Sixteen-year-old Josh is no stranger to gang life.

His dad, the leader of the Warriors, a gang on their reservation, is in jail, and Josh's older brother has taken charge.

Josh's mom has made it clear the Warriors and their violence aren't welcome in her home--Josh's dad and brother included. She wants Josh to focus on graduating high school. Josh is unsure whether gang life is for him--that is until gang violence arrives on his doorstep.

Turning to the Warriors, Josh, now known as Creeboy, starts down the path to becoming a full gang member--cutting himself off from his friends, family, and community outside the gang.

It's harder than ever for Creeboy to envision a different future for himself. Will anything change his mind?

If I Go Missing is derived from excerpts of a letter that went viral and was also the basis of a documentary film. In her letter, Jonnie calls out the authorities for neglecting to immediately investigate missing Indigenous people and urges them to not treat me as the Indigenous person I am proud to be if she were to be reported missing. Indigenous artist Neal Shannacappo provides the artwork. Through his illustrations, he imagines a situation in which a young Indigenous woman does disappear, portraying the reaction of her community, her friends, the police, and media.

Trans teen Journey has the chance to play an epic game of Dungeons & Dragons. Surprise encounters are common in D&D, but what Journey doesn't expect is to reconnect with an ex-friend who they still love and have wronged in the past.

Equal parts touching and laugh-out-loud funny, Losing Hit Points is a nerdy queer romance book filled with goblins, adventure, and the healing power of admitting our mistakes.

K.A Mielke's newest novel melds the fun of the popular fantasy role-playing game with a touching plot about making up for the past while looking ahead towards a brighter future--together.

River is teased about her Indigenous heritage as a young girl, and she struggles with her identity. When she travels to spend the summer with her Indigenous father and grandmother, she finds out what it means to be an urban Indian. On her family's nearby reserve, she learns about the lives of Indigenous people. River discovers a deep respect for and connection with the land and her cultural traditions. The highlight of her summer is attending the annual powwow with her new friends. After the powwow, River drinks too much and posts photos online that anger people, and she has her right to identify as an Indigenous person called into question.

Distributed in the U.S by Lerner Publishing Group.

Udoka Clendon is a first-year university student and a product of basketball systems that have produced professional players.

He's been pushed relentlessly by the obsessive mentorship of his older brother, which has been tolerated by his hard-working single mother. For years his brother has taken him to tournaments and pushed him to succeed on the outdoor courts of the west end.

Burdened by expectations and self-doubt, Udoka tries to reignite his passion for the game. Now, he's been given a final opportunity at the city-wide tournament to rediscover his confidence and his sense of purpose--all of which he fears he has lost forever.

With the clarity and poetic style of a seasoned writer, and drawing on his own time as an elite sports prospect, Jawara Pedican shows the trials and traumas of becoming fixated on a dream of sports stardom.

This reader-directed exploration of ableism is both informative and empowering.

Self-assessment quizzes, real life scenarios, myths, and Q&As all contribute to understanding ableism and ableist behavior, and readers will learn to identify, address, and provide helpful, effective solutions. Strategies for change for both readers and their peers are included.

Author Kimberley Maich uses her experience as a special education specialist, certified teacher, registered psychologist, and board-certified behavior analyst to present a realistic and accurate look at ableism.

The text is accompanied on every page by graphic novel-style illustrations that depict characters often not included in illustrated books. Illustrator Kay Nau draws on their experience as a disabled and neurodivergent artist to bring authenticity and life to the characters and scenarios discussed within the book.

What do you do when the musical culture you love comes with a legacy of intolerance?

Denise is a teen who was raised on Jamaican dancehall music; her dad is a leading local DJ who has imbued her life with a love of music. Denise has aspirations to follow in her dad's footsteps, but there's a problem: Denise identifies as queer, and the music she loves often reflects homophobia. Her mother and relatives are also not accepting. But when she moves to Ottawa for first year university school, encouraged by a sympathetic cousin, she finds a community of like-minded kids who love and cherish both music and diversity.

This lively true-to-life portrayal of teen lives and relationships puts a contemporary spin on the cultural conflict often between more traditional families and their young family members. A groundbreaking novel portraying a Caribbean Canadian teen challenging the ongoing legacy of homophobia in her musical and cultural community. Dancehall music and culture is undergoing a large shift.

