Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. This title is now available in stores and online!

New in Paperback!

Tremendous Things
By Susin Nielsen
272 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735271227 | Tundra Books
We all have moments that define us. For the comically clueless Wilbur, his moment happened on the first day of middle school, when someone shared his private letter with the entire student body. It revealed some of Wilbur’s innermost embarrassing thoughts that no one else should ever know. Now it’s the start of ninth grade and Wilbur hasn’t been able to escape that major humiliation. His good friend Alex stuck by him, but Alex doesn’t have as much time since he started dating Fabrizio. Luckily, Wil can confide in his best friend: his elderly neighbor Sal. Also, Wil’s in the school band, where he plays the triangle. They’re doing an exchange program with students from Paris, and Wilbur’s billet, Charlie, a tall, chic young woman who plays the ukulele and burps with abandon, captures his heart. Charlie likes him, but only as a friend. So Alex, Fabrizio, and Sal host a Queer Eye-style intervention to get Wil in shape and to build his confidence so he can impress Charlie when their band visits Paris, and just maybe replace humiliation with true romance in the City of Love.

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

Tundra Telegram: Books For That Time of the Month

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we sense the subjects flowing through readers’ minds and bleeding into the wider news cycle and suggest some books that won’t leave readers cursing. Just great books: period.

This weekend, the movie that so many readers have been waiting for since 1970 hits theaters across North America. Judy Blume’s classic coming-of-age novel, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, has been adapted into a film by Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen), and starring Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, and even one of the Safdie Brothers (?). The book has long been beloved (and just as often banned or challenged in schools and libraries) for its frank talk about menstruation and other hallmarks of female puberty.

To celebrate the film adaptation, we wanted to recommend more books that focus on the physical and hormonal changes young people experience in early adolescence. Many of these books highlight girl’s experiences, but we’ve included a few books about puberty for boys – and for nonbinary kids – as well. (Please note: the following book descriptions talk frankly about sex and body parts, so if that’s not your cup of tea, venture no further!)

PICTURE BOOKS

We’ll admit; it’s not the easiest thing to find picture books about puberty, but we’ve found a couple that fit the bill. The first of these is Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder. While not explicitly about puberty, the book is more a joyous celebration of all the different human bodies that exist in the world. The book highlights the many skin tones, body shapes, hair types, and more in a cheerful love-your-body picture book for preschoolers. While it may not be about puberty, it certainly celebrates the results of puberty!

Though it may now be a little dated (and not as inclusive as it should be), the 2011 picture book Who Has What?: All About Girls’ Bodies and Boys’ Bodies by Robie H. Harris and Nadine B. Westcott nonetheless talks about all the things boys and girls might find on their bodies. Structured through a story about two siblings – Nellie and Gus – on a family beach vacation, the book answers questions young kids may have about their bodies in a positive, reassuring way.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

There are many of middle-grade books that look deeply into puberty, given that its readers are often going through that change (or just about to) – and some of those books are nonfiction! Exhibit A: Puberty Is Gross but also Really Awesome by Gina Loveless and Lauri Johnston. This a puberty guide that doesn’t shy away from the smelly, hairy, sticky, and confusing parts of puberty – but also celebrates the many good things of adolescence, as well.

The Canadian duo of Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth are the go-to team for modern kids’ books about sexuality, and their new book You Know, Sex is no exception. In bright comic book colors, the book sets the world of sex education in social justice, covering not only the big changes of puberty —hormones, reproduction, and development — but also things like power dynamics, pleasure, and how to be a decent human being. Told through the story of four different middle-schoolers, there are chapters on body autonomy, disclosure, stigma, harassment, pornography, trauma, masturbation, consent, boundaries and safety, all of which makes space for trans, nonbinary, and intersex bodies.

And Growing Up Powerful, a Rebel Girls guide by Nona Willis Aronowitz and illustrated by Caribay Marquina, isn’t in stores just yet – it publishes on May 9, 2023 – but it helps guide girls through the many changes of puberty: from physical body changes to things like social anxiety and school-related stress. The book is chock-full of helpful advice, Q&As with experts and regular girls around the world, as well as fun quizzes hoping to give tween girls the reference they need to navigate this tricky time. Subjects ranging from breasts, hair growth, the changes in genitals, menstruation, and more – and the book is inclusive of genderfluid and transgender youngsters.

