Tilly has always known she's part Lakota on her dad's side. She's grown up with the traditional teachings of her grandma, relishing the life lessons of her beloved mentor. But it isn't until an angry man shouts something on the street that Tilly realizes her mom is Aboriginal too--a Cree woman taken from her own parents as a baby.

Tilly feels her mother's pain deeply. She's always had trouble fitting in at school, and when her grandma dies unexpectedly, her anchor is gone. Then Abby, a grade-seven classmate, invites her home for lunch and offers her something special to drink. Nothing has prepared Tilly for the tingling in her legs, the buzz in her head and the awesome feeling that she can do anything. From then on, partying seems to offer an escape from her insecurities. But after one dangerously drunken evening, Tilly knows she has to change. Summoning her courage, she begins the long journey to finding pride in herself and her heritage. Just when she needs it most, a mysterious stranger offers some wise counsel: Never question who you are or who your people are. It's in your eyes. I know it's in your heart.

Loosely based on author Monique Gray Smith's own life, this revealing, important work of creative nonfiction tells the story of a young indigenous woman coming of age in the 1980s. In a spirit of hope, this unique story captures the irrepressible resilience of Tilly and of indigenous peoples everywhere.

No Time to Say Goodbye is a fictional account of five children sent to aboriginal boarding school, based on the recollections of a number of Tsartlip First Nations people. These unforgettable children are taken by government agents from Tsartlip Day School to live at Kuper Island Residential School. The five are isolated on the small island and life becomes regimented by the strict school routine. They experience the pain of homesickness and confusion while trying to adjust to a world completely different from their own. Their lives are no longer organized by fishing, hunting and family, but by bells, line-ups and chores. In spite of the harsh realities of the residential school, the children find adventure in escape, challenge in competition, and camaraderie with their fellow students. Sometimes sad, sometimes funny, always engrossing, No Time to Say Goodbye is a story that readers of all ages won't soon forget.

On a fresh spring day, young Yetsa, her mother and her grandmother gather to prepare the sheep fleeces piled in Grandma's yard. As they clean, wash and dry the fleece, laughter and hard work connect the three generations. Through Yetsa's sensual experience of each task, the reader joins this family in an old but vibrant tradition: the creation of Cowichan sweaters. Each sweater is unique, and its design tells a story. In Yetsa's Sweater, that story is one of love, welcome and pride in a job well done.

When Jan is seven, Nazis attack and take over Holland. At first, not much changes. Soon, though, war starts taking things away: important things like neighbors and friends, trust and respect, even clothing, fuel and food. Through it all, Jan is still a boy, finding ways to play with friends and paddle his sailing canoe in the canals. But he must also filch food and help protect his father's guests from the enemy. Then the enemy takes his father away. Jan and his mother are on the run. They dodge bombs, sleep in haystacks, work for their food... all the while desperately searching for refuge and hoping for normal life--and Pa--to someday, somehow, return.

Jan de Groot was born in 1932 in The Hague, Holland, and now lives in Langley, British Columbia. He regularly contributes articles to boating magazines, and he writes for De Krant, a Dutch newspaper distributed throughout the world.

Twelve-year-old Pepper and her misfit brother, Everett, are spending their summer on Shack Island with Grandma. Pepper has mysterious dreams that foretell the future, so she decides to practice her ESP skills to see if she can get better at it.

Pepper also knows she is adopted, but she knows nothing of her real family. As the summer days and starlit nights begin to work their magic, Pepper decides her Shack Island summer will be an excellent time to try to find out who they might be.

By the end of the summer, she'll have some answers...but they might not be the ones she's looking for.

Neekah's great grandma, Mumma, knit all her life. Her Grandma Dorothy knits, her mom knits and all her aunties knit. Even some of Neekah's uncles knit, too. Every year she asks her mom if she can learn, and every year she hears, Be patient. Your hands aren't quite big enough yet.

At last Neekah is ready to learn, her head and heart bursting with the colorful designs she will create with the wool. She sits down with her mom, holding the wooden needles Grandpa Carl has made for her and the wool she chose from Auntie Joni's shop. But knitting a toque for Grandma Dorothy is not as easy as she had imagined.

The chapter headings in Born to Be Hung hint at the range Dude Lavington has covered:
Runaways-High Water Crossings
Moose-Hunting Yarns
Range Riding on the Batnuni
The Lady Said Yes
Bluffing Wolves ...
This is the author's second book on wrangling and ranching in the Baker Creek Valley region of British Columbia. It is an autobiographical adventure that upholds all the best western story traditions ... but the adventures are fact, not fiction, and the tall tales are true!

A cowboy must be blessed (or cursed) with nine lives like the proverbial cat, or he would never make it to the allotted three score and ten - or even to maturity.-DUDE LAVINGTON

Relive the wild, wild west, Canadian style! Dude Lavington's densely packed memoirs are full of humour, aphorisms, cowboy argot, and the kind of adventures that make folk heroes. Stettler, Calgary, Quesnel, Barkerville, Stanley ... places that come to life in this warm, colloquial history.

