you will want to read it from beginning to end. With this book, Desmond Morton, one of Canada’s most noted and highly respected historians, shows how the choices we can make at the dawn of the 21st century have been shaped by history.Morton is keenly aware of the links connecting our present, our past, and our future, and in ...

Famine may be triggered by nature but its outcome arises from politics and ideology. In Three Famines, award-winning author Thomas Keneally uncovers the troubling truth -- that sustained widespread hunger is historically the outcome of government neglect and individual venality. Through the lens of three of the most disastrous famines in modern history -- the potato famine in Ireland, the famine in Bengal in 1943, and the string of famines that plagued Ethiopia in the 1970s and 19...

Whether you hike, bike, ride the rails, or drive, the shore of Lake Ontario can yield a treasure trove of heritage sites and natural beauty -- if you know where to look.Travel with Ron Brown as he probes the shoreline of the Canadian side of Lake Ontario to discover its hidden heritage. Explore "ghost ports," forgotten coves, historical lighthouses, rumrunning lore, and even the location of a top-secret spy camp. The area also contains some unusual natural features, including a mys...