Tag: The Big Sting

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National Siblings Day

Every year on April 10th we celebrate National Siblings Day. It is a day to remind us how special all kinds of siblings can be to our families and our lives. In recognition of this day, we have created a list of books all about those special sibling bonds.

Picture Books

Good Night, Sister
By Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt
Illustrated by Lucy Fleming
32 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593385814 | Penguin Workshop
Kat is excited to sleep in her own room – the big girl room – for the very first time. But her younger sister, Tina, is nervous to sleep in their old room without her. So Kat comes up with a plan: she’ll give all of her stuffed animals to her younger sister, and every time Tina gets scared, she should hold them close and be reminded of all the wonderful things each animal represents: bravery, creativity, love, and imagination. But that night, as a storm thunders outside their windows, it turns out that the big girl room can feel a bit lonely. And Kat might be the one who needs the extra support.  With simple, gentle prose, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt shares a comforting bedtime story, illuminating the bonds sisters share, and the many ways they are there for one another.

Harry and Clare’s Amazing Staycation
By Ted Staunton
Illustrated by Mika Song
32 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Ebook
ISBN 9781770498280 | Tundra Books
Harry and Clare are stuck at home for their spring break. No exotic locations, no plane trips, no exciting plans. So they make their own fun: the living room becomes Mars, the diving board at the pool becomes a pirate’s plank and the local playground where the man-eating octopus lives. The trouble is, older sister Clare is the one making all the rules, and that means deciding on the game AND eating all the food. But Harry has a plan to turn the tables… if he can just keep his snacks out of the Abominable Snowman’s clutches!

The Song That Called Them Home
By David A. Robertson
Illustrated by Maya McKibbin
52 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266704 | Tundra Books
One summer day, Lauren and her little brother, James, go on a trip to the land with their Moshom (grandfather). After they’ve arrived, the children decide to fish for dinner while Moshom naps. They are in their canoe in the middle of the lake when the water around them begins to swirl and crash. They are thrown overboard and when Lauren surfaces she sees her brother being pulled away by the Memekwesewak — creatures who live in and around water and like to interfere with humans. Lauren must follow the Memekwesewak through a portal and along a watery path to find and bring back James. But when she finally comes upon her brother, she too feels the lure of the Memekwesewak’s song. Something even stronger must pull them back home.  

Ten Little Dumplings
By Larissa Fan
Illustrated by Cindy Wume
48 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266193 | Tundra Books
In the city of Tainan, there lives a very special family – special because they have ten sons who do everything together. Their parents call them their ten little dumplings, as both sons and dumplings are auspicious. But if you look closely, you’ll see that someone else is there, listening, studying, learning and discovering her own talent – a sister. As this little girl grows up in the shadow of her brothers, her determination and persistence help her to create her own path in the world . . . and becomes the wisdom she passes on to her own daughter, her own little dumpling. 

What Are You Doing, Benny?
Written by Cary Fagan
Illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton
36 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781770498570 | Tundra Books
Benny’s little brother is really good at a lot of things — making potions and paper airplanes, building forts, putting on puppet shows, even petting the neighbor’s cat (he has a special way of scratching her just behind the ears). But whenever he tries to join in Benny’s activities, all Benny ever says is “No.” Maybe his little brother can watch him do cool stuff, if he’s lucky. What is a little fox to do, except give Benny a taste of his own medicine?

Graphic Novels

Sweet Valley Twins: Best Friends
By Francine Pascal
Illustrated by Claudia Aguirre
Adapted by Nicole Andelfinger
224 Pages | Ages 8–12 | Paperback
ISBN 9780593376461 | Random House Graphic
Jessica and Elizabeth have always been inseparable twins, but starting middle school means a chance for new beginnings! Elizabeth is excited to organize a school newspaper, but Jessica is more interested in joining the exclusive Unicorn Club. What will happen when the twins realize they might not be as alike as they thought? Middle school is hard enough, but with these twins each dealing with becoming their own person – will they be able to stay friends at the same time?

