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Maple Leaf in Space

John Melady

Marc Garneau, Roberta Bondar, Julie Payette, Robert Thirsk, Chris Hadfield, and more recently, Guy Laliberté, the founder of Cirque de Soleil, all have one thing in common: they’re some of the very few Canadians who have been in space. The launch of a spaceship is terribly exciting. That’s why thousands of people come to watch. They laugh, cheer, and applaud as the rocket rises. They see the smoke, steam, and white-hot fire as millions of litres of fuel burn in seconds. They feel the chest-thumping impact of the sound. Then they stare upward for a long time until they can no longer see even a tiny speck in the distant sky. By that time, the craft is in space. Canada’s astronauts come from across the nation: from farms, cities, and little towns. They went to large schools and to small ones. Maple Leaf in Space showcases these amazing Canadians who have ventured off our planet and delivers some of the thrill of what that’s like.

To Be a Friend

David E. Hunt

In today's busy world, we may fail to realize that our need for friendship is as vital and important as our basic needs for food, air, and water. However, thanks to the high-stress environments people currently live in, they are now starting to realize how important friendship is to a healthy and full life. This book shows readers how to open the flow of friendship in their lives by learning to be friends. It offers activities that have proven helpful to participants in the author's workshops, exercises that prompt readers to examine their personal beliefs about friendship and apply them in daily life. By following these activities, readers discover how to be friends with themselves, how to be friends with others, and how to strengthen existing friendships. Author David Hunt also describes his experiences with learning how to be a friend, including his successes and failures.

Laura Secord

Peggy Dymond Leavey

2013 Speaker’s Book Award – Shortlisted Laura Secord is now famous for her singular feat of bravery during the War of 1812, but did she warn the British and help defeat the American invaders as her legend says? After dragging her injured husband off the battlefield during the War of 1812, Laura Secord (1775-1868) was forced to house American soldiers for financial support while she nursed him back to health. It was during this time that she overheard the American plan to ambush British troops at Beaver Dams. Through an outstanding act of perseverance and courage in 1813, Laura walked an astonishing 30 kilometers from her home to a British outpost to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon. Despite facing rough terrain, the ever-present danger of being caught by American troops, and rather delicate encounters with Native forces, Laura reached FitzGibbon just in time for the British to prepare and execute an ambush on American military nearby, forcing the U.S. general to surrender. Laura lived a very long time, dying at the age of 93. In her lifetime the government never formally recognized her singular feat of bravery, and much controversy still envelopes her legacy.

Red River Rising

B.J. Bayle

Angus and his family are sent from Scotland in 1813 on a voyage to start a new life in the strange and cruel new land of western Canada. In 1813, cleared out from their beloved Scottish Highlands, 15-year-old Angus, his mother, father, small brother Rabbie, and 100 others sail for Canada to seek a better life with assistance from Lord Selkirk. Angus, his family, and their friends the O’Hares, with their aloof, unsmiling daughter Maggie, share the hardships and terror of the sea voyage only to be dumped onto the shore of a forbidding land. There they spend a brutal winter. With bitter determination and help from the Native population, the settlers manage to reach the Red River. They are eager to finally begin their new life but meet obstacles even more dangerous when they are caught up in a struggle between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company, powerful fur-trading rivals. Despite this hard transition, Angus falls in love with this new land and takes his place beside the brave men who risk their lives to protect it.

The Fallen One

Rick Blechta

When renowned opera singer Marta Hendriks sees her dead husband in a Paris street, she fears she’s losing her mind – or did she actually see him? Marta Hendriks is onstage at the Metropolitan Opera in New York when she learns of her beloved husband’s death in a house fire. Overcome, she collapses and has to be carried off the stage. Fast-forward two years and countless therapy sessions, and Marta is ready to resume her career. In a stroke of luck, she’s hired at the last moment to sing Violetta for the Paris Opera. She manages to keep her emotions under tight control and triumphs in the opening-night performance. During one of her rare days off, relaxing for the first time since her husband’s accident, something threatens her newfound peace. When Marta is caught in a sudden downpour, she dashes for the shelter of a subway station and spots someone doing the same. It is her husband. Marta fears she’s losing her mind – or did she actually see him? Back home in Toronto, she struggles with her need for the truth at the precipice of madness.

