Category: Tundra Books

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Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. The following titles are now available in stores and online!

The Stone Child: The Misewa Saga #3
By David A. Robertson
256 Pages | Ages 10+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266162 | Puffin Canada
After discovering a near-lifeless Eli at the base of the Great Tree, Morgan knows she doesn’t have much time to save him. And it will mean asking for help – from friends old and new. Racing against the clock, and with Arik and Emily at her side, Morgan sets off to follow the trail away from the Great Tree to find Eli’s soul before it’s too late. As they journey deep into the northern woods, a place they’ve been warned never to enter, they face new challenges and life-threatening attacks from strange and horrifying creatures. But a surprise ally comes to their aid, and Morgan finds the strength to focus on what’s most important: saving her brother’s life. 

New in Paperback:

Shout Out for the Fitzgerald-Trouts
By Esta Spalding
Illustrated by Lee Gatlin
352 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735264533 | Tundra Books
The plucky Fitzgerald-Trout siblings (who live on a tropical island where the grown-ups are useless but the kids can drive) are back! After losing the boat that had become their home, oldest Fitzgerald-Trout, Kim, has put finding a home back on her to-do list. When her sixth-grade history assignment offers a clue about the ruins of a volcanic house built by an explorer on Mount Muldoon, she and her siblings set out to find it. The castle they discover surpasses their wildest dreams. But having a permanent home offers more challenges than the Fitzgerald-Trouts expect, especially when they begin to suspect their home is haunted. The siblings must figure out how to fix the cracks in their family foundation before one of them is lost for good.

The Great Bear: The Misewa Saga #2
By David A. Robertson
288 Pages | Ages 10+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735266155 | Puffin Canada
Back at home after their first adventure in the Barren Grounds, Eli and Morgan each struggle with personal issues: Eli is being bullied at school, and tries to hide it from Morgan, while Morgan has to make an important decision about her birth mother. They turn to the place where they know they can learn the most, and make the journey to Misewa to visit their animal friends. This time they travel back in time and meet a young fisher that might just be their lost friend. But they discover that the village is once again in peril, and they must dig deep within themselves to find the strength to protect their beloved friends. Can they carry this strength back home to face their own challenges?

Willa and the Wisp: The Fabled Stables #1
By Jonathan Auxier
Illustrated by Olga Demidova
96 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735267749 | Puffin Canada
Auggie Pound is eight years old and has the greatest job of all time: he cares for all the animals in the Fabled Stables. The Fabled Stables house the rarest creatures in existence – all of them one-of-a-kind. Auggie’s job is to care for these creatures, as well as track down and safely capture endangered magical beasts in the wild. Some mornings, he arrives to find an empty stall with the name of a new creature to rescue. One day, the Stables rearrange themselves out of the blue, creating a new stall. The sign over the gate says, “Wisp.” But what is a wisp and where is it? All Auggie can see is a moonlit swamp stretching out before him. Then a hungry HOWLLLLLLL rings out in the darkness. It’s up to Auggie to go into the swamp to find the wisp before it’s too late.

We can’t wait to see you reading these titles! If you share these books online, remember to use #ReadTundra in your hashtags so that we can re-post.

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Tundra Telegram: Books to Geek Out Over

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we draw on topics that we’re all fanboying and fangirling over, and recommend some books to keep the excitement onward and upward.

Unless you have curated a completely geek-free social media feed, you know that last weekend the San Diego Comic-Con took over southern California, wrapping up on July 24, and previewing the biggest and newest things in comic books, science fiction, video games, and much more. Whether you were more thrilled to see the trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever or Sarah Michelle-Gellar making a surprise appearance at the Teen Wolf panel, the return of Comic-Con had a little something for everyone.

To mark the occasion, we’re recommending books that are not comic books themselves, nor do they feature comic characters (like the great DC Icons YA series). Instead, they are books about comic books, RPGs, and fandoms. Get your geek on, and find your next great read below!

PICTURE BOOKS

For some comic book fans, no matter their age, there are few words as thrilling as There’s a Superhero in Your Book, which is the title of a book by Tom Fletcher and Greg Abbott. Even better, this picture book is interactive, so young readers can enjoy tapping, stretching, and whizzing this book around as they help the superhero defeat the villain and save the day – while discovering the real superpower of kindness.

If that sounds a bit too stimulating for your young reader, we can recommend Even Superheroes Have to Sleep by Sara Crow and Adam Record. Little kids will enjoy this rhyming story that tricks lulls them into bedtime with the promise that all their heroes are getting tucked into bed, too. (You know Sleepwalker loves his shut-eye!) And there’s a companion book called Even Superheroes Use the Potty where you can (maybe?) learn how Iron Man goes to the washroom in that suit!