Stepping Stones
By Lucy Knisley
224 Pages | Ages 8–12 | Paperback
ISBN 9781984896841 | Random House Graphic
Jen did not want to leave the city. She did not want to move to a farm with her mom and her mom’s new boyfriend, Walter. She did not want to leave her friends and her dad. Most of all, Jen did not want to get new “sisters,” Andy and Reese. As if learning new chores on Peapod Farm wasn’t hard enough, having to deal with perfect-at-everything Andy might be the last straw for Jen. Besides cleaning the chicken coop, trying to keep up with the customers at the local farmers’ market, and missing her old life, Jen has to deal with her own insecurities about this new family . . . and where she fits in.

The Montague Twins #2: The Devil’s Music
By Nathan Page
Illustrated by Drew Shannon
320 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780525646815 | Knopf BFYR
Alastair, Pete, Charlie, and Rachel aren’t just magical teen detectives in their coastal town of Port Howl – they are also members of a local teen rock band. Before a show one night, Charlie and Rachel meet a famous rockstar, Gideon, and invite him to their show. He’ll never come, but why not try, right? Little do they know, Gideon does show up, and he brings the threads of his dark past with him. In fact, he might even be the source of the rumored Devil’s Music, a limited-release song that entrances all of its listeners in a deadly hypnosis. When Pete quickly gets drawn into Gideon’s web, it’s up to his brother and friends to save him. But Pete might not be the only Montague Twin at risk for Gideon’s spell . . . .

Middle Grade

A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying
By Kelley Armstrong
288 Pages | Ages 10-14 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735265370 | Puffin Canada
Twelve-year-old Rowan is destined to be Queen; her twin brother, Rhydd, to be Royal Monster Hunter. Rowan would give anything to switch places, but the oldest child is always next in line, even if she is only older by two minutes. She resigns herself to admiring her monster hunting aunt’s glorious sword and joining her queen mother for boring diplomatic teas. But tragedy shatters the longstanding rule, and Rowan finds herself hunting the most dangerous monster of all: a gryphon.

The Big Sting
By Rachelle Delaney
224 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269309 | Tundra Books
Eleven-year-old Leo is an “armchair adventurer.” This, according to Dad, means he’d choose adventures in books or video games over real-life experiences. And while Leo hates the label, he can’t argue with it. Unlike his little sister Lizzie, Leo is not a risk-taker. So when he, Lizzie, Mom and Dad leave the city to visit Grandpa on Heron Island, Leo finds all kinds of dangers to avoid – from the deep, dark ocean to an old barn on the verge of collapse. But nothing on the island is more fearsome than Grandpa himself – Leo has never met anyone so grumpy! According to Mom, Grandpa is still grieving the recent death of his wife, a beekeeper beloved by everyone on the island. Despite Leo’s best efforts to avoid it, adventure finds him anyway when Grandma’s beehives go missing in the dead of night. Infuriated, Grandpa vows to track down the sticky-fingered thieves himself . . . with risk-averse Leo and danger-loving Lizzie (plus a kitten named Mayhem) in tow.

The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels
By Beth Lincoln
Illustrated by Claire Powell
352 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593533239 | Dutton Books For Young Readers
On the day they are born, every Swift child is brought before the sacred Family Dictionary. They are given a name, and a definition. A definition it is assumed they will grow up to match. Meet Shenanigan Swift: Little sister. Risk-taker. Mischief-maker. Shenanigan is getting ready for the big Swift Family Reunion and plotting her next great scheme: hunting for Grand-Uncle Vile’s long-lost treasure. She’s excited to finally meet her arriving relatives – until one of them gives Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude a deadly shove down the stairs. So what if everyone thinks she’ll never be more than a troublemaker, just because of her name? Shenanigan knows she can become whatever she wants, even a detective. And she’s determined to follow the twisty clues and catch the killer.