Though it’s an older book, The Downside of Being Up, sprung from the mind of Alan Lawrence Sitomer, remains one of the few middle-grade novels to look at the adolescent issue of inappropriately timed erections (if you couldn’t guess from the title). While it’s a mostly lighthearted and funny read about a topic rarely covered in literature, it nevertheless depicts how cruel kids can be during adolescence and vividly depicts the unceasing awkwardness of puberty.

Speaking of inappropriately timed erections, Susin Nielsen’s Tremendous Things has fewer than Sitomer’s novel (and we’re pretty sure the title doesn’t reference them), but nevertheless, the novel follows awkward ninth-grader Wilbur as he tries to escape a humiliating incident in middle school, when his time-capsule letter (which talk a lot about a body part he calls “Jeremiah”) is shared with the entire school. Tremendous Things covers that part of adolescence of moving through humiliation while staying true to yourself – in this case, during a band trip to Paris, France.

Instead of one story about getting your period, how about sixteen? Calling the Moon: 16 Period Stories from BIPOC Authors is an anthology edited by Aida Salazar and Yamile Saied Mendez that collects short fiction and poems around the topic of menstruation, exclusively from authors who are Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color. With stories from superstars like Ibi Zoboi, Erin Entrada Kelly, and Christina Soontornvat, the first times can come on the basketball court, during a lakeside field trip, or even at the start of one’s first fasting Ramadan.

An eighth grader starts a podcast to protest the unfair dress code at her middle school in Carrie Firestone‘s feminist revolution Dress Coded. You don’t need us to tell you school dress codes often originate in adult male discomfort with the body changes that puberty brings. And when Molly, Olivia, Liz, and friends realize this, they take to the (digital) airwaves to rebel. In fact, one of the catalysts for their rebellion is when one girl is reprimanded for showing off her shoulders after she uses her sweater to hide a period stain on her jeans!

Finally, 14 Hollow Road by Jenn Bishop mixes the changing friends, changing bodies, and changing emotions of those puberty years with an actual natural disaster: a tornado! Maddie’s world is already falling apart the evening of the sixth-grade dance when her crush Avery starts to slow-dance with someone else, and then the tornado strikes and destroys both her and Avery’s homes. This leaves the two now co-habiting in the same house of some kind neighbors, and Maddie must deal with the sticky whirlwind of puberty with her crush in the next bedroom over! Talk about awkward!

YOUNG ADULT

Puberty and the changes associated with it can be uncomfortable to discuss, but not with Mayim Bialik, star of Blossom, The Big Bang Theory, and Jeopardy! With Girling Up: How to Be Strong, Smart and Spectacular, Bialik uses her PhD in neuroscience to demonstrate to young readers how they grow from a girl to a woman biologically, psychologically, and sociologically – covering periods, sexuality, stress, hormones, and much more. And the follow-up, Boying Up: How To Be Brave, Bold, and Brilliant covers vocal changes, body hair, toxic masculinity. In our opinionation, these books are great basic guides to puberty.

In the same nonfiction handbook vein, but in comic book form is Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan. Covering everything from relationships and friendships to gender, sexuality, anatomy, body image, safe sex, sexting, jealousy, and rejection, Let’s Talk About It looks at all the changes young people undergo in adolescence to reassure readers when they feel their emotions and bodies are beginning to feel not normal – as a comic book!

Most readers know The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe as a twisty thriller featuring the daughter of a con woman who targets criminal men (and soon to be a film starring Millie Bobby Brown). When Nora is taking hostage during a bank robbery (alongside her ex-boyfriend and current girlfriend), she must use all her street smarts to survive. What gets covered less often is the fact that Iris (Nora’s girlfriend) has endometriosis, and is experiencing her (painful) period during the hostage crisis. Hot take: more bank heist stories should feature menstrual cups in the plot.

Though Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You the Sun is a coming-of-age story about Jude and her twin brother Noah – how close they are at 13 and how distant at 16 – the novel indicates how the hormonal and emotional changes of puberty propels that separation. (This is especially true as they start to develop crushes on the same boys!) It’s also one of the few books on our list that features the changes of puberty through the eyes of a queer character.