If the young readers in your life are wild about superhero movies and games, they may relate to the main character of Max and the Superheroes by Rocio Bonilla and Oriol Malet. Max and his friends love learning about superheroes and their superpowers. Everyone has a favorite, and Max’s is Megapower: she’s brave, tames animals, has x-ray vision, is super smart, can fly – and just happens to be Max’s mom. (So it’s perfect for Mother’s Day, as well.)

And for something a little different, you can learn about the origins of gaming with Blips on a Screen by Kate Hannigan and Zachariah OHora. It’s a picture book biography about Ralph Baer, a Jewish refugee who pioneered home video games and launched a worldwide obsession. Considered the “Father of Video Games,” there’d be no Xbox or Nintendo Switch without him!

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

Where would the MCU be without Stan Lee, the writer who co-created many of Marvel’s signature characters? Find out more, true believers, in Who Was Stan Lee? by Geoff Edgers and John Hinderliter, a book that chronicles how a kid from the Bronx created a comic book empire (with more than a little help from Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and a roster of talented artists).

What if you’re at the stage that you want to start – like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby – to make your own comics? You might like Doodleville by Chad Sell. Yes, it is a graphic novel, but it’s also about young artists in the school’s art club and the power of creativity: specifically, how one member’s (Drew’s) artistic creations come to life and wreak havoc on the other kids’ drawings of heroes.

Or maybe they would like Stephen Shaskan‘s Pizza and Taco: Super-Awesome Comic, in which the beloved anthropomorphic foodstuffs decide to collaborate on a comic book, but must overcome their deep-seated artistic differences to make a great story.

But if your young readers would like something a little more hands-on, you’ll want Jess Smart Smiley‘s Let’s Make Comics: An Activity Book to Create, Write, and Draw Your Own Cartoons. This is this an honest-to-goodness, all-ages activity book that makes use of humorous and informative one-page comics and exercise prompts to guide young readers through easy-to-master lessons on the skills needed to make comics. By the time you’re done, you’ll have a bunch of short comics under your belt – and it even comes recommended by Narwhal and Jelly creator Ben Clanton!

What’s more appropriate than a novel that takes place at a comic convention? Marthe Jocelyn, Richard Scrimger, and Claudia Davila‘s book Viminy Crowe’s Comic Book opens at the Toronto comic-con, where two very different kids – geek Wylder Wallace and aloof Addy Crowe – find themselves drawn (literally) into the fantastic world of a hit comic book.

Vera Vance: Comics Star by Claudia Mills and Grace Zong, spotlights a third-grader who signs up for a comics camp after-school program, much to the chagrin of her mother. But Vera loves everything comics and starts making her own with the encouragement of friends and the teachers of her camp. And in an inversion of Viminy Crowe, it all leads up to a local comic convention, in which Vera hopes to enter an original comics contest – if only her mother will let her go!

In Stink: Superhero Superfan by Megan McDonald and Peter H. Reynolds, the popular character discovers a box of old comics about a superhero he’s never heard of: Super Gecko! Before long, Stink becomes Super Gecko’s biggest fan. Then he starts receiving mysterious notes signed by Super Gecko himself. Can Stink do some detective work worthy of S.G. and find out who is sending the letters before the Gecko gets a dark and gritty reboot?

A contemporary graphic novel that combines OCD with AD&D, Just Roll with It by Veronica Agarwal and Lee Durfey-Lavoie follows Maggie, who is shy, doesn’t know anyone at her school, and deals with anxiety and OCD. She also loves Dungeons and Dragons (and other role-playing games), so her twenty-sided die (D20, for those in the know) helps her make decisions – just like Two-Face and his lucky quarter in the Batman comics!

And for the young nonfiction comic fan, check out Comics Confidential by Leonard S. Marcus, an anthology of interviews and original comics by today’s foremost graphic novelists (Kazu Kibuishi, Gene Luen Yang, Hope Larson), who talk all about the highs and lows of making comics! It has lots of great advice for young comic writers and illustrators!

YOUNG ADULT

Chaotic Good by Whitney Gardner is like a comic-con Twelfth Night (or She’s the Man, if you prefer). Cameron is a cosplay wizard and aspiring fashion designer. When her costumes win a competition, male fans troll her, accusing her of not being a “real” fan. After a move, she discovers the local comic shop, managed by the exact kind of male gatekeeper who forced her to flee the online world. So she borrows her twin brother’s clothes, poses as a boy, and easily enters the local nerd inner sanctum (and their ongoing D&D game). And things get even more complicated when she develops a crush on one of those D&D adventurers!