Young Adult

American Royals
By Katharine McGee
464 Pages | Ages 14+ | Paperback
ISBN 9781984830203 | Ember
When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington still sits on the throne. Like most royal families, the Washingtons have an heir and a spare. A future monarch and a backup battery. Each child knows exactly what is expected of them. But these aren’t just any royals. They’re American. As Princess Beatrice gets closer to becoming America’s first queen regnant, the duty she has embraced her entire life suddenly feels stifling. Nobody cares about the spare except when she’s breaking the rules, so Princess Samantha doesn’t care much about anything, either . . . except the one boy who is distinctly off-limits to her. And then there’s Samantha’s twin, Prince Jefferson. If he’d been born a generation earlier, he would have stood first in line for the throne, but the new laws of succession make him third. Most of America adores their devastatingly handsome prince . . . but two very different girls are vying to capture his heart.

Someone Is Always Watching
By Kelley Armstrong
368 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270923 | Tundra Books
Blythe and her friends — Gabrielle, and brother and sister Tucker and Tanya — have always been a tight friend group, attending a local high school and falling in and out of love with each other. But an act of violence has caused a rift between Blythe and Tucker . . . and unexpected bursts of aggression and disturbing nightmares have started to become more frequent in their lives. The strange happenings culminate in a shocking event at school: Gabrielle is found covered in blood in front of their deceased principal, with no memory of what happened. Cracks in their friendship, as well as in their own memories, start appearing, threatening to expose long-forgotten secrets which could change the group’s lives forever. How can Blythe and her friends trust each other when they can’t even trust their own memories?

The Davenports
By Krystal Marquis
384 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593463338 | Dial Books
The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in a changing United States, their fortune made through the entrepreneurship of William Davenport, a formerly enslaved man who founded the Davenport Carriage Company years ago. Now it’s 1910, and the Davenports live surrounded by servants, crystal chandeliers, and endless parties, finding their way and finding love – even where they’re not supposed to. There is Olivia, the beautiful elder Davenport daughter, ready to do her duty by getting married . . . until she meets the charismatic civil rights leader Washington DeWight and sparks fly. The younger daughter, Helen, is more interested in fixing cars than falling in love – unless it’s with her sister’s suitor. Amy-Rose, the childhood friend turned maid to the Davenport sisters, dreams of opening her own business – and marrying the one man she could never be with, Olivia and Helen’s brother, John. But Olivia’s best friend, Ruby, also has her sights set on John Davenport, though she can’t seem to keep his interest . . . until family pressure has her scheming to win his heart, just as someone else wins hers.

The Grey Sisters
By Jo Treggiari
228 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735263000 | Penguin Teen Canada
D and Spider have always been close friends, and they are further united in their shared heartbreak: they both lost siblings in a horrific plane crash two years earlier. A chance sighting of a beloved cuddly toy in a photograph of the only survivor spurs D to finally seek closure. She and Spider and their friend, Min, set off on a road trip to the mountainside site of that terrible crash. Ariel has lived on the mountain all her life. She and her extended family are looked down upon by neighboring townsfolk and she has learned to live by her wits, trusting few people outside of her isolated, survivalist community. A terrifying attack sends her down the mountain for help; on her way, she comes upon the three girls — a chance encounter that will have far-reaching consequences for them all.

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Tundra Telegram: Books To Put Some Spring In Your Step

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we dig into the topics germinating in readers’ thoughts, then root around in our library to suggest some books that will leaf you breathless.

We just passed the first day of spring (at least we did in the northern hemisphere), and though – depending on where you live – the weather may be less than spring-like, we’re now in the season when nature begins its rebirth, rejuvenation, renewal, and regrowth.

To celebrate, we’re recommending books about gardens, flowers, vegetables, trees – these are books all about growing. And not in that character development way. These are books literally about plant growth, from picture books to YA. Read on and reap what we sow!

PICTURE BOOKS

Where most rainforests are located, it’s actually fall right now, but we’re going to start our list with Zonia’s Rain Forest by Juana Martinez-Neal, anyway. Readers are invited to join Zonia, an Asháninka girl, as she plays in the lush Amazonian rain forest, and one can’t help but be reminded of springtime.

