Hunting by Stars Archives - Tundra Book Group

September 29, 2022September 27, 2022

Tundra Telegram: Books To Rewrite Erasure

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we talk about the subjects on readers’ minds and recommend some good books for young readers to approach those topics.

This Friday (September 30) is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. This is a federal holiday day meant to honour the Indigenous children who never returned home and survivors of Canada’s residential school system, as well as their families and communities. The holiday is closely connected to Orange Shirt Day, an earlier-established Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day meant to increase public awareness of the individual, family and community intergenerational impacts of residential schools. (The orange shirt is used as a symbol of the erasure of of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations.)

No puns this week, just lots of great picture books, middle-grade novels, and YA from Indigenous authors – some of which deal directly with residential schools, while others do not. And stay tuned for more great titles as Cree author David A. Robertson’s new imprint with Tundra starts acquiring books soon!

PICTURE BOOKS

David A. Robertson and Julie Flett’s Governor General’s Award-winning On the Trapline is a story that looks at residential schools, if obliquely. A boy takes a trip with his Moshom, his grandpa, to visit his trapline, where his family hunted and lived off the land. As they continue on their northern journey, the boy finds himself imagining what life was like two generations ago and asks questions of his Moshom, including what it was like going to school after living on the trapline. The book also contains a number of Cree terms, which were forbidden from residential schools.

Go Show the World: A Celebration of Indigenous Heroes, illustrated by Joe Morse, is a picture book that was written by Wab Kinew, who – among many other things (broadcaster, rapper, politician) – served as an Honorary Witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. His picture book, inspired by inspired by former President Barack Obama’s Of Thee I Sing, is a moving and musical tribute to both historic and modern-day Indigenous heroes of Wab’s – everyone from Tecumseh and Sacagawea to NASA astronaut John Herrington and NHL goalie Carey Price.

The events dramatized in Encounter by Brittany Luby and Michaela Goade take place decades before residential schools, but the book is a good reminder of an alternate historic path European explorers could have taken. The book imagines the first encounter between a European sailor and a Stadaconan fisher. As the two navigate their differences (language, dress, food) with curiosity, the natural world around them notes their similarities. The book also features an author’s note to place the encounter within the context of Canadian history, and prompts for further discussion.

Though the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation is explicitly about Canadian residential schools, the United States ran similar “Indian boarding schools,” which leads us to recommend We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell and Frane Lessac. We Are Grateful looks at a modern-day Cherokee community throughout the year, who express gratitude for all the elements of daily life. Scenes of celebration for the Great New Moon Ceremony are chronicled, as are difficult memories, like a remembrance of the Trail of Tears. (And it features a chock-full of Cherokee vocabulary, the kind that was outlawed at boarding schools.)

In Navajo families, the first person to make a new baby laugh hosts the child’s First Laugh Ceremony. This forms the story of First Laugh: Welcome Baby! by Roe Ann Tahe, Nancy Bo Flood, and Jonathan Nelson. And so, every relation (from big sister to grandma) try to get Baby to laugh, and readers are introduced (or reintroduced) to details of Navajo culture, and a number of Navajo words – especially those for family members, like nima (mother) and cheii (grandfather).

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

Storytelling is central to teaching and remembering the residential school system – and an important component of truth and reconciliation – but for decades most people were largely ignorant of their history. Author David A. Robertson’s work has often been motivated by this, including his fantastical middle-grade adventures, The Misewa Saga. Morgan and Eli are Indigenous children in Winnipeg who discover a portal at their foster home to another world, Askī, where they discover talking animal beings who connect them to traditional ways, as well as help them deal with the challenges in the real world. The Barren Grounds opens the portal, while The Great Bear throws a great time-travel story into the mix, and The Stone Child brings Morgan and her allies to the northern woods, where they encounter new horrors. And in addition to being influenced by Cree sky stories, they examine the foster care system, which many have criticized as being a modern-day version of residential schools.