Menstruation is one of the most common natural occurrences a body can have, but is still stigmatized, which is where the provocative Blood Moon by Lucy Cuthew comes in. Frankie, a lover of physics and astronomy, gets her period during her first sexual experience with a quiet heartthrob. But when the incident becomes a gruesome online meme, Frankie has to fight to reclaim her reputation from the online shame and stand up against a culture that says periods are dirty.

2022 IODE Violet Downey Book Award for Children’s Literature

The National Chapter of Canada IODE Violet Downey Book Award is offered annually since 1985 for the best young children’s English language book containing at least 500 words of text. We would like to congratulate Susin Nielsen who won this year’s prize for Tremendous Things!

Tremendous Things
By Susin Nielsen
272 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735271203 | Penguin Teen Canada
We all have moments that define us. For the comically clueless Wilbur, his moment happened on the first day of middle school, when someone shared his private letter with the entire student body. It revealed some of Wilbur’s innermost embarrassing thoughts that no one else should ever know. Now it’s the start of ninth grade and Wilbur hasn’t been able to escape that major humiliation. His good friend Alex stuck by him, but Alex doesn’t have as much time since he started dating Fabrizio. Luckily, Wil can confide in his best friend: his elderly neighbor Sal. Also, Wil’s in the school band, where he plays the triangle. They’re doing an exchange program with students from Paris, and Wilbur’s billet, Charlie, a tall, chic young woman who plays the ukulele and burps with abandon, captures his heart. Charlie likes him, but only as a friend. So Alex, Fabrizio, and Sal host a Queer Eye-style intervention to get Wil in shape and to build his confidence so he can impress Charlie when their band visits Paris, and just maybe replace humiliation with true romance in the City of Love.

The 2022 Forest of Reading® Winners and Honour Books

The Forest of Reading® is Canada’s largest recreational reading program which helps celebrate Canadian books, publishers, authors, and illustrators. The winners and honour books were announced this week and we’d like to congratulate our authors and illustrators!

2022 Silver Birch Express Award® Fiction Winner

Mellybean and the Giant Monster
By Mike White
208 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593202548 | Razorbill
Melly loves to play games. All her feline friends want to do, though, is take a nap. So when she doesn’t leave them alone, the cats trick her into burying a shoe in the backyard. But the small prank turns into a big problem when Melly falls down the hole . . . and is magically transports her to another world! Melly lands smack-dab in the middle of a scuffle between a group of knights and a huge monster. But Melly soon befriends the grumpy giant, learning he isn’t as scary as he seems. He’s being hunted by a greedy king. One who has also been stealing from his people and locking them up in the dungeons. So although Melly is desperate to find a way back home to Mama and Papa (her human owners), she makes it her mission to help her new friend and the kingdom. But how could someone so tiny defeat such a powerful king? It may just take a game that only Melly can win.

2022 Silver Birch Award® Fiction Winner

Deadman’s Castle
By Iain Lawrence
256 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780823446551 | Margaret Ferguson Books
When Igor was five, his father witnessed a terrible crime – and ever since, his whole family has been hunted by a foreboding figure bent on revenge, known only as the Lizard Man. They’ve lived in so many places, with so many identities, that Igor can’t even remember his real name. But now he’s twelve years old, and he longs for a normal life. He wants to go to school. Make friends. Stop worrying about how long it will be before his father hears someone prowling around their new house and uproots everything yet again. He’s even starting to wonder–what if the Lizard Man only exists in his father’s frightened mind? Slowly, Igor starts bending the rules he’s lived by all his life – making friends for the first time, testing the boundaries of where he’s allowed to go in town. But soon, he begins noticing strange things around them – is it in his imagination? Or could the Lizard Man be real after all?

2022 Silver Birch Award® Fiction Honour Book

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.

