What is feminism? Why does it still matter? What exactly does intersectionality mean? In order to answer these (and many other) questions, I Am a Feminist first examines the history of feminism and then addresses the issues girls and women continue to face today. The book also looks at the ways in which people, especially young people, are working together to create a world where gender equality is a reality, not a dream. The author shares stories about the courageous individuals who have made a difference in the lives of women and girls worldwide. From suffragists to the #MeToo movement, I Am a Feminist encourages readers to stand up and speak out for equality and justice.
After accepting a ride home, sixteen-year-old Emma Kennedy is raped by a boy from school. But handsome, popular Ross Schroeder tells everyone the sex was consensual, and Emma is immediately branded as a slut. Even Emma's best friend, Jen, doesn't believe Emma's version of events. In fact, she is angry with Emma because she feels betrayed. After all, she liked Ross first. But when Ross starts showing interest in Jen, Emma knows she will have to find a way to get Jen to believe that she really is in grave danger. Before it's too late.
Sixteen-year-old Robin Ellis (aka Robin CookieJars) wants to be the best jammer on her roller-derby team and maybe one day play for the Creek City Roller Derby All-Stars like her idol, Annie Mossity. But star junior player April Reid (aka April Powers) always seems to be one lap ahead. Until recently, that is. Robin has noticed that April has been losing a lot of weight, and her game is suffering. This may be Robin's chance to finally grab the MVP title. But her success may come at a very heavy cost.
Lily is discovered by a big-name director when she’s auditioning for a role in a toothpaste commercial. He wants her for his new movie, which is great except for the fact that it’s shooting in Los Angeles and Lily lives in Vancouver. With the help of her Chinese grandmother, she convinces her parents to let her go to LA with her agent as a chaperone. But when she gets there, she finds out that if she wants to be more than the flavor of the week, she’s going to have to pay a price that may be way too high.
After a big fight with his wife, Rupert's grandfather, known to everyone as Gump, packs up and moves into Gentle Breezes Nudist Community for Active Seniors. Thirteen-year-old Rupert is sent in to talk some sense into him. While he's there, Rupert accidentally lets Gump's dog, Wayne, escape. Gump is frantic. Wayne is blind and tends to panic. Rupert and his grandfather set out to search the woods, and soon they are lost too. Aside from an apron, Gump is butt naked, and without his phone, Rupert feels naked too. The only way they are going to get out of this mess is by working together.
Rennie is in Uruguay when his cousins discover a secret cache at their dead grandfather’s cottage - thousands of dollars in foreign currencies, a mystifying notebook, multiple passports (some obviously fake), a gun, a disguise, and a photo of some Nazis. Rennie’s mission: to find out whether there was more to the old man than anyone knew. Was he a spy? If he was, what did he do? And for whom? Did he help a Nazi war criminal escape justice? Rennie’s quest leads him to Argentina and then to Detroit, where he finds more questions than answers and more than one gun pointed—and fired—in his direction. From the Dead is the sequel to both Slide, part of The Seven Prequels and Close to the Heel, part of Seven (The Series).
When Nat, her best friend Jess and singing-star wannabe Harper sing together, their harmonies bring down the house. For Nat, the experience sparks a driving new desire to perform. But when the girls form a trio and enter a contest for a chance to play at the Tall Grass Music Festival, Nat finds that harmony - musical and otherwise - is hard to maintain. Her bandmates almost never agree, her new boyfriend starts behaving more like a non-boyfriend, and the trio’s famous-musician mentor doesn’t even like the way Nat breathes. Every day, Nat’s dream of performing at Tall Grass seems farther away, and she questions whether she has what it takes to get there.
Alex wants to enter the Silver Stage magic competition, but he needs a sponsor. Jack, a veteran card wizard, is willing to take on the role, but only if Alex agrees to team up with Zoe, another young magician - and Alex’s rival. Working with Jack and sharing the spotlight with Zoe, Alex comes to see that there are other ways to be a magician besides competing, and that magic is about entertaining people, not fooling them.