If comic-con-adjacent romances are your thing, you need to read Geekerella by Ashley Poston, a fan-fic twist on the Cinderella story about geek girl Ellie Wittimer, the worlds’ biggest fan of sci-fi TV series Starfield who wins a trip to the ExcelsiCon Cosplay Ball and gets to meet a teen actor from the new film reboot, Darien Freeman. Will Ellie hit it off with her Federation Prince? Or will her stepsisters ruin things for her again?

And if you enjoy Geekerella, you might like the follow-up, The Princess and the Fangirl, a geeky take on The Prince and the Pauper! Imogen Lovelace is a fangirl who doesn’t want her favourite Starfield character, Princess Amara, to get killed off. Jessica Stone is the teen actress who plays Amara and wants out of the franchise. And – coincidentally – they look a lot like each other. Parent Trap-style, a deal is struck, but will fans catch on to their scheme?

For more geek love, you need Melissa Keil‘s Life in Outer Space, in which self-described, seventeen-year-old Sam Kinnison (no relation) loves horror movies and World of Warcraft and his loser friends. Then a cool girl named Camilla Carter enters his life – she also loves W.O.W., and wants to be Sam’s friend, which throws his life upside-down is this funny love-letter to geeks.

If you want to read some nonfiction from a famous geek girl, then you want The Fangirl’s Guide to the Universe by Sam Maggs, author of numerous comics and video games (and former on-air host for Nerdist). This handbook is packed with tips, playthroughs, and cheat codes for girls into geeks stuff, including how to make nerdy friends, how to rock cosplay, to defeat internet trolls (very important), and how to attend your first con. It includes advice from Sam as well as other fangirl faves like Danielle Paige, Rainbow Rowell, and Preeti Chibber!

See you all in the funny pages!

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Camp Penguin: Kids’ Comic Strips

Earlier this month, we held a special Camp Penguin virtual event for kids on creating comics with Canadian comics creators Cale Atkinson (Simon and Chester: Super Detectives) and Jade Armstrong (Scout Is Not a Band Kid) and hosted by our own senior marketing and publicity associate, Sam Devotta.

If you didn’t have the chance to experience it live, you can watch the recording (minus the chat) here. The comics workshop, which received glowing reviews from young comic makers, ended with a collaborative comic from Cale and Jade. They each drew one panel of a camp-related comic strip and invited attendees to finish by writing and drawing a third panel.

Two strips were selected as winners and the young creators – Allison S. and Ellie K. – will be sent special graphic novel prize packs. But a number of attendees granted us permission to share their incredible (and often quite funny) creations on the Tundra blog, so we’ve posted them here for all of you to enjoy!

*WINNER 1* ALLISON S.

*WINNER 2*: ELLIE K.

And a number of honorable mentions …

ELIZABETH W.

ASHLEY C.

HENRY B.

CORA V.

JACK B.

SARAH

SOMA L.

PIETER H.

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Books About Adoption

We love celebrating families of all kinds and one thing that a lot of books have tackled recently is adoption. Here are some of our recent titles that talk about growing families through fostering or adopting.

Anne Arrives: Inspired by Anne of Green Gables
By Kallie George
Illustrated by Abigail Halpin
72 Pages | Ages 6-8 | Paperback
ISBN 9781770499300 | Tundra Books
Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert need help on their farm, so they’ve adopted what they hope will be a sturdy, helpful boy. Instead, Matthew finds Anne awaiting him at the train station – imaginative, brash, redheaded Anne-with-an-e. With her place at the Cuthberts’ at risk – particularly if nosy neighbor Mrs. Lynde has anything to say about it – Anne will have to learn patience, understanding and what it takes to make Green Gables her true home.

Burt’s Way Home
By John Martz
60 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735271029 | Tundra Books
Burt is an alien from a distant galaxy with advanced technology, but an accident has made his parents disappear and trapped him on Earth. And no matter what he does, he can’t seem to get lowly Earth technology to work well enough to get him home. That’s his story, anyway. From the perspective of his foster mother, Lydia, Burt is a confused and lonely little boy who’s difficult to understand and lives in his own world. But she’s less focused on understanding him than she is on taking care of and supporting him. Burt struggles to adjust to his new home, and Lydia tries her best. But when Burt embarks on a plan to teleport home once and for all and ventures into the cold all alone, Lydia will have to find a way to bridge the gulf between them.