2022 Red Maple Award™ Fiction Honour Book

Tremendous Things
By Susin Nielsen
272 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735271203 | Penguin Teen Canada
We all have moments that define us. For the comically clueless Wilbur, his moment happened on the first day of middle school, when someone shared his private letter with the entire student body. It revealed some of Wilbur’s innermost embarrassing thoughts that no one else should ever know. Now it’s the start of ninth grade and Wilbur hasn’t been able to escape that major humiliation. His good friend Alex stuck by him, but Alex doesn’t have as much time since he started dating Fabrizio. Luckily, Wil can confide in his best friend: his elderly neighbor Sal. Also, Wil’s in the school band, where he plays the triangle. They’re doing an exchange program with students from Paris, and Wilbur’s billet, Charlie, a tall, chic young woman who plays the ukulele and burps with abandon, captures his heart. Charlie likes him, but only as a friend. So Alex, Fabrizio, and Sal host a Queer Eye-style intervention to get Wil in shape and to build his confidence so he can impress Charlie when their band visits Paris, and just maybe replace humiliation with true romance in the City of Love.

2022 White Pine Award™ Honour Books

The Montague Twins: The Witch’s Hand
By Nathan Page
Illustrated by Drew Shannon
352 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780525646761 | Knopf BFYR
Pete and Alastair Montague are just a couple of mystery-solving twins, living an ordinary life. Or so they thought. After a strange storm erupts on a visit to the beach, they discover there is more to their detective skills than they had thought. Their guardian, David Faber, a once prominent professor, has been keeping secrets about their parents and what the boys are truly capable of. At the same time, three girls go missing after casting a mysterious spell, which sets in motion a chain of events that takes their small town down an unexpected path. With the help of David’s daughter, Charlie, they discover there are forces at work that they never could have imagined, which will impact their lives forever. An exciting new graphic novel from innovative creators Nathan Page and Drew Shannon that is at once timely and thrilling.


Thanks to CBC Books for hosting and presenting the virtual awards! If you missed the ceremonies, you can catch up with them online here.

The 2022 Forest of Reading® Nominees

The Forest of Reading® is Canada’s largest recreational reading program. This initiative of the Ontario Library Association offers seven reading programs to encourage a love of reading in people of all ages. The Forest helps celebrate Canadian books, publishers, authors, and illustrators. Here at Tundra Book Group and Friends, we’d like to congratulate our nominated authors and illustrators.

2022 Silver Birch Express Award® Fiction Nominees

Mellybean and the Giant Monster
By Mike White
208 Pages | Ages 8-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593202548 | Razorbill
Melly loves to play games. All her feline friends want to do, though, is take a nap. So when she doesn’t leave them alone, the cats trick her into burying a shoe in the backyard. But the small prank turns into a big problem when Melly falls down the hole . . . and is magically transports her to another world! Melly lands smack-dab in the middle of a scuffle between a group of knights and a huge monster. But Melly soon befriends the grumpy giant, learning he isn’t as scary as he seems. He’s being hunted by a greedy king. One who has also been stealing from his people and locking them up in the dungeons. So although Melly is desperate to find a way back home to Mama and Papa (her human owners), she makes it her mission to help her new friend and the kingdom. But how could someone so tiny defeat such a powerful king? It may just take a game that only Melly can win.

2022 Silver Birch Award® Fiction Nominees

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.

Deadman’s Castle
By Iain Lawrence
256 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780823446551 | Margaret Ferguson Books
When Igor was five, his father witnessed a terrible crime – and ever since, his whole family has been hunted by a foreboding figure bent on revenge, known only as the Lizard Man. They’ve lived in so many places, with so many identities, that Igor can’t even remember his real name. But now he’s twelve years old, and he longs for a normal life. He wants to go to school. Make friends. Stop worrying about how long it will be before his father hears someone prowling around their new house and uproots everything yet again. He’s even starting to wonder–what if the Lizard Man only exists in his father’s frightened mind? Slowly, Igor starts bending the rules he’s lived by all his life – making friends for the first time, testing the boundaries of where he’s allowed to go in town. But soon, he begins noticing strange things around them – is it in his imagination? Or could the Lizard Man be real after all?

