The Bygone Days Folklore, Traditions & Toenails
Publisher: Acorn Press$22.95Reginald—better known as “Dutch”—Thompson is a multi-faceted storyteller with unforgettable voices—those of Roy from Murray Harbour North, Adelaide from Bunbury, Gus from Chepstow, and countless others—to tell the stories of the Bygone days in Prince Edward Island [sometimes NS, too]. Stories that, without Dutch’s talent and care, might be remembered only by family and close friends or lost altogether.
Remember when the train ran from tip to tip and along all the small branches, taking goods, people, and baseball teams to other parts of the Island? How about when ice cream and two pieces of cakes cost 10 cents at White’s Ice Cream Parlour on Kent Street? When lobster was not the gourmet’s delight it is now and the backs were used to fertilize the crops? That butchering the pig before a full moon will mean less fat on the meat? Or that it was bad luck to cut your nails on Sundays.
From CBC Radio to the pages of this book, you’ll hear Dutch’s voice encouraging these informative, illuminating, poignant, and hilarious stories from the minds and hearts of Maritimers born between 1895 and 1925, almost as if they were all still here and telling them to you.
At First, Lonely
Publisher: Acorn Press$17.95Best-known as a musician and a spoken-word performer, poet Tanya Davis has now taken to the page with At First, Lonely. In this collection, she reflects on life’s many passages: falling in love and out, the search for personal truth, the search for home. Davis’s style is one-of-a-kind: a blend of contemporary phrasing with profound personal expression. But her message is universal; over two million people have watched How to Be Alone, a film adaptation of her poem created by independent filmmaker Andrea Dorfman. Tanya Davis’ poetry challenges the intellect and touches deep places in the heart.
Acadian Christmas Traditions
Publisher: Acorn Press$19.95Based on written sources and interviews with Acadians throughout the Maritimes, Acadian Christmas Traditions offers a fascinating look at the evolution of Christmas. This very readable book shows how customs, both spiritual and secular, take hold in families, in villages, and in a culture as a whole. Georges Arsenault, the well-known historian and folklorist, examines all the aspects of the feast of Christmas, from midnight mass to holiday foods. As he chronicles the cultural changes that have taken place over the centuries, he proves that Acadian Christmas today is the result of a wonderful blending of old, new, and borrowed traditions.
True Meaning of Crumbfest
Artist: Dale McNevinPublisher: Acorn Press$11.95“Winner of the Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature; over 17,000 copies in print; animated Christmas special on TELETOON, with the spin-off series Eckhart The True Meaning of Crumbfest is the story of a curious little mouse named Ekhart, who sets off to discover the truth about that most abundant time of year called “”Crumbfest,”” when bounteous crumbs miraculously appear in the old Prince Edward Island farmhouse in which he lives. Much anthologized – particularly by CBC Radio’s “Fireside Al”- this a heartwarming tale of the magic that happens when the “Outside” and the “Inside” come together.”
Marilla Before Anne
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Marilla Cuthbert was fifty-two years old when the plucky red-headed Anne Shirley came to live with her and her brother, Matthew, at Green Gables farm on Prince Edward Island. A seemingly cold and dour spinster, her heart eventually softens to the loveable orphan girl. But for over a century readers have wondered, who was Marilla before Anne?
In Louise Michalos’s remarkable debut novel, readers are introduced to a spirited eighteen-year-old Marilla Cuthbert—a girl not unlike Anne herself—who is desperately in love, and whose whole life is spread before her. But when a moment of defiance brings life-changing consequences, a new Marilla begins to take shape, one who would learn to bear tragedy like a birthright, and loss as an inevitability, and who would hold steadfast to the secrets that could shatter the lives of everyone around her.
Weaving its way from Marilla’s early life in Avonlea to her coming-of-age in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and back, Marilla Before Anne is the story readers of Anne of Green Gables have longed for. Told with a refreshingly original East Coast voice, this exquisite, heartbreaking work of historical fiction takes readers on a journey back in time, to the Green Gables where Marilla Cuthbert lived, loved, and learned, long before Anne.
Chocolate River Rescue
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$14.95“Get off of there, Craig!” shouted Shawn.
“I can’t! I’m slipping!” wailed Craig.
Shawn leaped back onto the ice. He took a breath and jumped over the widening crack, grabbing his little brother by the coat as he flew through the air. Both boys fell heavily to the ice on the other side.
The boys stared in horror as the crack widened to reveal an eddy of churning, foaming brown water.Tony, Craig, and Shawn are trapped on an ice floe on the Petitcodiac River in the dead of winter, and the rapid current is pulling them toward the ocean. Twelve-year-old Petra arrives and the boys think they’re saved, but their dangerous journey is only just beginning.
