Lexie Malton is an average Vancouver teen with fairly typical issues. Her stepmother is far from her favourite person, she has a sister with special needs, and life outside the home is the usual mix of school, friends, and social events. But Lexie has a secret. Her ex-boyfriend, Devlin Mather, is now a heroin addict living on the street, and only Lexie knows that she's the one who put him there. Guilt makes her give in to Devlin's demands for money time and time again, even though she knows how dangerous his drug use is. Lexie finally gathers the strength to stop enabling Devlin. But when he seeks treatment for his addiction, Lexie finds herself drawn back to him, never guessing what a dark and deadly path she has just chosen. Devlin relapses, and his desperation leads to an act that will change both of their lives forever.

When eleven-year-old Pascale Chardon finds herself on a lifeboat drifting toward an uncharted island with no memory of how she got there, all she wants is to get back to her family. The islanders, however, have a different objective. For many decades, the islanders have been anticipating the arrival of someone foretold only as the Long Awaited. The Long Awaited is said to have knowledge of the island's future and will tell the islanders of their fate seventeen days after their arrival. At first Pascale is sure she's not the Long Awaited, but when strange happenings occur, she finds it impossible to be certain of anything. Could she be the Long Awaited after all?

A twelve-year old boy copes with his mother's mental illness with the help of a talking--and possibly magic--bird, and friends he finds in unexpected places.

This delightful chapter book introduces young readers to Cooper Clark, whose world takes an alarming turn when his regular babysitter gets a new job. Arrangements are then made for Cooper to spend his after-school hours with old Mrs. Mulligan — a plan he does not care for one bit! Everyone knows that Mrs. Mulligan has a real live dragon in her basement and although he has kept his fears secret, Cooper is very afraid of dragons. In order to avoid Mrs. Mulligan's dreadful pet, Cooper comes up with one zany plan after another. It isn't until he runs out of ideas that Cooper makes a most important discovery. Filled with fun and very real emotion, Cooper Clark is sure to steal readers' hearts.

On the 2014 CLA Book of the Year for Children Award shortlist New middle-grade fiction from the award-winning author of The Glory Wind Adam's summer is off to a disappointing start. His so-called "best friend" has bailed on him, choosing to stay behind to care for a sick dog, instead of joining Adam and his family at the seaside campground as planned. Adam is furious with Billy for abandoning him, impatient with his mother for her artistic obsessions, and embarrassed by his dad's lame attempts at being funny. At least an ever-changing cast of new summer friends proves to be an entertaining distraction: Joey, the shoe-thief with the cute sister; the mischievous Linden twins; enigmatic Nevin; and Ethan, the adventurer. But it is Theo, the blind gentleman up on the hill, with his magical stories of driftwood, who helps Adam to see the true nature of friendship — and forgiveness.

Gracie and Luke immediately become friends when Gracie moves to a small town in Canada, but secrets about her mother's past threaten their friendship.

In the haze of a food-induced stupor, Zoey Dalton and her best friends Bean and Jenna make a pledge to begin performing random acts of kindness—anonymously. Their previous track record for altruism is pretty much a flat line, so anything they do to help others is bound to be an improvement. Or is it? What if the random acts of kindness are unwanted and misunderstood? What if, instead of spreading joy and good will, the trio’s actions stir up trouble, wreak havoc and maybe even cause bodily harm? That, of course, would be a different story. This story, in fact.

Commended for the 2007 Canadian Children's Book Centre, short-listed for the 2008 Red Maple Award "You know how it is when you get a feeling that something big is going to happen? Well, it wasn't like that for me. In fact, that Thursday started out like any other day." With these words, Sarah Gilmore begins the remarkable story of what happened when she and her mother, Maggie, suddenly found themselves recipients of an unusual inheritance. A home of their own sounds too good to be true to the Gilmores, who have been struggling to manage on Maggie's income as a waitress - but the conditions that come with the house are strange indeed. Then Sarah receives a message that she should look for a mysterious bequest in an old chest and her imagination runs to thoughts of jewels and wealth. She is disappointed when the chest seems to yield nothing of value - until she learns the truth about her legacy.

"No one pays much attention to you if you don't have much to say, so there was no way I could have predicted what would happen when I stopped talking altogether." When his teacher announces that it's time for the yearly class speeches, Griffin Maxwell starts to sweat. His past experience with the dreaded speech was humiliating, to say the least, and he just knows there's no way he can go through that again. So Griffin's best friend, Bryan, comes up with a solution -- one that's so simple it just has to work. But neither boy can begin to predict the bizarre chain of events that will be set in place when Griffin goes along with the idea. From squaring off with the school bully to reading a teacher's private letters, Griffin Maxwell wil have to face things he never imagined, and all without saying a word!

Short-listed for the Forest of Reading Red Maple Award, 2012 Before you judge me, there are two things you should know about why I did it. Shana Tremain is a good kid. She knows right from wrong and she's never been in any serious trouble. But when her best friend, Carrie, comes to her for help, Shana agrees to break the law to save Carrie from a molester. She even feels good about it for a while. Then trouble starts. Someone in their group of friends is stealing from the others. As she searches for the truth, Shana uncovers evidence that raises a terrifying question: Has she made a horrible mistake? Faced with the reality of what she's done, Shana finds herself trapped in a web of her own lies and deceit. Can she convince the right people that she's telling the truth now? Either way it's clear someone is going to pay a terrible price for her crime.

When her father takes a job as a traveling salesman, nine-year-old Ellie is sent to live with Grandmother Acklebee on her farm in Saskatchewan and finds her grandmother's reaction to her arrival far from welcoming.

When Vanessa Hudgens stepped onto the stage to try out for a role in High School Musical, she was one of over six hundred hopefuls. At that time, she was not well known. But the producers were blown away by her audition, and she was chosen for a leading part. It was this role that put the young singer/actress on the path to superstardom. Hudgens has now starred in a number of movies, released several albums, and won awards for her work as both an actress and a singer.

"I knew one thing -- I wasn't going to be rotting in that place for the rest of my life. I was getting out of there. That place turned people into the living dead. In that neighbourhood, it was hard to hear anything that didn't carry the sound of defeat." Sixteen-year-old Porter Delaney has his future figured out, but his nice, neat plans are shaken when a man he believes may be his father suddenly appears in his Toronto neighbourhood. Porter knows that he wants nothing to do with the deadbeat dad who abandoned him and his sister twelve years earlier, but curiosity causes him to re-examine the past. Unfortunately, actual memories are scarce and confusing, and much of what he knows is based on things his mother told him. As Porter looks for answers, it begins to seem that all he's ever going to find are more questions.