Ben is on a train back to Ottawa after a visit with his dad in Toronto when he runs into the last person he wants to see: Caleb, the handsome, confident boy who recently and accidentally broke Ben's phone.

But when the two start talking, not only does Ben find himself won over by Caleb's roguish charm, but he learns his seatmate is also bisexual.

Stuck with You discusses important issues facing teens as they contemplate their futures within the context of a light-hearted romance plot with witty dialogue and charming interplay, almost all taking place within the space of a single long train trip.

Outta Here is the story of a lively and imaginative small-town teen living with a mom whose pain medication has led to addiction, leaving little money for basics--like food.

Elise's best friend and her sympathetic teachers offer what help they can, but there's only so much they can do. Elise's situation suddenly turns dangerous when her mother invites a fellow addict into their lives. Elise has to find a better path for herself--to get to college, pay for her education, and deal with her mother's lifestyle.

An authentic, hard-hitting novel that captures a reality faced by many teens whose families experience the epidemic of opioid addiction. Elise's story highlights life choices a teen can face, and the overwhelming feelings that can come if those choices have to be made with little support from family or community.

Mina's summer is shaping up well: she's got her dream job and, with the way her new coworker is flirting, maybe a new girlfriend as well. The lingerie store where they both work might threaten to ruin it all though.

Centering around first love, cultural expectations, and class, Luscious Love is the story of a girl who must allow herself to be loved, learn to love herself, and stand up against a boss that's all too willing to take advantage of her low self-esteem.

Committed to amplifying female voices, author Katerina Bakolias highlights the traps we fall into when we have low self-worth.

In his debut novel, Eddie Kawooya presents a fish-out-of-water story of immigration and the pains and joys of integration into a new and sometimes frightening environment.

Loosely based on Kawooya's own life, this novel follows fifteen-year-old Patrick Ace Katumba. Kutumba's life is changed drastically when he, his mother, and his sister are forced to flee their lives in Uganda. Ace's mother is a journalist who has reported on government corruption and has now been marked.

Arriving in Canada, Ace finds himself living in his uncle's basement apartment and having to integrate into a new community where he is the African. Despite being an excellent student, he meets ignorance and bullying at school until he falls in with a crew of international misfits who understand what he's going through. With their support, Ace starts to regain the confidence he lost in the move and his subsequent troubles.

At the core of this story is the isolation a child feels after his world is snatched from him, and the journey of self-worth and self-confidence he must undertake to rise above it.

Khalil, a young Black boy, starts at a new school and is excited to join the basketball team--until he begins to experience and witnesses subtle and not-so-subtle forms of racism among his new teammates. Khalil struggles with how to react and stand up for himself and others against his new friends who have taken him in.

Kevin heronJones has written this book to reflect his and other young Black people's experiences with racism in school. Not Talking About You portrays racism as it occurs amongst young people today and explores the impact on the target and bystanders who have to decide how to react when they find racist youth in their midst.

Trans teen Journey has the chance to play an epic game of Dungeons & Dragons. Surprise encounters are common in D&D, but what Journey doesn't expect is to reconnect with an ex-friend who they still love and have wronged in the past.

Equal parts touching and laugh-out-loud funny, Losing Hit Points is a nerdy queer romance book filled with goblins, adventure, and the healing power of admitting our mistakes.

K.A Mielke's newest novel melds the fun of the popular fantasy role-playing game with a touching plot about making up for the past while looking ahead towards a brighter future--together.

What do you do when the musical culture you love comes with a legacy of intolerance?

Denise is a teen who was raised on Jamaican dancehall music; her dad is a leading local DJ who has imbued her life with a love of music. Denise has aspirations to follow in her dad's footsteps, but there's a problem: Denise identifies as queer, and the music she loves often reflects homophobia. Her mother and relatives are also not accepting. But when she moves to Ottawa for first year university school, encouraged by a sympathetic cousin, she finds a community of like-minded kids who love and cherish both music and diversity.