Rez Dogs (not to be confused with the incredible – and similarly named – TV series) is the latest middle grade novel from one of America’s foremost Indigenous children’s authors, Joseph Bruchac. Set during the Covid-19 pandemic, it follows Wabanaki girl Malian, whose visit to her grandparents’ reservation gets extended by a Covid-19 quarantine. But Malian rises to the challenge, and helps her community mange during the pandemic (be it through distancing or teaching elders to use Zoom) and makes a new friend in a local rez dog.

YOUNG ADULT

Enter (or re-enter) a dystopian world explicitly informed by the residential school system in Cherie Dimaline’s Hunting by Stars. The follow-up to the acclaimed The Marrow Thieves, in which Indigenous people across North America are being hunted for their bone marrow (which is rumored to contain the ability to dream) and housed in reopened residential school systems, the book follows French heading north with his newfound family as they dodge school Recruiters, a blood cult, and more.

Two Roads, also by Joseph Bruchac, is a Depression-era story that explicitly revolves around the Indian boarding schools in the United States. Cal Black learns from his Pop that he’s a Creek Indian and he’s being sent to a government boarding school in Oklahoma (the Challagi School). Though Cal faces harsh and miserable conditions at the school, the one bright spot is the other Creek boys he befriends and through which he learns about his culture.

Walking in Two Worlds by Wab Kinew tells the story of Bugz, a girl caught between her real-life shyness on the Rez, and her overwhelming dominance in the massive multiplayer video game, The Floraverse. The assimilation metaphors appear throughout the book, as readers follow Bugz and her struggle to reconcile the parallel aspects (and wildly divergent portions) of her life, in a not dissimilar way that survivors of the residential schools have.

Winner of the American Indian Youth Literature Award Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith also looks at a contemporary Indigenous teen trying to navigate the challenges of high school (but without as much gaming). Louise Wolfe’s first boyfriend turns out to be a bigot (one of the dangers of “dating while Native”), so she focuses on her work at the school paper. She and Joey Kairouz, photojournalist, follow a story about the school’s inclusive casting of The Wizard of Oz in their mostly white Kansas town. While uncovering the closemindedness of their town, they may find a little romance, too.

September 8, 2022September 23, 2022

2022 Canadian Children’s Book Centre Books Awards Finalists

Every year, the Canadian Children’s Book Centre celebrates the best work by Canadian creators with the CCBC Book Awards. Congratulations to all our nominated authors and illustrators!

Shortlisted for the Arlene Barlin Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy

Hunting by Starts (A Marrow Thieves Novel)
By Cherie Dimaline
408 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269651 | Penguin Teen Canada
Years ago, when plagues and natural disasters killed millions of people, much of the world stopped dreaming. Without dreams, people are haunted, sick, mad, unable to rebuild. The government soon finds that the Indigenous people of North America have retained their dreams, an ability rumored to be housed in the very marrow of their bones. Soon, residential schools pop up—or are re-opened—across the land to bring in the dreamers and harvest their dreams. Seventeen-year-old French lost his family to these schools and has spent the years since heading north with his new found family: a group of other dreamers, who, like him, are trying to build and thrive as a community. But then French wakes up in a pitch-black room, locked in and alone for the first time in years, and he knows immediately where he is—and what it will take to escape. Meanwhile, out in the world, his found family searches for him and dodges new dangers—school Recruiters, a blood cult, even the land itself. When their paths finally collide, French must decide how far he is willing to go—and how many loved ones is he willing to betray—in order to survive.

Iron Widow
By Xiran Jay Zhao
400 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269934 | Penguin Teen Canada
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected – she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead. To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way – and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

Shortlisted for the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award

Shortlisted for the David Booth Children’s and Youth Poetry Award

I Talk Like a River
By Jordan Scott
Illustrated by Sydney Smith
40 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780823445592 | Holiday House
When a boy who stutters feels isolated, alone, and incapable of communicating in the way he’d like, it takes a kindly father and a walk by the river to help him find his voice. Compassionate parents everywhere will instantly recognize a father’s ability to reconnect a child with the world around him. A book for any child who feels lost, lonely, or unable to fit in.