The Family Tree
By Sean Dixon
Illustrated by Lily Snowden-Fine
48 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735267664 | Tundra Books
When her teacher gives her class a simple family tree assignment, Ada is stumped. How can she make her family fit into this simple template? Ada is adopted. She can see where to put her parents on the tree, but what about her birth mom? Ada has a biological sister, but her sister has different adoptive parents – where do they go on the tree? But with the help of her friends and family, Ada figures it out. She creates her family tree . . . and so much more. Loosely based on the author’s own experience, this moving story explores the different ways families are created and how the modern family is more diverse and welcoming than ever before.

The Barren Grounds: The Misewa Saga #1
By David A. Robertson
256 Pages | Ages 10+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266100 | Puffin Canada
Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home – until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom. A portal opens to another reality, Askí, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher). The only hunter supporting his starving community, Misewa, Ochek welcomes the human children, teaching them traditional ways to survive. But as the need for food becomes desperate, they embark on a dangerous mission. Accompanied by Arik, a sassy Squirrel they catch stealing from the trapline, they try to save Misewa before the icy grip of winter freezes everything – including them.

The Language of Flowers
By Dena Seiferling
56 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270534 | Tundra Books
Deep within a magical meadow, some lonely flowers receive a very special gift: a baby bumblebee in need. The flowers name her Beatrice, they care for her and help her find her wings. And as she grows older, Beatrice learns the language of her floral family – messages of kindness and appreciation that she delivers between them. With each sweet word, the flowers bloom until the meadow becomes so big that Beatrice needs help delivering her messages and decides to set out in search of her own kind. But this little bee’s quest takes her beyond the safety of the meadow and into the dangerous swamp the flowers have warned her about, a swamp inhabited by strange plants with snapping jaws and terrible teeth . . . will these prickly plants let her pass? Could they just be in need of a little sweetness themselves? A gently fanciful tale of the miracle of pollination and the important relationship between flowers and bees, this sweetly affirming story, inspired by the Victorian practice of floriography, suggests the secret to flourishing is kindness and appreciation.

We Adopted a Baby Chick
By Lori Joy Smith
48 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266551 | Tundra Books
Albert the sheep is the only one unhappy about the new addition to the family. Tina is a tiny, fluffy baby chick – and she gets all the attention. Albert is big and loud, and he can’t resist Mom’s vegetables (“Get out of the garden, Albert!”). Sprout the dog doesn’t have time for Albert anymore. The cats only have eyes for Tina. And though he tries his hardest, Albert’s gifts to the family aren’t as welcome as Tina’s eggs. Then one day, Tina faces a danger and only Albert can save her. Will Albert be able to put his feelings aside and truly welcome Tina into his flock?

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Tundra Telegram: Books that’ll Make You Sweat

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we simmer on topics that we’re all stewing on, and recommend some scalding stories to generate further discussion.

Much of Europe and North America and several provinces in China are in the middle of a massive heat wave. And while that sounds like fun and a good excuse to get ice cream, this is not the fun kind of heat. This is catastrophic heat that’s breaking records, cancelling rail travel, killing people, and contributing to massive wildfires in what some are calling a “heat apocalypse.”

The best course of action, should you be in the middle of a heat wave (and many of you reading this are), is to stay hydrated, limit your exertion, and – if needed (and possible) – get to a local cooling station. But if you want to read some books that are just as sweltering as the weather (the same kind of rationale as drinking coffee in the heat), get ready to sizzle – we’ve got hot books, books about how the earth is heating up, and books with the hottest summers ever recorded – so far.

PICTURE BOOKS

If you think you’re hot, imagine what it would be like in this heat as a long-haired dachshund! That’s the predicament the hero of Hot Dog by Doug Salati faces: this is a wiener pup who is overheated and overwhelmed. He’s had enough of a sizzling city summer, so his owner hails a cab and finds them so relief on the beach!

A book of value to anyone in a heat wave is Too Hot? Too Cold?: Keeping Body Temperature Just Right by Caroline Arnold and Annie Patterson. In easy-to-understand writing, young readers will discover the many different ways humans and animals adapt to heat and cold. Have you ever wondered why you sweat when you’re hot? Or why dogs pant in the heat? These burning questions and more are answered within.

How can young readers prevent this summer’s heat wave from being the first of regular occurrences? Climate Action: The Future Is in Our Hands by Georgina Stevens and Katie Rewse has a few ideas! Not only does this book outline for young readers the causes of climate change and how it is affecting our world, it provides some innovative ideas for tackling climate breakdown, inspired by the positive stories from young people effecting change all around the (currently very hot) globe.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

If you’re looking for books about the causes of the incredible heat and how climate change contributes to it, but for a slightly older reading level, there are several great books to choose from. What Is Climate Change? by Gail Herman and John Hinderliter presents all sides of the climate change argument in this fact-based, fair-minded, and well-researched book that looks at the subject from many perspectives, including scientific, social, and political. And it has a polar bear on the cover, who we currently envy (even if its ice floe is looking mighty small!).