Heading for Home

Zahava Hanan

Zahava Hanan 's struggle to save her ranch in Alberta from the threat of industrial pollution makes Heading for Home a modern tale on an epic scale. For twenty years she fought for her rights in Western Canada. Heading for Home gives a very warm account of her companions throughout those years from cowhands to lovable animals; from concerned neighbours to the formality of the company man, some of whom too, eventually became firm friends. Aided at times in her struggle by her friend the author and tracker Andy Russell, Heading for Home tells the tale of how one woman's strength and willpower contributed to our heightened sense of mutual awareness. In the course of her long struggle to save everything she held most dear, Zahava Hanan stood squarely up to a «David and Goliath» confrontation with the corporations. During that time, however, she came to understand that by daring to care for our environment we inherit a common ground, goal and home. This book is also the story of that spiritual quest and challenge. And it is in this sense that Zahava Hanan has been «heading for home,» and helping others get there, ever since. This is a masterpiece of its kind, and truly original, since nobody of her sensibility has written on the subject at all. There are countless travel books about wild places and countless cozy books about life in the town. This happens to be unique both in the handling of her environment and in her ability to feel and write about it.

Let's Go to The Grand!

Sheila M.F. Johnston

"A fascinating history of a wonderful old theatre." – Hume Cronyn In September of 1901 London's New Grand Opera House flung open its doors. Boasting a beautiful interior design, and with the most modern stage equipment available, the theatre was large enough to accommodate over 1,700 patrons and the largest touring shows of the time. With impresario Ambrose J. Small at the helm, a new era in theatrical entertainment began. Throughout the next hundred years, the Grand Theatre hosted everything from stock companies to minstrel shows, from vaudeville to star-studded productions. The celebrated amateur theatre company, London Little Theatre, made The Grand its home for decades. As Canadian theatre came into its own in the 1970s, The Grand embraced professional theatre status. Throughout all these changes The Grand has remained London's «Grand Old Lady of Richmond Street.» Legendary performers from the past, including the Marks Brothers, Anna Pavlova and John Gielgud have graced its vast stage, as have such contemporary stage stars as Hume Cronyn, William Hutt and Martha Henry. This extensively researched book, lavishly illustrated, lovingly documents the life of The Grand. Theatre stories from every decade of The Grand's colourful life abound throughout. To read this book is to come to know London's Grand Theatre in all its architectural splendour and its legacy in Canadian theatre history.

The Rouge River Valley

James E. Garratt

The Rouge River Valley, eleven thousand acres of urban wilderness, is a unique, yet very fragile and transient natural phenomenon existing within the confines of a major North American city, Toronto. Fed by the Oak Ridges Moraine, the Rouge river system has, over generations of time, cut its identity into the land, shaping the habitat for a multitude of lifeforms, many of which are now either threatened or gone. Author James E. Garratt , a seasoned environmentalist, shares two decades of personal observation and ecological study to reveal the richness and flow of seasonal changes in this exceptional urban park. This «portrait» of a year in the Rouge Valley explores not only the diversity of life in its natural habitat but also the impact of urban sprawl and the inevitable conflict with development. Is it possible to be a true naturalist «grounded» in a modern city? The words of Ian McHarg, an urban planner, hold true: «We need nature as much in the city as in the country.»

Once Upon a Time Long, Long Ago

Henry Shykoff

Short-listed for the 2001 Silver Birch Award, How did we get to be US? Who are WE? This story for the younger reader, set in the period some 50,000 years ago when an almost explosive change in people's behaviour occurred, addresses these questions. From this period on, people, the Cro-Magnon or Homo sapiens sapiens who are considered to be our ancestors, became what we term human. This recreated story presents a sister and brother in a sequence of events that fits what little is known about that time. Learn to create fire, shape tools, partner with wolves and develop into thinking, creative persons who can influence the world around them. Discover what effect a few curious and reasoning people can have on their society. A devoted grandfather and reader of stories to grandchildren, Henry Shykoff has created a classic adventure for the younger reader, answering the question, «How did we get to be human?» «This is an intriguing story that vividly brings to life an exciting moment in human evolution. Full of struggle and adventure, this highly readable tale is as entertaining as it is informative.» – Linda McQuaig, Author and Journalist

The Mazinaw Experience

John Campbell

The Mazinaw, a place of striking natural beauty, is famous for Bon Echo Rock, a massive sheer cliff, dropping into one of Ontario's deepest lakes. The Mazinaw Experience traces the presence of human habitation on the shores of the Mazinaw from its earliest beginnings to the present, from the nomadic Aboriginal people who believed the cliff top to be a sacred place and the rugged lumbermen whose entrepreneurial zeal cleared out the mighty pine, to the settlers who struggled to create new lives for their families. Mini-profiles of personalities such as Johnny Bey and Billa Flint, along with stories involving colonization roads, the settlement towns, the mining and the coming of the railway, provide insights into the Mazinaw area of today. The memory of Bon Echo Inn lives on in Bon Echo Park, as does the legacy of Flora MacDonald and her son Merrill Denison. Today, the Mazinaw area continues to grow in popularity.