Shortlisted for the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award

On the Trapline
By David A. Robertson
Illustrated by Julie Flett
48 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266681 | Tundra Books
A boy and Moshom, his grandpa, take a trip together to visit a place of great meaning to Moshom. A trapline is where people hunt and live off the land, and it was where Moshom grew up. As they embark on their northern journey, the child repeatedly asks his grandfather, “Is this your trapline?” Along the way, the boy finds himself imagining what life was like two generations ago – a life that appears to be both different from and similar to his life now. This is a heartfelt story about memory, imagination, and intergenerational connection that perfectly captures the experience of a young child’s wonder as he is introduced to places and stories that hold meaning for his family.

Time Is a Flower
By Julie Morstad
56 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735267541 | Tundra Books
What is time? Is it the tick tick tock of a clock, numbers and words on a calendar? It’s that, but so much more. Time is a seed waiting to grow, a flower blooming, a sunbeam moving across a room. Time is slow like a spider spinning her web or fast like a wave at the beach. Time is a wiggly tooth, or waiting for the school bell to ring, or reading a story . . . or three! But time is also morning for some and night for others, a fading sunset and a memory captured in a photo taken long ago. In this magical meditation on the nature of time, Julie Morstad shines a joyful light on a difficult-to-grasp concept for young readers and reminds older readers to see the wonders of our world, including children themselves, through the lens of time.

Shortlisted for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award

August 11, 2022August 9, 2022

Tundra Telegram: Dream Books for your “Endless” TBR Pile

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we reflect on the topics that are currently running through our minds, and kindly recommend some books we think might mesmerize you.

After years of false starts and dashed hopes, fans of Neil Gaiman’s beloved and acclaimed The Sandman comic series finally got the chance to see the television adaptation when it premiered on Netflix this past weekend. Starring Tom Sturridge as Dream / Morpheus, Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, and partially adapted by Gaiman himself, the series follows the king of dreams, as he escapes from captivity and attempts to restore order to his realm, called The Dreaming.

Of course, the best thing to do is to check out the collected editions of The Sandman, particularly the first two collections – Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll’s House – that the series roughly adapts. But if you want more suggestions for books of all ages about sleeping and dream worlds, we’ve got some nighttime reading material for you!

PICTURE BOOKS

Though the Sandman television series demonstrates there are a few reasons to be afraid of the dark, A Bedtime Yarn by Nicola Winstanley and Olivia Chin-Mueller has an answer to that. Little bear Frankie is given a ball of yarn to hold when he goes to bed, and his mother will hold onto the other end in the next room, working it into a surprise for him. The yarn’s colors affect the dreams he has, and eventually he learns he’s always connected to the people he loves – even while asleep!

Basically the Neil Gaiman of picture books, Nicola Winstanley also penned The Pirate’s Bed, illustrated by Matt James, which gives young readers a view into the world of pirate dreams. That is, it does before the bed (who is wide awake while the pirate on top sleeps) is cast out to sea on his own during a shipwreck. Will a bed without a sleeper find happiness? Or will it feel somehow not whole?

If vivid dreams are what you want, you need Dream Animals by Emily Winfield Martin. Discover what your dream animal might be – a bear who invites you to make baked goods or some tea-partying mermaids? Dreams haven’t seemed this fun since Van Halen recorded 5150.

In the same vein, Sean Taylor and Anuska Allepuz’s The Dream Train features thirty lushly illustrated bedtime poems for and about sleepyheads of all kinds. The Sandman rarely delved into the dreams of ducks or bats like The Dream Train does, but maybe it should have?

If there’s one question the Sandman knows the answer to, it’s What Will You Dream of Tonight?, which is also a picture book by Frances Stickley and Anuska Allepuz (who must love dreams!). A parent wonders what their child will dream of: Deserts? Waterfalls? Dragon-filled caves? This is a creative tale of dreamtime adventures.