Though cherry blossom season usually isn’t until the end of April, we think Sakura’s Cherry Blossoms by Robert Paul Weston and Misa Saburi is another great inclusion on this list. Ostensibly about a girl missing home but making new friends after she moves from Japan, it’s also about blossoming cherry trees in the spring – famous in Japan, but also found in some neighborhoods of North America, too!

The Golden Glow by Benjamin Flouw indulges in the simple joys of the quest to find a rare and mysterious plant. Fox hikes through hills and mountains, observing many flora (and some fauna) on his way, all in an effort to catch a glimpse of a special flower: the titular golden glow.

Speaking of flowers, Welcome, Flower Child by Brigette Barrager is a picture book for the very youngest readers, as it’s all about the magic of your birth flower. Whether your birth flower is a larkspur or jonquil, this book celebrates the personality traits of individuals born in each month (through their accompanying flower) and demonstrates we need all the flowers together to make a wonderful garden.

For less subjective information about different flowers, young readers should track down Rachel Ignotofsky’s What’s Inside a Flower?, a nonfiction picture book that beautifully illustrates the answers to all your flowering questions, from seeds to roots to blooms.

But if you want your floral facts with a side of strange, Flowers Are Pretty … Weird by Rosemary Mosco and Jacob Souva is for you. Inside the book, a knowledgeable bee reveals just how bizarre flowers can be: some only bloom in the nighttime, some look like ghosts, and some smell like rotting meat. Spring is in the air!

When you’re talking spring, you’re talking trees – especially deciduous ones – and that’s exactly the kind featured in This Is the Tree We Planted by Kate McMullan and Alison Friend. The book, House-That-Jack-Built-style, recounts how one class plants a tree in a playground, then watches it grow and create a home to more and more animals as it does.

Another such tree is the focus of The Forever Tree by Tereasa Surratt and Donna Lukas, illustrated by Nicola Slater. Based on real tree in Wisconsin, the book is about the special connection a tree can have to a community – of people and animals – and how people can work together when that tree’s existence is threatened.

Zee Grows a Tree by Elizabeth Rusch and Will Hillenbrand, on the other hand, is all about an evergreen tree. In fact, it is about a girl (Zee Cooper) and a Douglas fir born on the very same day, and the parallel milestones they reach together as their lives intersect.

The tree in Corinna Luyken’s The Tree in Me is neither deciduous nor coniferous. It’s more metaphorical, as the text describes the tree-like strength within each of us and our connections to nature. That natural connection is strengthened by the illustrations of kids frolicking in the outdoors. (When was the last time you had a good frolic?)

Likewise, Only a Tree Knows How to Be a Tree by Mary Murphy is not as much about a tree as you would think. The book is about trees, as well as birds, and fish, and all sorts of living things, but it is also a book about the concept of self and how every thing (and person) is unique, and are the only ones who really know how to be themselves.

Those books are great if you appreciate tree quality, but what if you’re all about tree quantity? Enter One Million Trees: A True Story by Kristen Balouch. The book is the true story of the author’s family, who planted 1,000,000 trees (!) to fight deforestation in British Columbia. That is a tree-mendous undertaking!

Springtime is also all about planting, so we need to include a few books about gardens. Let’s start with My Baba’s Garden from acclaimed Canadian picture book duo Jordan Scott and Sydney Smith. Inspired by Scott’s childhood, the book follows a kid as he helps his grandmother tend her garden, immersing himself in the sights, sounds, smells – and worms, too!

A gardening book that many readers might find themselves in is Lola Plants a Garden by Anna McQuinn and Rosalind Beardshaw. Lola is inspired by a book of garden poems to start her own garden, so she and her mommy check out some books from the library, do a little plant research, and start gardening in no time! Libraries and gardens: two great places that go great together.

The book that could have inspired Lola is Behold Our Magical Garden by Allan Wolf and Daniel Duncan, as the book is filled with witty and playful poems about a school garden and the budding young gardeners who keep it growing.

