Short-listed for the 2008 Red Maple Award Keira, kidnapped from Ireland by Vikings, is a slave living in legendary Vinland. Two native bands, the Beothuck and the Thule, are also fighting over the land, thrusting the Norsemen into war. While the Vikings search for a new home, an accident at sea leaves Keira miraculously saved by a Beothuck warrior. Keira settles into the Beothuck way of life, learning their customs and coming to care for them ...
Thirteen-year-old Jane Covington doesn’t want to go to Sky Lake to visit her grandmother for the summer holidays – she wants to visit her father in the north. But when she returns to the cottage on the lake with the tall cliff, she is happy to be back in the golden country sunshine. However, Jane soon involves herself in a mystery when she finds a seventy-year-old cry for help in the form of a very old letter. She traces it to the story of a sus ...
In this Christmas classic, six-year-old Sarah is determined to make the very best snowman possible, without the help of her older brother. When she sees her snowman, Max, come to life in a Christmas Eve frolic, her family refuses to believe her story. Although Sarah thinks she has proof that it was not all a dream, she decides in the end to keep the knowlege of her snowman friend as her very own special secret. ...
Something is haunting the Laingford Pioneer Village Park, a mysterious presence that seems determined to get Alan and his two friends in trouble. They are spending the tail-end of the summer working as costumed helpers at the historical site, and when things get weird, the Alan Nearing detective agency starts investigating. Is the poltergeist just a prankster, or are there sinister forces at work? ...
Thirteen-year-old Norah Bingham and her mother plan to spend Christmas in the country with Caroline Stoppard, Norah’s great-aunt. When her mother is called away on business, Norah goes on her own to stay with the aunt, someone she has never even met. From the start, the woman makes it plain that she does not welcome Norahs company, nor that of Norah’s cousins, Andrew and Becca, who arrive two days later. The isolated Stoppard mansion is as disma ...
Thirteen-year-old Mark Rogers knew that his Grandpa Luigi had Alzheimer’s but he hadn’t counted on it turning his life upside-down. When his mother suggests that the two of them move in with Grandpa and help care for him, Mark reluctantly agrees because his grandfather has always been something of a hero to him. He doesn’t know, however, how strange Grandpa’s behaviour has become or that the kids in his new school have a nickname for him: Crazy ...
The Lawrence family (three children, one dog, one cat and two parents) has a crisis on its hands – too much laundry and no place to put it. Are the thirteen baskets they buy in the mysterious shop in the market the end of their problems? Or is it just the beginning of a grand and maybe dangerous adventure for Abigail, Jacob and Ernest? When the baskets become the gateway to another time, the children encounter mysteries which they must solve…bef ...
In The Golden Grasshopper, ten-year-old Lisa’s and her cousin Paul’s lives were changed forever when they met Gagar, from the planet Ylepithon. In Galena’s Gift, Gagar returns with his precocious young daughter, asking Lisa, now a twelve-year-old grade sixer, to babysit her and teach her about life on Earth. How will Lisa and Paul accomplish this without arousing the suspicion of their fellow earthlings? Using her remarkable abilities, Galena is ...
Jade is a curious nine-year-old who likes to help out at her family’s Chinese restaurant, The Fragrant Garden, after school. Though she is often allowed to help set tables or clean up, she longs to be part of the more exciting tasks such as helping in the kitchen or using the cash register. Her father thinks she is too young for these responsibilities – until a fire breaks out in the kitchen. Jade’s quick-thinking response wins her praise and he ...