Keeping to the comic book roots of The Sandman, check out the Little Golden Book Trouble in the Dream Dimension by Dave Croatto and Shane Clester, featuring rival comic company character Doctor Strange as he protects the dream world from the villain Nightmare, devoted to spooking kids (and adults) as they snooze.

In You Byun’s Dream Friends, a young girl Melody has the most wonderful friend in her dreams, and they do a bunch of fantastical things together. But when Melody wakes up, she’s back in the real world where she has no friends. This all changes when her dream friend inspires her to take some actions to change her friend status in the real world. (But her dream friend also happens to be a massive sort of flying cat, which will be tough for her first real friend to live up to, IMHO.)

Though the series has not yet adapted the Sandman collection Dream Country, readers of the comic know that the issue “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” introduces Morpheus’s collab with William Shakespeare, and became the only comic book in history to win a World Fantasy Award. Accordingly, we recommend the new picture book, William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, adapted by Georghia Ellinas and illustrated by Jane Ray, for the youngest audiences.

And like some sort of Australian Morpheus, the titular character in Robert Ingpen’s The Dream Keeper lives in the realm between being asleep and awake, and uses a number of tricks and traps to ensnare the wild creatures of our dreams before they can escape into reality.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

Though he doesn’t quite have the powers of Morpheus, the protagonist of Julian, Dream Doctor by Ann Cameron and Ann Strugnell does his best to enter his father’s dreams to get him the perfect birthday gift. Julian wants to get his dad a birthday gift that he’s “always dreamed of.” So he creates a brainwave machine, communicates through the TV antenna’s signals, interrogates his father while asleep, and does whatever he can to secretly learn what his father’s dream is, even if it happens to be a nightmare!

The Dollhouse by Charis Cotter is not only just a space, an apostrophe, and an “s” away from the title of one of the Sandman books adapted for the show, it’s also a spooky, atmospheric story that weaves the dream world with the waking one. Alice’s parents split up and she moves with her mom when she becomes a live-in nurse for an older woman. Alice finds a dollhouse in the attic that’s a replica of the house they live in, and before she knows it, she wakes up to find a girl asleep next to her in her bed – a girl who exactly like one of the dolls from the dollhouse (I may never sleep again!).

The Bookshop of Dust and Dreams by Mindy Thompson mirrors the Sandman books in its belief in the (literal magic) power of art and literature. Poppy’s family owns the magic bookshop Rhyme and Reason, which is situated in WWII New York, but caters to customers from around the world and from the past and future. When her older brother threatens to break the most important rule among magic Booksellers, Poppy is caught in an impossible situation.

And, of course, a perfect companion to the Sandman series is Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller’s Nightmares! trilogy (illustrated by Karl Kwasny), and not just because the books have often been compared to another Gaiman creation, Coraline. Charlie Laird has a major problem: not only does he have trouble sleeping because of terrible nightmare, but his nightmares have started slipping out of his dreams and into the waking world of Cypress Creek. Charlie and his friends – in the original book, as well as The Sleepwalker Tonic and The Lost Lullaby – must face their fears and save their town.

YOUNG ADULT

You can’t even start to mention YA about dreams without talking about Cherie Dimaline’s Hunting by Stars. The follow-up to The Marrow Thieves, in which Indigenous people are being hunted across North America and placed residential schools to harvest their bone marrow. The reason: Indigenous people are still able to dream, an ability lost by everyone else, and this dreaming ability is believed to be housed in the marrow (something overlooked in Sandman!). This book follows seventeen-year-old French, who survived the first book, as he heads north with a group of other dreamers who try to build a new community – until the school Recruiters hunt him down.

It’s an older title, but Dream Girl by Lauren Mechling, is all about Claire Voyante, a fifteen-year-old girl whose dream visions become a lot clearer when she’s given a cameo necklace by her grandmother Kiki. What can she do next but solve madcap mysteries with her psychic sleeping powers?

