2021 Red Maple Award -- Shortlisted

As far-fetched as her father's plan sounds, sticking to it is easy for Harbour -- until it isn't.

Fourteen-year-old Harbour is living in a tent in a Toronto ravine with her dog, a two-month supply of canned tuna, and an unconventional reading list. She's not homeless, she tells herself. She's merely waiting for her home -- a thirty-six-foot sailboat -- to arrive with her father at the helm. Why should she worry when the clouds give her signs that assure her that she's safe and protected?

When her credit card gets declined, phone contact from her father stops, and summer slips into a frosty fall, Harbour is forced to face reality and accept the help of a homeless teen named Lise to survive on the streets. Lise shows Harbour how to panhandle and navigate the shelter system while trying to unravel Harbour's mysterious past. But if Harbour tells her anything, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Maxine and her best friend Leah used to have so much fun chatting with boys online. Their other friends were jealous of their new relationships, and their parents were oblivious to all the love notes being e-mailed back and forth. So what if Max and Leah lied about their ages and where they lived? It was just a Web site... just for fun. But when Leah disappeared, Max realized that they weren't the only ones telling lies online. Through her daily journal entries, Max shares the crushing loss of Leah and her desperate efforts to move on after all that has happened.

Finalist for the Arlene Barlin Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2023 CCBC Book Awards

Rook and Gage live worlds apart -- but somehow they must find a way to help one another survive.

Trapped in a life she didn't choose, Rook struggles to find meaning in her appointed role as an apprentice Keeper of ArHK. Even though her mam soothes her with legends of the Outside and her da assures her there are many interesting facts to discover in the Archives, Rook sees only endless years of tracking useless information. Then one day Rook discovers historic footage of the Chosen Ones arriving in ArHK, and she begins to realize her mam's legends are more than bedtime stories. That's when Rook begins her perilous and heartbreaking search for the limitless sky.

Gage is also trapped. Living on the frontier line with his family, his is a life of endless moving and constant danger. As he works with the other scouts, Gage searches for the Ship of Knowledge to help his society regain the wonders of the long distant past, when machines transported people across the land, illnesses could be cured, and human structures rose high into the sky.

Will Rook and Gage escape the traps and perils that await them in order to save each other's worlds? If they don't, it could very well mean the end of humanity.

[40 Days in Hicksville] is worth a read, and is a great example of the power of a well-written dual-perspective narrative. -- Canadian Review of Materials

Kate doesn't want to spend one minute in the Hicksville her mother moved them to, much less the entire year she's stuck here in the decaying house they inherited from her grandparents. She misses her boyfriend and sneaking out at night to make urban exploration videos for her growing YouTube channel.

Zach, the boy who lives next door, tries to befriend Kate even though she ignores him. But when Kate discovers her estranged grandfather lives nearby, she wants to meet him despite the small-town rumours of his violent past, and takes Zach with her.

That's when they find the crevasse on her grandfather's property and the skeletons hidden inside.

That's the day they find out Kate's uncle and his friend went missing as teenagers.

Instead of counting down the days until she can leave Hicksville, Kate and Zach start working together to solve the cold case that has silenced her mother for thirty-five years.

2016 VOYA Top Shelf Fiction Selection

Anna has always been so level-headed, so easy-going, so talented and funny. How could anyone have guessed she wanted to die?

Anna is not like other people. She's always felt like she didn't belong: not with other kids, not with her family, not in her body. It isn't until her grandparents are killed in a tragic accident, however, that Anna starts to feel untethered. She begins to wonder what it would be like if she didn't exist, and the thought of escaping the aimless drifting is the only thing that brings her comfort.

When Anna overdoses on prescription painkillers, doctors realize she has been suffering from depression and start looking for a way to help her out of the desperate black hole she never thought she would escape. It's then that rock bottom comes into sight and the journey back to normal begins.

All Katrina really wants is a home, a forever home where she can live with her three sisters. She is even willing to give up her Disney-princess dream of living happily ever after for the chance. But giving up her birth parents for the possibility of a predictable life is not an easy choice, no matter what they have done. After five years of fending for herself and her little sisters, six foster homes and an eighteen-hour car ride to their new lives, Katrina lives in constant fear that one of her sisters will blow it and get them sent back to Blackwater Creek. It takes years before she believes her adopted parents will love her no matter what happens.