In 1926, the B.C. Government had a plan: 160 acres of land in exchange for hard work. For Olive Spencer Loggins, who was six months pregnant and husband Arthur, heading for the Cariboo and leaving the great depression behind in Vancouver was a dream come true. They traded urban soup lines for the thin gruel of their first winter in the north. The greenhorns learned fast. Their Aboriginal neighbours taught them to fish, their community danced them through the night, and they all valued work over money. This is a true story of the Canadian West, complete with bandits, hard-working women, and renegade moose.

Jessa is in Grade 6 and eats, sleeps, and dreams horses. But lessons and ponies are expensive, so how will she ever manage to buy or lease a horse of her own? With a combination of work, luck, and good friends she finds a pony named Rebel...and then the adventures begin On with the gumboots, up with the pitchfork and Jessa has to learn to work for Rebel's room and board while keeping up in school and coping with some strange behaviour from a few classmates.

Anneke had heard the noise too. A twig cracking. Slow steps coming from the partly overgrown path. Was it the cougar? The bear? Searchers? She'd have to outsmart them all. Bear, play dead and dumb; cat, play big and brave. . .

When her mother is no longer able to take care of her, eleven-year-old Anneke takes her border collie, Sheera, and moves to a cave near her home in the Kootenay mountains. Although she knows how to survive and stay hidden in the woods, she is shaken by a close encounter with a cougar and a terrifying thunderstorm. Anneke may need to turn to the kind foster parents she stayed with several years earlier, but they are poor substitutes for the mother she misses so much. Why can't the doctors find the right medication to control her mother's schizophrenia? Anneke finds comfort from Gram, who lost her own mother at an early age, and in her talent in woodworking, as she copes with a difficult summer of changes and adjustments. Summer of Changes is the first in a series of realistic adventure stories by award-winning author Ann Alma.

Hope and her family travel from England to their new home on an island off the coast of British Columbia in the 1860s. Hope thinks that she has arrived in paradise. She is right ... until whiskey traders arrive. Letia and her family are Lamalcha people who winter on Kuper Island and move to Wallace Island in the summer. The problem is that Letia's summer camp is on the island that the Crown has deeded to Hope's family. When the two girls meet, against the wishes of their mothers, their stories intersect. Set against the backdrop of the confusing events surrounding the English colonization of British Columbia, and an 1863 naval assault on Kuper Island, Counting on Hope tells the story of two girls whose lives are profoundly changed when their two cultures collide. Alternating between free verse and prose, Sylvia Olsen follows the girl's individual storylines before, during and after their meeting. She captures the wonder and joy with which Hope and Letia develop their friendship. She also describes the tragic events, suspicion, fear and confusion that characterize so many early encounters between Europeans and the First Peoples. Ultimately a story of hope, this sensitively drawn depiction of innocence lost and wisdom hard won follows Hope and Letia out of childhood, off their island paradise and into the complex realities of an adult world. Awards and Nominations City of Victoria Bolen Children's Literature Prize (Winner) - 2010 Chocolate Lily Award (Nominee) - 2010 Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize (Nominee) - 2010

Twelve-year-old Dominique fails to complete a deadly serious ritual and is banished from his place with the Estorian people, a tribe of nomadic storytellers. He must travel alone to a distant cave where, it is believed, he will find the voice he has always longed for. His quest takes him to far-off lands where he must do battle with a mighty river serpent, outwit pungent yagabonos, and survive capture by a group of powerful leranons. Inspired by the creatures and legends of a variety of mythologies, Nikki Tate has created a world where there is no greater honour-and no greater challenge-than being a magnificent storyteller. The first novel in the Estorian Chronicles Trilogy, Cave of Departure introduces a feisty young word warrior and his female counterpart, Amana, the Campriano, whose relentless search for the truth is destined to change Dominique's life forever.

The arrival of a new baby is exciting, but it also changes family dynamics forever. In this endearing true-to-life story, we meet Tombo, a young Japanese macaque, who lives with his mother, sister, and extended family near Japan's Awaji Island Monkey Center. Primatologist Sarah Turner's deep respect for her subjects and her sparkling photographs illuminate this universal tale of growing up, moving over, and finding our way in the world.

Banished from his tribe, twelve-year-old Dominique's quest continues as he reaches the great port city of Carnillo. Civil strife and rumours of imminent invasion bring suspicion upon all who walk the streets. Arrested and imprisoned, Dominique receives help from an unexpected ally and is drawn into a confusing conspiracy of constantly shifting alliances. As he attempts to unravel the truth behind the strange web of conflicting stories about his father, Dominique learns there is a greater challenge before him. It will require all of his inner resources to help mend the rift that tore his people asunder centuries earlier. Second in the Estorian Chronicles trilogy, The Battle for Carnillo continues to explore the nature of story and the power wielded by those who control information. Inspired by the myths, legends, and folktales of cultures from around the world, Tate weaves an exciting tale of adventure as one young boy struggles to understand the beliefs, prejudices, and shortcomings of his own people.