And the techno-futuristic take on Sleeping Beauty, A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan, follows Rosalinda Fitzroy, in a chemically induced slumber in a stasis tube for 62 years until she is kissed awake. But the world Rose wakes to is the aftermath of an apocalyptic era that killed millions in which she’s seen as the long-lost heir to an interplanetary empire (that old story!).

Sweet dreams and happy reading!

January 28, 2022June 6, 2022

#12DaysOfJanYouAry Recap

This January is all about YOU and what YOU want to read! Not only did we ask 12 readers to share what 2021 books they hope to read on Instagram (you can catch up with their choices here and here), we asked 12 more to send us videos with their choices! We’ll be posting the videos on Instagram over the next few weeks but you can catch up on the full event below and here are the books they mentioned:

Curses
By Lish McBride
448 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781984815590 | Putnam BFYR
Merit Cravan refused to fulfill her obligation to marry a prince, leading to a fairy godling’s curse. She will be forced to live as a beast forever, unless she agrees to marry a man of her mother’s choosing before her eighteenth birthday. Tevin Dumonthas always been a pawn in his family’s cons. The prettiest boy in a big family, his job is to tempt naïve rich girls to abandon their engagements, unless their parents agree to pay him off. But after his mother runs afoul of the beast, she decides to trade Tevin for her own freedom. Now, Tevin and Merit have agreed that he can pay off his mother’s debt by using his con-artist skills to help Merit find the best match . . . but what if the best match is Tevin himself?

@bookishly_vintage

All Our Hidden Gifts
By Caroline O’Donoghue
384 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781536213942 | Walker Books US
After Maeve finds a pack of tarot cards while cleaning out a closet during her in-school suspension, she quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school. But when Maeve’s ex–best friend, Lily, draws an unsettling card called The Housekeeper that Maeve has never seen before, the session devolves into a heated argument that ends with Maeve wishing aloud that Lily would disappear. When Lily isn’t at school the next Monday, Maeve learns her ex-friend has vanished without a trace. Shunned by her classmates and struggling to preserve a fledgling romance with Lily’s gender-fluid sibling, Roe, Maeve must dig deep into her connection with the cards to search for clues the police cannot find – even if they lead to the terrifying Housekeeper herself. Set in an Irish town where the church’s tight hold has loosened and new freedoms are trying to take root, this sharply contemporary story is witty, gripping, and tinged with mysticism.

@mattheasbookshelf

The Serpent’s Fury
By Kelley Armstrong
352 Pages | Ages 10-14 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270152 | Puffin Canada
Rowan is Tamarel’s Royal Monster Hunter, and her twin brother, Rhydd, will be its king. After the events of The Gryphon’s Lair, Rowan, along with her friends, her brother and an entourage of monstrous companions, makes her way back to the Dunnian Woods to deal with the pack of dropbears the group trapped in an abandoned cabin after a vicious attack. The dropbears are just one of a number of rare monster species acting erratically in Tamarel. After a swarm of colocolos nearly tramples the group, Rowan becomes convinced that someone (or something) is driving these monsters out of their natural habitats. But nothing can prepare the Royal Monster Hunter for the truth of the matter: monsters even bigger and deadlier than gryphons have returned to the world, and their nest-building, as well as the actions of the humans trying to drive them out, has upset the balance of nature in Tamarel. Do Rowan’s “monster magnet” skills work against the most fearsome monsters imaginable? Find out in this exciting third book in the Royal Guide to Monster Slaying series!