We’ve already told you about a class of kids growing a tree. A different class of kids – these ones in a busy city – start their own rooftop garden in In Our Garden by Pat Zietlow Miller and Melissa Crowton. Inspired by new student Millie, who moved to the city from across the ocean, the entire classroom embarks on a project to develop green thumbs.

The Wild Garden by Cynthia Cliff demonstrates there’s more than one way to garden. While the village of Mirren has a tidy community garden, carefully organized and tended by the townspeople, it also has a wild patch of land the other side of the garden wall – a place full of trees, mushrooms, and wild vegetables. When the townspeople decide they need a bigger garden, they want to expand into the wild place. Jilly and her grandfather develop a plan, inviting the townspeople to discover a new kind of gardening, in this tribute to biodiversity.

Tending plants becomes an endearing substitute to animal companionship in Gwendolyn’s Pet Garden by Anne Renaud and Rashin Kheiriyeh. Gwendolyn really wants a pet, but her parents – unsure of the idea – give her a box of dirt instead. It takes her a while, but soon Gwendolyn is enthusiastically caring for her “pet” garden, which learns a few fancy tricks of its own.

And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention all of JaNay Brown-Wood and Samara Hardy’s Where in the Garden? series. Across four books, encompassing Amara’s Farm, Miguel’s Community Garden, Logan’s Greenhouse, and Linh’s Rooftop Garden,readers are introduced to young gardeners and the many different ways kids can engage in horticulture – whether you have many acres or just a tiny spot on a roof at your disposal.

But you can’t grow much without seeds. And Seeds by Carme Lemniscates revels in the potential of seeds – whether they are spread by the wind or carried on the back of a few animals to their destination – and how they can grow into all variety of wonderful vegetation. The book also reminds us humans plant non-vegetable seeds, too (in a way), and with care we can cultivate and nurture wonderful things in the world (including actual plants).

For a more in-depth and close-up view of how a seed becomes a plant, you can read A Seed Grows by Antoinette Portis. The book outlines each step of the growth cycle of a sunflower, from tiny seed to big, bold bloom, in lively (and award-winning) illustrations.

Of course, there’s also the bestselling classic Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons, which outlines the growth process from seed to adult plant, and informs young readers where the plants they see at home and the park, as well as the fruit and vegetables they eat, get their start.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

Older readers interested in all things botanical will gravitate to nature expert Ben Hoare’s The Secret World of Plants. Subtitled Tales of More than 100 Remarkable Flowers, Trees, and Seeds, the treasury includes facts about underwater seagrass, carnivorous Venus flytraps, and expensive tulips, all beautifully illustrated and augmented with information about photosynthesis, pollination, and all the plant essentials.

The lovable Nina Soni tries her hand at horticulture in Kashmira Sheth’s Nina Soni, Master of the Garden. When Nina accompanies her mom, a landscape architect, to work, she picks up a few tips on how to start a garden. But Nina quickly realizes the business potential and turns her (future) vegetable growth into an entrepreneurial enterprise. Many calamities (and hilarities) ensue for the first-time gardener.

Jen, the main character of Stepping Stones, a graphic novel by Lucy Knisley, is not as willing a participant in the vegetable growing business. She’s suddenly living in the country with her step-family, working a farm and selling produce at markets, while having left her city friends behind. Can Jen fit into her new agrarian lifestyle?

Aggie Morton is a girl more about deathstyle than lifestyle. And in Marthe Jocelyn’s Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: The Dead Man in the Garden, that deathstyle is garden chic. Young detective Aggie and her friend Hector Perot find a body in the garden of a Yorkshire spa, and the two take it upon themselves once again to solve the mystery in this springtime thriller inspired by the life and works of Agatha Christie.

Technically Holler of the Fireflies by David Barclay Moore takes place over the summer, but the book is about Javari, a boy from Brooklyn, who goes to rural Appalachia for a STEM summer camp. Javari, a fish out of water at first, soon learns about the pleasures – both plant-based and otherwise – of the great outdoors.