Seventeen-year-old Jemma's older brother took her in when she needed to get away from her abusive ex-boyfriend, Razor. All Jemma wants now is to be a good mom to her baby daughter, Violet. But one night she needs to go out, just for a few minutes, to get diapers and ice cream. On her way back, she witnesses the drive-by shooting of a kid, Kwame, who lives in the same building. The driver is Razor. Jemma is terrified. If she tells anyone what she saw, they'll know she left her baby alone and she might lose custody. But if she doesn't, Kwame's killer will go free. Razor convinces Jemma to make a deal to save her life, but Jemma isn't sure she can live with the consequences.
In the developed world, if you want a drink of water, you just turn on a tap or open a bottle. But for millions of families worldwide, finding clean water is a daily challenge, and kids are often the ones responsible for carrying water to their homes. Look at why the world’s water resources are at risk and how communities around the world are finding innovative ways to quench their thirst and water their crops.
Josh is a gamer. After his parents' divorce and his move from Chicago to a small town where he doesn't know anybody, he copes by staying up way too late playing Killswitch online. Then he discovers a "mod" version of the game that is an exact reproduction of his new town. Strange things start to happen in the game, and they are somehow connected with events in the real world.
Fifteen-year-old Maxwell Stone has been surviving and thriving in the tough part of East Vancouver by being smart and fast. But when a drug deal goes wrong, Max suddenly finds himself on the run from both the bad guys and the cops. Desperate to escape, Max impulsively decides to hop on a moving freight train. His first attempt to climb aboard fails, but at the last second a hand reaches down and pulls him in. Joseph has been riding the rails for years, and his tales inspire Max to take a journey to the last place he ever expected to go.
Sixteen-year-old Dee and her seven-year-old brother, Eddie, have been on their own for six weeks. Their father has seemingly vanished into the baking Arizona desert. Their money is drying up and the rent is coming due, but it's a visit from a social worker and the prospect of being separated from Eddie that scares Dee enough to flee. She dupes her brother into packing up and embarking on the long road trip to Canada, their birthplace and former home. Lacking a driver's license and facing a looming interrogation at the border, Dee rations their money and food as they burn down the interstate in their ancient, decrepit car.
Two years ago, sixteen-year-old Sydney Hart was kicked out of the prestigious Burke Academy when her mother could no longer afford the tuition. She lost a promising future in the arts, as well as her best friend, who didn't want to be seen with an art-academy reject. But now, without Burke's rigid structure, Sydney has found her true passion in performance painting and is busking on Halifax's boardwalk to earn enough money to go to art camp. After the police shut her down, Sydney learns her old school is hosting a "brush-off" speed-painting contest with a cash prize. Entering would mean facing her painful past, not to mention her former friend, who's also competing.
Life hasn't been easy for fifteen-year-old Lizzie Jackson since her father's sudden death four years ago. Shortly after he died, her mother, Lydia, began dating and drinking herself into oblivion, leaving Lizzie to parent her younger brother, Charlie. Things go from bad to worse when Lydia marries Dean. To protect Charlie from Dean's rage, Lizzie makes herself the target of his abuse. But when Dean sexually assaults Lizzie, things change forever. Can she continue to ensure her brother's safety after she flees their home?
When a football player from Riley Donovan's school falls to his death from the top of a recreation center, a hunch makes her wonder if he was pushed. But who would do such a thing, and why? Riley’s detective aunt tells Riley to leave it alone, but that's not in Riley’s nature. When her friend Charlie is accused of the murder, Riley is determined to clear his name, even if it means confronting vicious junkyard dogs, forming an alliance with an old enemy, and putting her own life in danger.
The other night, Trace Brewster, Max’s best friend and star hockey player for the Hawks, scored on his own net and put the team’s chances of qualifying for an upcoming tournament in jeopardy. Since then Trace has gone silent and is shutting everyone out. But Max thinks there’s more going on with his friend than what happened on the ice. For one thing, there are bruises on Trace's face that he refuses to explain. Can Max find a way to get Trace to open up and help him in time for the big game?
A pampered child used to having her own way, Anneke Van Raalte lives outside Amsterdam, where her father is a cartoonist for an Amsterdam newspaper. Though Anneke's family is Jewish, her religion means little to her. Anneke's life changes in 1942 when the Nazis invade Holland and she and her family are deported to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Not only are conditions in the camp appalling, but the camp is the site of an elaborate hoax: the Nazis are determined to convince the world that Theresienstadt is an idyllic place, and that European Jews are thriving under the Nazi regime. Because he is an artist, Anneke's father is compelled to help in the propaganda campaign, and Anneke finds herself torn between her loyalty to her family and her sense of what is right. What World is Left was inspired by the experiences of the author's mother, who was imprisoned in Theresienstadt during World War II.