@btwnprintedpgs

The Girls I’ve Been
By Tess Sharpe
368 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593353806 | Putnam BFYR
Nora O’Malley’s been a lot of girls. As the daughter of a con-artist who targets criminal men, she grew up as her mother’s protégé. But when her mom fell for the mark instead of conning him, Nora pulled the ultimate con: escape. For five years Nora’s been playing at normal. But she needs to dust off the skills she ditched because she has three problems:
#1: Her ex walked in on her with her girlfriend. Even though they’re all friends, Wes didn’t know about her and Iris.
#2: The morning after Wes finds them kissing, they all have to meet to deposit the fundraiser money they raised at the bank. It’s a nightmare that goes from awkward to deadly, because:
#3: Right after they enter the bank, two guys start robbing it.
The bank robbers may be trouble, but Nora’s something else entirely. They have no idea who they’re really holding hostage . . .

@doodle.books

@melanies_bookishendeavours

The Silver Blonde
By Elizabeth Ross
400 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780385741484 | Delacorte BFYR
Hollywood, 1946. The war is over, and eighteen-year-old Clara Berg spends her days shelving reels as a vault girl at Silver Pacific Studios, with all her dreams pinned on getting a break in film editing. That and a real date with handsome yet unpredictable screenwriter Gil. But when she returns a reel of film to storage one night, Clara stumbles across the authosumlifeless body of a woman in Vault 5. The costume, the makeup, the ash-blond hair are unmistakable – it has to be Babe Bannon, A-list star. And it looks like murder. Suddenly Clara’s world is in free-fall, her future in movies upended – not to mention that her refugee parents are planning to return to Germany and don’t want her to set foot on the studio lot again. As the Silver Blonde murder ignites Tinseltown, rumors and accusations swirl. The studio wants a quick solve, but the facts of the case keep shifting. Nothing is what it seems – not even the victim. Clara finds herself drawn, inevitably, to the murder investigation, and the dark side of Hollywood. But how far is she willing to go to find the truth?

@beautynherbooks

Luck of the Titanic
By Stacey Lee
384 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781524740986 | Putnam BFYR
Valora Luck has two things: a ticket for the biggest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world, and a dream of leaving England behind and making a life for herself as a circus performer in New York. Much to her surprise though, she’s turned away at the gangway; apparently, Chinese aren’t allowed into America. But Val has to get on that ship. Her twin brother Jamie, who has spent two long years at sea, is there, as is an influential circus owner, whom Val hopes to audition for. Thankfully, there’s not much a trained acrobat like Val can’t overcome when she puts her mind to it. As a stowaway, Val should keep her head down and stay out of sight. But the clock is ticking and she has just seven days as the ship makes its way across the Atlantic to find Jamie, perform for the circus owner, and convince him to help get them both into America. Then one night the unthinkable happens, and suddenly Val’s dreams of a new life are crushed under the weight of the only thing that matters: survival.

@mostlyyalit

Hunting by Stars
By Cherie Dimaline
400 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735269651 | Penguin Teen Canada
Years ago, when plagues and natural disasters killed millions of people, much of the world stopped dreaming. Without dreams, people are haunted, sick, mad, unable to rebuild. The government soon finds that the Indigenous people of North America have retained their dreams, an ability rumored to be housed in the very marrow of their bones. Soon, residential schools pop up – or are re-opened – across the land to bring in the dreamers and harvest their dreams. Seventeen-year-old French lost his family to these schools and has spent the years since heading north with his new found family: a group of other dreamers, who, like him, are trying to build and thrive as a community. But then French wakes up in a pitch-black room, locked in and alone for the first time in years, and he knows immediately where he is – and what it will take to escape. Meanwhile, out in the world, his found family searches for him and dodges new dangers – school Recruiters, a blood cult, even the land itself. When their paths finally collide, French must decide how far he is willing to go – and how many loved ones is he willing to betray – in order to survive. This engrossing, action-packed, deftly-drawn novel expands on the world of Cherie Dimaline’s award-winning The Marrow Thieves, and it will haunt readers long after they’ve turned the final page.