Peter Lee’s Notes From the Field
By Angela Ahn
Illustrated by Julie Kwon
312 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735268241 | Tundra Books
Eleven year-old Peter Lee has one goal in life: to become a paleontologist. Okay, maybe two: to get his genius kid-sister, L.B., to leave him alone. But his summer falls apart when his real-life dinosaur expedition turns out to be a bust, and he watches his dreams go up in a cloud of asthma-inducing dust. Even worse, his grandmother, Hammy, is sick, and no one will talk to Peter or L.B. about it. Perhaps his days as a scientist aren’t quite behind him yet. Armed with notebooks and pens, Peter puts his observation and experimental skills to the test to see what he can do for Hammy. If only he can get his sister to be quiet for once – he needs time to sketch out a plan.

The Great Bear: The Misewa Saga #2
By David A. Robertson
288 Pages | Ages 10+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266131 | 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?

2022 Red Maple Award™ Fiction Nominees

Tremendous Things
By Susin Nielsen
272 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735271203 | Penguin Teen Canada
We all have moments that define us. For the comically clueless Wilbur, his moment happened on the first day of middle school, when someone shared his private letter with the entire student body. It revealed some of Wilbur’s innermost embarrassing thoughts that no one else should ever know. Now it’s the start of ninth grade and Wilbur hasn’t been able to escape that major humiliation. His good friend Alex stuck by him, but Alex doesn’t have as much time since he started dating Fabrizio. Luckily, Wil can confide in his best friend: his elderly neighbor Sal. Also, Wil’s in the school band, where he plays the triangle. They’re doing an exchange program with students from Paris, and Wilbur’s billet, Charlie, a tall, chic young woman who plays the ukulele and burps with abandon, captures his heart. Charlie likes him, but only as a friend. So Alex, Fabrizio, and Sal host a Queer Eye-style intervention to get Wil in shape and to build his confidence so he can impress Charlie when their band visits Paris, and just maybe replace humiliation with true romance in the City of Love.

2022 White Pine Award™ Nominees

Fight Like a Girl
By Sheena Kamal
272 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735265554 | Penguin Teen Canada
Love and violence. In some families they’re bound up together, dysfunctional and poisonous, passed from generation to generation like eye color or a quirk of smile. Trisha’s trying to break the chain, channeling her violent impulses into Muay Thai kickboxing, an unlikely sport for a slightly built girl of Trinidadian descent. Her father comes and goes as he pleases, his presence adding a layer of tension to the Toronto east-end townhouse that Trisha and her mom call home, every punch he lands on her mother carving itself indelibly into Trisha’s mind. Until the night he wanders out drunk in front of the car Trisha is driving, practicing on her learner’s permit, her mother in the passenger seat. Her father is killed, and her mother seems strangely at peace. Lighter, somehow. Trisha doesn’t know exactly what happened that night, but she’s afraid it’s going to happen again. Her mom has a new man in her life and the patterns, they are repeating.

The Montague Twins: The Witch’s Hand
By Nathan Page
Illustrated by Drew Shannon
352 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780525646761 | Knopf BFYR
Pete and Alastair Montague are just a couple of mystery-solving twins, living an ordinary life. Or so they thought. After a strange storm erupts on a visit to the beach, they discover there is more to their detective skills than they had thought. Their guardian, David Faber, a once prominent professor, has been keeping secrets about their parents and what the boys are truly capable of. At the same time, three girls go missing after casting a mysterious spell, which sets in motion a chain of events that takes their small town down an unexpected path. With the help of David’s daughter, Charlie, they discover there are forces at work that they never could have imagined, which will impact their lives forever. An exciting new graphic novel from innovative creators Nathan Page and Drew Shannon that is at once timely and thrilling.

The Wild
By Owen Laukkanen
368 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780593179741 | Underlined
Dawn isn’t a bad person – she’s just made some bad choices: wrong guy, wrong friends, wrong everything. But she wasn’t expecting her parents to pay a boatload of money to ship her off to OUT OF THE WILD, a wilderness boot camp with a bunch of other messed up kids to learn important “life lessons.” It’s true that Dawn and the other cubs will learn a lot – but it’s not what any of them expect. Because what happens in the woods isn’t what their parents planned. Sometimes plans go very wrong. And this is one of those times. Suddenly Dawn is more scared than she’s ever been in her life. And you will be too.