The climate crisis is the issue of our time. Scientists have warned for over 100 years that burning fossil fuels and destroying nature will warm the earth's atmosphere and affect the climate in adverse ways: more severe and intense storms, prolonged heat waves, drought, flooding, wildfires, rising sea levels and ocean acidification. Urgent Message from a Hot Planet: Navigating the Climate Crisis outlines the science behind global heating and its root causes, provides ways to take action and honors the efforts of the millions of youth and adult allies from around the world working tirelessly to make a difference. Their powerful message: do something now!
The odds have never been higher for Essie now that her twin sister's life is on the line. Ester "Essie" Tomasi is a genius. She got an early entrance scholarship to university and at eighteen years old is already in her second year of pre-med. But Essie also struggles with a dark secret: she has a serious gambling problem. She is falling deeper and deeper into debt, struggling to keep up with her heavy course load and unable to make even the simplest of decisions without flipping a coin.But when Essie makes a bet that she can’t cover, it’s her identical twin sister, Aggie, who comes to the rescue, making a dangerous deal with the gangsters holding Essie’s latest bet. Essie must find her way out of this mess or risk losing everything she’s ever cared about.
Like the original version, this new edition of Pride: The Celebration and the Struggle celebrates the LGBTQ+ community's diversity and the incredible victories of the past 50 years—but it also has a larger focus on activism, the need to keep fighting for equality and freedom around the world and the important role that young people are playing. The new edition has been updated and expanded to include many new Proud Moments and Queer Facts as well as a profile of LGBTQ+ refugees from Indonesia, a story about a Pride celebration in a refugee camp in Kenya and profiles of young activists, including teens from a Gender and Sexuality Alliance organizing Pride in Inuvik and a trans girl from Vancouver fighting for inclusion and support in schools. There is also a section on being an ally, a profile of a family with two gay dads (one of them trans) and much, much more!
Jennifer McCaffrey has been working hard on her art for years and is thrilled when she is accepted to a prestigious art school. The school is everything she always thought it would be, mostly. There is one group of kids who seem to resent her and say she only got in because of her skin color. Jen, who loves to create new pieces of artwork that incorporate her Indigenous heritage, finds herself a target when the group tells her to stop being “so Indian”. The night before the big art show at school, Jen’s beading art project is defaced. Jen has to find a way not to let the haters win.
Picking Up the Pieces tells the story of the making of the Witness Blanket, a living work of art conceived and created by Indigenous artist Carey Newman. It includes hundreds of items collected from residential schools across Canada, everything from bricks, photos and letters to hockey skates, dolls and braids. Every object tells a story. Carey takes the reader on a journey from the initial idea behind the Witness Blanket to the challenges in making it work to its completion. The story is told through the objects and the Survivors who donated them to the project. At every step in this important journey for children and adults alike, Carey is a guide, sharing his process and motivation behind the art. It’s a personal project. Carey’s father is a residential school Survivor. Like the Blanket itself, Picking Up the Pieces calls on readers of all ages to bear witness to the residential school experience, a tragic piece of Canada’s legacy.
With many jurisdictions considering whether or not to implement new assisted-death legislation, Choosing to Live, Choosing to Die is a timely look at the subject for teen readers who may not yet have had much experience with death and dying. Readers are introduced to the topic of assisted dying through the author's own story. The issue continues to be hotly debated in families, communities and countries around the world, and there are no easy answers. Choosing to Live, Choosing to Die looks at the issue from multiple perspectives and encourages readers to listen with an open mind and a kind heart and reach their own conclusions.
Fifteen-year-old Charlie stays home from school so he can help his older brother, Tom, who is in a hip-to-toe cast after breaking his leg in a football game. When not waiting on his brother hand and foot, Charlie investigates a series of break-ins that have the whole neighborhood on edge. Things really hit home when Charlie nearly catches the thief and then foils an attempted break-in at his own house. As he continues to piece together the clues, Charlie realizes that the easiest way for the culprit to avoid suspicion is to hide in plain sight.