Once you’ve figured out what climate change is, and want to do something about it, you’ll want to read This Book Will (Help) Cool the Climate by Isabel Thomas and Alex Paterson, which offers 50 different ways to “cut pollution, speak up, and protect the planet” from bartering to assigning school some eco-homework. (No word on if anything will immediately turn the temperature down, but every bit helps!)

Want more ammunition on cooling the climate? Naomi Klein and Rebecca Stefoff‘s How to Change Everything has what you need. As the book notes, temperatures are rising all over the world, leading to wildfires, droughts, animal extinctions and ferocious storms (and that’s just this week). Using examples of change and protest from young activists around the world, Klein shows we can help make things better – if we’re willing to change everything.

For something (mostly) fictional in the same vein, try Carrie Firestone‘s The First Rule of Climate Club, in which eighth grader Mary Kate Murphy starts a podcast on climate activism and rallies her friends to create lasting change in their small suburban town. (It’s like the kids in this book read How to Change Everything!)

You may identify with the protagonist of our next book: Penelope March Is Melting by Jeffrey Michael Ruby. Set in a frozen town, Glacier Cove, that sits atop a literal iceberg, it seems like the book’s resident bookworm Penelope March need not worry about heat waves. But when the iceberg begins to melt, Penelope and her friend Miles must set out on an adventure.

And it wouldn’t be a heat wave without deadly forest fires. Cue Canadian Iain Lawrence and his forthcoming novel, Fire on Headless Mountain, in which eleven-year-old Virgil is separated from his siblings in the midst of a disastrous forest conflagration, and must use his wits and mother’s lessons to survive on his own.

YOUNG ADULT

Moving from forest fires to another kind of heat, Kasie West‘s YA romance Sunkissed finds Avery spending a hot summer at a family resort, with – surprise, surprise – an even hotter resort staff member, Brooks. This swoony love story won’t give you heat exhaustion, but it will make you sweat.

And Say Yes Summer by Lindsey Roth Culli emanates a similar heat, as Rachel Walls spends a sweltering summer saying “yes,” to everything – yes to new experiences, yes to spontaneous road trips with crushes. Let’s just hope she also says “yes” to drinking plenty of fluids and finding shade.

Summer Fires by Giulia Sagramola is a graphic novel that depicts summer heat so well in its color palette and its characters languid movements, you’d think you’ve been transported to southern Italy. The book, translated from the Italian, follows two sisters faced with impossible choices of teenaged life, which mirror the massive forest fires (again!) in the surrounding hillsides of the town. Turn on the ceiling fan and dive in!

Speaking of forest fires, Julie Buxbaum‘s Year on Fire uses fire season in Wood Valley as a backdrop for changing friendships as a single kiss with new boy Rohan shakes the foundation of the connection among twins Arch and Immie and their best friend, Paige. There’s even an arson in the school bathroom, if you need more heat!

There are few things better to beat the heat than ice cream. Melt with You by Jennifer Dugan is a funny and heartfelt queer YA rom-com about two girls on a summer road trip in an ice cream truck. Former best friends Fallon and Chloe haven’t talked since a fateful summer they hooked up. But a year later, a series of unfortunate events mean they’ll be working an ice cream truck together through a heated road trip. Not since the Smashing Pumpkins‘ “Today” music video has an ice cream truck been filled with such angst!

As Bruno Mars noted in “Uptown Funk,” there’s not much hotter than a dragon’s breath – at least we think that’s what he’s talking about when he croons, “Too hot. Make a dragon wanna’ retire, man.” E.K. Johnston agrees, as her book The Story of Owen: The Dragon Slayer of Trondheim combines the heat of dragon fire with the heat of climate change. See, sixteen-year-old Owen is training to be a dragon-slayer in modern-day Canada, so he (and his friend and bard Siobhan) can protect his rural town from dragons who feed on fossil fuels. Yes, in this world dragons feed on carbon emissions (!).

Sure it’s hot now, but is it horses-combusting-into-flame hot? Then you need to read Ashlords by  Scott Reintgen, an epic fantasy story about three “phoenix riders” who compete in a multi-day horse race in which the horses, made of ash and alchemy, are summoned back to life each sunrise with uniquely crafted powers to cover impossible distances and challenges before bursting into flames at sunset. (Kentucky Derby, time to up your game.)

Stay cool, stay hydrated, and enjoy some hot reads!

Tundra Book Group