The Big Sting by Rachelle Delaney is more about insects (bees, to be precise) than plants, but you can’t have many bees without flowers nearby. Eleven-year-old Leo prefers his books and video games to outdoor adventures, but when he visits Grandpa on Heron Island and his late Grandma’s beehives go missing, Leo heads out on an adventure with his little sister to brave the wild and find the missing bees.

YOUNG ADULT

While only some of them actually do any plant growing or gardening, all of the 34 young women in Girls Who Green the World by Diana Kapp are dedicated to fighting for biodiversity and renewed plant growth on planet earth. The book profiles environmental changemakers, social entrepreneurs, visionaries, and activists who want to save the planet and make the world turn green.

A book that explores the darker side of plants is Rory Power’s creepy thriller Burn Our Bodies Down, in which teenage Margot returns to her mother’s small-town homestead to uncover some family secrets and things weirder still. (Spoiler alert: there may be cornfields growing clones.)

Okay, so Violet Made of Thorns by Gina Chen isn’t really about flowers. Violet is just the name of our morally ambiguous hero, a prophet who misleads the royal court with her carefully worded predictions. But when she’s asked to provide a false prophecy for Prince Cyrus, a nemesis she’s strangely attracted to, and his upcoming wedding, Violet awakens a curse and an epic enemies-to-lovers adventure. (And spring is all about new love, too – so there.)

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Tuesdays with Tundra

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

No No, Baby!
By Anne Hunter
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269118 | Tundra Books
An enthusiastic baby squirrel and some grumpy forest friends collide in this sweet and funny picture book from Geisel Award Honoree Anne Hunter.
It’s morning time! And Baby is wide awake.
Baby is excited to leap.
Baby is excited to eat. 
Baby is excited to see the other animals in the forest . . . But are the other animals excited to see Baby? One day, the owl gets frustrated and says some harsh words that cause Baby to hide away at home. And when Baby doesn’t appear, the animals realize something vital is missing from their morning . . .

The Big Sting
By Rachelle Delaney
224 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269309 | Tundra Books
Eleven-year-old Leo is an “armchair adventurer.” This, according to Dad, means he’d choose adventures in books or video games over real-life experiences. And while Leo hates the label, he can’t argue with it. Unlike his little sister Lizzie, Leo is not a risk-taker. So when he, Lizzie, Mom and Dad leave the city to visit Grandpa on Heron Island, Leo finds all kinds of dangers to avoid – from the deep, dark ocean to an old barn on the verge of collapse. But nothing on the island is more fearsome than Grandpa himself – Leo has never met anyone so grumpy! According to Mom, Grandpa is still grieving the recent death of his wife, a beekeeper beloved by everyone on the island. Despite Leo’s best efforts to avoid it, adventure finds him anyway when Grandma’s beehives go missing in the dead of night. Infuriated, Grandpa vows to track down the sticky-fingered thieves himself . . . with risk-averse Leo and danger-loving Lizzie (plus a kitten named Mayhem) in tow.

The Big Sting is also available today in Audiobook!

New in Paperback:

How to High Tea with a Hyena (And Not Get Eaten)
By Rachel Poliquin
Illustrated by Kathryn Durst
80 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Paperback
ISBN 9781774881668 | Tundra Books
Celeste is a cockroach, and everyone knows that cockroaches are survivors, so who better to give advice on surviving an encounter with a polite predator? High teas are dainty meals with pretty teacups: you nibble tiny cakes, sip milky tea and chit-chat about not-so important things like why doughnuts have holes and if fish have eyebrows. But Ruby the hyena is loud, ferocious and tends to slobber. High-speed gobbling makes good sense in the wild, but it is a definite no-no in the tearoom! And Ruby just happens to be Queen of a very large clan of hungry hyenas. Will high tea be ruined by uninvited guests? Is Ruby peckish for something other than Celeste’s famous cream buns? Using her vast knowledge of hyenas, Celeste comes up with lots of strategies to get through high tea in one piece. Many of her suggestions are dangerous, most are absurd, but all are based on true hyena biology and hunting behavior.