@yasmilktea

Last Night at the Telegraph Club
By Malinda Lo
416 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780525555254 | Dutton BFYR
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father – despite his hard-won citizenship – Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

@foxcloudsblog

Poison for Breakfast
By Lemony Snicket
168 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735271463 | Penguin Teen Canada
For more than twenty years, Lemony Snicket has led millions of young readers through a mysterious world of bewildering questions and unfortunate events. With this latest book – a love letter to readers young and old about the vagaries of real life – longtime fans and new readers alike will experience Snicket’s distinctive voice in a new way. This true story – as true as Lemony Snicket himself – begins with a puzzling note under his door: You had poison for breakfast. Following a winding trail of clues to solve the mystery of his own demise, Snicket takes us on a thought-provoking tour of his predilections: the proper way to prepare an egg, a perplexing idea called “tzimtzum,” the sublime pleasure of swimming in open water, and much else.

@pagebypaigebooks

Cast in Firelight
By Dana Swift
448 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593124215 | Delacorte BFYR
Adraa is the royal heir of Belwar, a talented witch on the cusp of taking her royal ceremony test, and a girl who just wants to prove her worth to her people. Jatin is the royal heir to Naupure, a competitive wizard who’s mastered all nine colors of magic, and a boy anxious to return home for the first time since he was a child. Together, their arranged marriage will unite two of Wickery’s most powerful kingdoms. But after years of rivalry from afar, Adraa and Jatin only agree on one thing: their reunion will be anything but sweet. Only, destiny has other plans and with the criminal underbelly of Belwar suddenly making a move for control, their paths cross . . . and neither realizes who the other is, adopting separate secret identities instead. Between dodging deathly spells and keeping their true selves hidden, the pair must learn to put their trust in the other if either is to uncover the real threat. Now Wickery’s fate is in the hands of rivals . . ? Fiancées . . ? Partners . . ? Whatever they are, it’s complicated and bound for greatness or destruction.

@whatsjreading

The Taking of Jake Livingston
By Ryan Douglass
256 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781984812537 | Putnam BFYR
Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can’t decide what’s worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up with the arrival of another Black student – the handsome Allister – and for the first time, romance is on the horizon for Jake. Unfortunately, life as a medium is getting worse. Though most ghosts are harmless and Jake is always happy to help them move on to the next place, Sawyer Doon wants much more from Jake. In life, Sawyer was a troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school before taking his own life. Now he’s a powerful, vengeful ghost and he has plans for Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about dead world goes out the window as Sawyer begins to haunt him. High school soon becomes a different kind of survival game – one Jake is not sure he can win.

@lucien.lost

January 24, 2022February 1, 2022

2022 American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award Young Adult Honor Book

Each year the American Library Association honors and encourages original and creative work in the field of children’s and young adult literature and media. We would like to congratulate Cherie Dimaline whose incredible Hunting By Stars is a 2022 American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award Young Adult Honor Book.

Hunting by Stars
By Cherie Dimaline
400 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735269651 | Penguin Teen Canada
The thrilling follow-up to the bestselling, award-winning novel The Marrow Thieves, about a dystopian world where the Indigenous people of North America are being hunted for their bone marrow and ability to dream. Years ago, when plagues and natural disasters killed millions of people, much of the world stopped dreaming. Without dreams, people are haunted, sick, mad, unable to rebuild. The government soon finds that the Indigenous people of North America have retained their dreams, an ability rumored to be housed in the very marrow of their bones. Soon, residential schools pop up – or are re-opened – across the land to bring in the dreamers and harvest their dreams. Seventeen-year-old French lost his family to these schools and has spent the years since heading north with his new found family: a group of other dreamers, who, like him, are trying to build and thrive as a community. But then French wakes up in a pitch-black room, locked in and alone for the first time in years, and he knows immediately where he is – and what it will take to escape. Meanwhile, out in the world, his found family searches for him and dodges new dangers – school Recruiters, a blood cult, even the land itself. When their paths finally collide, French must decide how far he is willing to go – and how many loved ones is he willing to betray – in order to survive. This engrossing, action-packed, deftly-drawn novel expands on the world of Cherie Dimaline’s award-winning The Marrow Thieves, and it will haunt readers long after they’ve turned the final page.