When baby Ribbon arrives, visitors to Japan's Awaji Island Monkey Center wonder how she is going to manage with no hands and with small, twisted feet. How will she hold on to her mother? How will she walk? How will she climb in the trees? How will she interact with the other monkeys? And how will she someday look after her own baby? But everyone is in for a surprise. This monkey is determined to do things her own way...Ribbon's way.

This story is not just about disabilities and the inspiring ways individuals meet those challenges. It is also, fundamentally, a story about being different and about rising above the limitations of others' expectations.

As with her first book, The Littlest Monkey, primatologist Sarah Turner's heartwarming story is abundantly illustrated with her superb photographs. The back of the book also features facts about Japanese macaques (snow monkeys) and about Ribbon and the disabilities present in this unique primate population. A delightful addition is a find the critter collage of animals and insects from Ribbon's forest world.

Heather Blake is horrified when her grandmother gets involved with the Ladies of the Forest, a radical group of protesters willing to do just about anything to save a stand of old-growth trees from the loggers' chainsaws. When the Ladies make a calendar, semi-nude photos of Granny and her friends hang on just about every fridge on Tarragon Island. Things get even worse when protesters get arrested and tempers flare. Without question, there's a crisis in the Tarragon Woods, and the solutions are far from clear-cut.

Inspired by actual conflicts played out on logging roads and protest camps in British Columbia, Trouble on Tarragon explores issues facing many communities today. Like many other citizens, Heather must grapple with some difficult questions. What are the avenues open to a citizen displeased with government policies? Can one ever break the law with a clear conscience? Is a protester a criminal? How can a journalist remain unbiased when personally involved with a story?

With a touch of wry humour, Nikki Tate has created a believable story of a young writer trying to make sense of the world around her. Fans of this series, and readers new to Tate's work, won't be able to put Trouble on Tarragon down. In this remarkable contemporary story, Nikki Tate scoops up the beating heart of the environmental struggle over BC public forests and presents it to her young readers with verve and audacity. In their efforts to save a rainforest, grandmothers pose naked, granddaughters freak out, little boys get arrested and the community becomes polarized over the clear cutting of public forests. A great read, one I would wish for every Canadian child. -Betty Krawczyk, author of Lock Me Up or Let Me Go

Heather Blake can't believe her bad luck when her family moves from Toronto to tiny Tarragon Island in British Columbia. What will she, a budding author, write about on this rock in the middle of nowhere? From her home-schooled neighbour, to the woman down the road who grows herbs for her aromatherapy practice, to the Dexter calf her mother brings home to promote the preservation of rare farm animal breeds, life on Tarragon Island couldn't be more different from the one Heather has left behind in Toronto. Heather's mother is far too busy getting established as the local veterinarian and her father too preoccupied with his new sailboat for either of them to pay much attention to her predicament. Alyssum, the girl dressed in rags next door, hardly seems like a promising friend, and Heather finds herself planning a brilliant escape--just like the Count of Monte Cristo. Set against the backdrop of British Columbia's scenic Gulf Islands, Tarragon Island explores the coves, beaches, and animal life of the area as well as the inner landscape of a young girl struggling to come to terms with the imperfections of her family and herself.

Sebastian Sasquatch loves his home in Puddle Valley. It has everything a young sasquatch needs: trees to swing from, a creek to fish in, meadows for running and jumping. Well, almost everything. In all of Puddle Valley, there isn't another sasquatch child for Sebastian to play with. There is the Puddle Valley Campground and Adventure Park, though. It's full of children. They come with their families and spend the summer running, jumping, swimming and swinging. But not one of them even notices Sebastian, much less wants to play with him. Why?

Bringing Sylvia Olsen's characteristic direct, engaging language together with Kasia Charko's warm, lively art, this is a lighthearted tale about the simple yet mysterious qualities it takes to be a friend.

During the U.S. Prohibition of the 1920s, an illegal, one-way trade in alcohol arose. Canadian brews flowed south, and American dollars flowed north, creating fortunes that can still be seen in Canadian society today. Central to this trade were the rum-runners, their loaded boats speeding through dark waters, dodging pirates and the U.S. Coast Guard to bring their illegal cargo to thirsty Americans. In Chasing the Moon, Penny Chamberlain drops young, courageous Kit feet-first into this dangerous world. With her mother in a tuberculosis sanatorium, Kit must spend the summer with her estranged father, whose mysterious nighttime activities and free-spending habits arouse her suspicions. Then a strange carnival boy enters the picture. He has an eerie way with a tarot deck that shakes Kit to the core. Still, something about him engages Kit, and, together, they embark on a headlong journey that will carry them from the dark waters south of Victoria to the blind pigs of Seattle. On the way, Kit will discover depths of insight she did not know she possessed, and will win for herself one of her dearest wishes.