Wrong Side of the Court
By H. N. Khan
312 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735270893 | Tundra Books
Fifteen-year-old Fawad Chaudhry loves two things: basketball and his mother’s potato and ground-beef stuffed parathas. Both are round and both help him forget about things like his father, who died two years ago, his mother’s desire to arrange a marriage to his first cousin, Nusrat, back home in Pakistan, and the tiny apartment in Regent Park he shares with his mom and sister. Not to mention his estranged best friend Yousuf, who’s coping with the shooting death of his older brother. But Fawad has plans: like, asking out Ashley, even though she lives on the other, wealthier side of the tracks, and saving his friend Arif from being beaten into a pulp for being the school flirt, and making the school basketball team and dreaming of being the world’s first Pakistani to be drafted into the NBA. All he has to do now is convince his mother to let him try out for the basketball team. And let him date girls from his school. Not to mention somehow get Omar, the neighborhood bully, to leave him alone.

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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Cover Reveal: The Big Sting

Tundra is very excited to be publishing The Big Sting on February 7, 2023! Written by Rachelle Delaney, The Big Sting follows Leo, whose visit to his grandfather’s farm is turned upside down when his late grandmother’s beehives go missing!

Scroll down for the full bee-utiful cover plus a Q&A with Rachelle Delaney!

Cover Art: Morgan Goble
Cover Design: Emma Dolan

The Big Sting
By Rachelle Delaney
224 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269309 | Tundra Books
Release Date: February 7, 2023
Eleven-year-old Leo is an “armchair adventurer.” This, according to Dad, means he’d choose adventures in books or video games over real-life experiences. And while Leo hates the label, he can’t argue with it. Unlike his little sister Lizzie, Leo is not a risk-taker.

So when he, Lizzie, Mom and Dad leave the city to visit Grandpa on Heron Island, Leo finds all kinds of dangers to avoid – from the deep, dark ocean to an old barn on the verge of collapse. But nothing on the island is more fearsome than Grandpa himself – Leo has never met anyone so grumpy! According to Mom, Grandpa is still grieving the recent death of his wife, a beekeeper beloved by everyone on the island.

Despite Leo’s best efforts to avoid it, adventure finds him anyway when Grandma’s beehives go missing in the dead of night. Infuriated, Grandpa vows to track down the sticky-fingered thieves himself . . . with risk-averse Leo and danger-loving Lizzie (plus a kitten named Mayhem) in tow.

Q&A with Rachelle Delaney

What inspired The Big Sting?

A few years ago, I learned about hive heists, which is another term for bee theft. I’d never heard of a hive heist before, and I was intrigued. I quickly started brainstorming ideas for a story, though it took me a long time to decide on a setting. Eventually I settled on one close to home: a fictional Gulf Island off the coast of BC. I live in Vancouver and visit the islands a few times a year. They’re beautiful and quirky, and I’ve always thought it would be fun to set a story there.

Did you have to do any research? What was the most fun/interesting fact you learned?

I love doing research for novels, and this was no exception. I learned all I could about hive heists from articles and podcasts. I did a lot of research into bees too. Unfortunately, this was during the height of the pandemic, so there weren’t many opportunities to meet with people in person. But I did Zoom calls with my beekeeper friend, Jode, who answered many, many questions.

The most amazing fact I learned is that one of the most expensive honeys in the world is produced in a cave in northeastern Turkey. The cave is so deep it takes a team of mountaineers to harvest it. It’s called Elvish honey, and it costs almost $7,000 per gram!

Without spoiling anything, what was your favourite moment to write in The Big Sting?

One of my favourite parts is when the Heron Island Bumblers – a group of geriatric beekeepers – descend on Leo’s grandpa’s house to help solve the crime. I loved writing their dialogue and interactions with Grandpa, who is not a fan of the Bumblers. Also, the scene is FULL of bee puns.

Do you think Leo would be friends with Alice Fleck?

Oh, I think so. Leo and Alice are both clever, curious and braver than they think. They have very different interests, but I don’t think that would stop them from being friends.