This lively true-to-life portrayal of teen lives and relationships puts a contemporary spin on the cultural conflict often between more traditional families and their young family members. A groundbreaking novel portraying a Caribbean Canadian teen challenging the ongoing legacy of homophobia in her musical and cultural community. Dancehall music and culture is undergoing a large shift.

Jack loves mountain biking, and when his dad forbids him to ride in the forest surrounding Lytton because of the risk of wildfire, the reality of the region's heat dome sets in. Days later, the village of Lytton burns down, forcing Jack to evacuate to Merritt.

Escape from the Wildfire offers a fictional account based on the real-life facts of the disastrous wildfire of 2021 that destroyed the town of Lytton after days of scorching heat. Dorothy Bentley's own experiences of living through a wildfire led her to research the experience of Lytton residents, so she could write the story of a resilient teen surviving an environmental catastrophe.

Romero, a Guyanese Canadian, is a sensitive kid who is just starting to attend an inner-city-style school with a large racialized population.

Romero falls in with a friendly crew but finds himself in trouble when a shot is fired in the school cafeteria--and he gets stuck with the gun. Meanwhile, the police, often using brutal tactics and targeting young Black males, try to find out who the shooter was.

To humanize and critique the Black male experience and dispel the myth that vulnerability and empathy equal weakness, Carlos Anthony draws on his own recent experiences as a teen in school in Etobicoke. His novel is an authentic--and rare--representation of Black youth culture and the experiences of Black teens in Canada's public schools.

Fourteen-year-old Addie's town is built around a lead and zinc smelter.

The company has done an extensive cleanup of its operations, but everything in the town still seems sick; even the crows are having trouble flying. Addie decides to find out if the smelter is still poisoning local residents, and to do that, she needs help.

At first Addie is overlooked and treated as a child who wouldn't understand. She turns the adults' naivety to her advantage and confronts what most people in her town are too fearful to address.

This novel allows young readers to confront climate anxieties while finding inspiration in how Addie takes action that is believable and realistic.

When an Indigenous group demands that the local school's name be changed, AJ delves into his family's history--and the town's.

AJ's family has been in this town from the very beginning, they created the mill that employs most of the town's workers, and his great-grandfather, Hatchet Harold Sullivan, served as the town's first mayor. Even the high school is named after him. But when the local Indigenous nation, Big River First Nation, demands Harold's name be removed from the high school, along with his statue, tensions begin to run high. Huge rifts are formed in the community, mainly between the locals and the Big River kids.

Now at odds, AJ and his former best friend Jackson, the son of the Big River chief, are locked in tense confrontation. When the statue is vandalized, the final straw breaks, and AJ and Jackson trade blows, getting them both suspended and on notice. Determined to get to the bottom of these accusations and guided by his grandmother, AJ digs through the past and discovers a series of horrifying truths about Hatchet Harold's racist actions. Defying the pressures of his father and with the help of Jackson, AJ brings the truth of the past into the present and sets the town on a path toward healing.

Mina's summer is shaping up well: she's got her dream job and, with the way her new coworker is flirting, maybe a new girlfriend as well. The lingerie store where they both work might threaten to ruin it all though.

Centering around first love, cultural expectations, and class, Luscious Love is the story of a girl who must allow herself to be loved, learn to love herself, and stand up against a boss that's all too willing to take advantage of her low self-esteem.

Committed to amplifying female voices, author Katerina Bakolias highlights the traps we fall into when we have low self-worth.

In his debut novel, Eddie Kawooya presents a fish-out-of-water story of immigration and the pains and joys of integration into a new and sometimes frightening environment.

Loosely based on Kawooya's own life, this novel follows fifteen-year-old Patrick Ace Katumba. Kutumba's life is changed drastically when he, his mother, and his sister are forced to flee their lives in Uganda. Ace's mother is a journalist who has reported on government corruption and has now been marked.

Arriving in Canada, Ace finds himself living in his uncle's basement apartment and having to integrate into a new community where he is the African. Despite being an excellent student, he meets ignorance and bullying at school until he falls in with a crew of international misfits who understand what he's going through. With their support, Ace starts to regain the confidence he lost in the move and his subsequent troubles.

At the core of this story is the isolation a child feels after his world is snatched from him, and the journey of self-worth and self-confidence he must undertake to rise above it.