Which character is the most like you or the most like someone you know?

Like Leo, I’m a bit of a catastrophizer – I tend to think of everything that can go wrong before taking a risk. But I love having adventures (within reason), so I try to push past most fears. When I described how Leo feels bold and capable after climbing Heron Mountain, I was definitely writing from experience.

How many cover drafts did you see before this one was finalized?

I think I saw three drafts before it was finalized. It’s so fascinating to see a cover come together. I think the illustrator, Morgan Goble, and the designer, Emma Dolan, did an incredible job.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?

The other day, my 14-year-old niece and I were talking about how hard it is to write when you don’t want to make mistakes – when you want everything to turn out RIGHT. It can be totally paralyzing, and it can take the fun out of writing. It’s so important to give yourself permission to play with writing, experiment and have fun. I have to remind myself of this all the time.

What have you been reading lately?

I’ve been reading – and loving – Norwegian author Maria Parr’s books. She writes delightful middle-grade novels (translated into English, of course) set in the mountains and fjords of Norway. They’re the perfect blend of humour and adventure.

Also by Rachelle Delaney: 

Alice Fleck’s Recipes for Disaster
By Rachelle Delaney
256 Pages | Ages 10-14 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735269279 | Puffin Canada
Alice Fleck’s father is a culinary historian, and for as long as she can remember, she’s been helping him recreate meals from the past – a hobby she prefers to keep secret from kids her age. But when her father’s new girlfriend enters them into a cooking competition at a Victorian festival, Alice finds herself and her hobby thrust into the spotlight. And that’s just the first of many surprises awaiting her. On arriving at the festival, Alice learns that she and her father are actually contestants on Culinary Combat, a new reality TV show hosted by Tom Truffleman, the most famous and fierce judge on TV! And to make matters worse, she begins to suspect that someone is at work behind the scenes, sabotaging the competition. It’s up to Alice, with the help of a few new friends, to find the saboteur before the entire competition is ruined, all the while tackling some of the hardest cooking challenges of her life . . . for the whole world to see.

Clara VoyantClara Voyant
By Rachelle Delaney
224 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Paperback
ISBN 9780143198543 | Puffin Canada
Clara can’t believe her no-nonsense grandmother has just up and moved to Florida, leaving Clara and her mother on their own for the first time. This means her mother can finally “follow her bliss,” which involves moving to a tiny apartment in Kensington Market, working at a herbal remedy shop and trying to develop her so-called mystical powers. Clara tries to make the best of a bad situation by joining the newspaper staff at her new middle school, where she can sharpen her investigative journalistic skills and tell the kind of hard-news stories her grandmother appreciated. But the editor relegates her to boring news stories and worse . . . the horoscopes. Worse yet, her horoscopes come true, and soon everyone at school is talking about Clara Voyant, the talented fortune-teller. Clara is horrified – horoscopes and clairvoyance aren’t real, she insists, just like her grandmother always told her. But when a mystery unfolds at school, she finds herself in a strange situation: having an opportunity to prove herself as an investigative journalist . . . with the help of her own mystical powers.

The Bonaventure Adventures
By Rachelle Delaney
288 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Paperback
ISBN 9780143198512 | Puffin Canada
Sebastian Konstantinov has grown up in a travelling circus, surrounded by talented performers. Seb, however, has no circus skills at all. He can’t even turn a somersault. But he does know this: the old-fashioned circus his father founded is out of date and running low on money. If someone doesn’t figure out how to save it, the Konstantinovs will be in real trouble. Seb thinks he may have the answer, and it involves attending the highly selective Bonaventure Circus School in Montreal, Canada. Seb secretly writes to the school’s Directrice (conveniently leaving out the part about his lack of circus skills), and to his surprise, he gets accepted right away. Now all he has to do is keep his lack of talent a secret. But it turns out that Seb is not the only one with secrets. The school is literally crumbling beneath the students’ feet, and the Directrice is counting on Seb’s “talent” to save it.

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