The boys and Petra face peril at every twist and turn of the river in Chocolate River Rescue, an exhilarating adventure based on true events. They also learn that a river of chocolate is far better served warm, over ice cream, than cold on an ice floe!
arn that a river of chocolate is far better served warm, over ice cream, than cold on an ice floe!
Canada Wild
Artist: Alex MacAskillPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$15.95Canada Wild, Animals Found Nowhere Else on Earth is a full-colour illustrated guide to Canada’s endemic species for young readers, from the award-winning author of Snooze-O-Rama: The Strange Ways that Animals Sleep.
Maud Lewis 1,2,3
Artist: Maud LewisPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95Maud Lewis 1-2-3 is a wonderful first counting book and introduction to the joy-filled art of Nova Scotia’s most famous folk painter, Maud Lewis. Even the youngest babies will be drawn to the bright colours and bold forms in Lewis’s whimsical paintings. Babies and toddlers will have fun searching the vibrant images to count the kittens, oxen, birds, and flowers on each page.
Music is for Everyone
Artist: Sydney SmithPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Music is for Everyone is sure to get you excited about making music! Singer-songwriter Jill Barber takes her young readers through many different kinds of music—hip hop, jazz, classical, folk—and instruments in an energetic, rhyming tour. Sydney Smith’s gleeful illustrations capture all the joy that comes from making music—in all its forms!
Lasso the Wind Aurelia’s Verses and other Poems
Artist: Susan TookePublisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95George Elliot Clarke started writing poems for his daughter the day she was born.Tooke, a three-time winner of the Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration, aprroached Clarke (Regarding their collaboration).For this 24-page hardcover book, she has created bold and graphic collaged images, ranging from a grim image of imprisoned families to a whimsical vision of a dragon at a picnic to endearing pictures of Aurealia as a baby.This book is aimed at kids aged seven to fourteen and the birthday poems end at age nine because they “have a particular sequential feel” says Clarke, a Windsor born, prize winningpoet laureate of Toronto and teaches Canadian literature at the University of Toronto
Steam Lion PB
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95This is the story of a man born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who became one of the most powerful forces in international trade in the nineteenth century.
Samuel Cunard’s list of interests reads like a history of the Maritimes-shipbuilding in chatham, coal mining in Cape Breton, forestry in PEI, and warehouses in Halifax. But his business acumen and vision extended far beyond Eastern Canada: His innovative steamship Britannia was the first reliable, timely link between the Old World and the New, and the transatlantic transportation of mail, goods, and passengers was revolutionized. The continued success of the Cunard Line is a testament to Samuel Cunard’s brilliance as both a mariner and a businessman.
The first full-length biography of one of the most fascinating figures in mercantile history, Steam Lion is an important and engaging record of a man, his business, and his times.
Our Maud The Life, Art and Legacy of Maud Lewis
Publisher: Art Gallery of Nova Scotia$29.99Our Maud: The Life, Art and Legacy of Maud Lewis tells the story of Maud’s life, and traces her impact on Nova Scotia, her fame, the saving of her painted house, and the Nova Scotia folk art renaissance sparked by her example. The book looks at how Maud Lewis has become a role model for children with juvenile arthritis, her posthumous role in the creation of Atlantic Canada’s largest art museum, and how her story has become known around the world, culminating in the hit feature film Maudie starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke.
Angle
Publisher: Paul Power$22.95It was supposed to be a simple recovery operation. All Harder Security had to do was liberate a ransomed plane and fly it from Angola to anywhere else. Maybe the mistake was his insistence on being part of the operation. If he wasn’t there, Phil wouldn’t have known there was a crate of uncut diamonds on the plane. He wouldn?t be in a position to decide to crash-land the plane at their base in Ethiopia to keep from declaring them. And the government wouldn’t be forced to ask them to pack up their stuff and go. The crate of diamonds could have been the infusion he needed to grow the company. Now it seems to be the thing that will take them all down. But not without a fight.
The Craft of Sail
Publisher: WoodenBoat Books$17.95We are pleased to bring this book back into print, as it focuses on why and how sailing “works.” It’s an excellent guide to understanding boats and how the wind and water affect them. Author/illustrator Jan is an “explainer”… and this book does just that.
You’ll see drawings of different types of boats and understand what makes a schooner a schooner, a catboat a catboat, a yawl a yawl… and more. He uses ants and peanuts to explain vectors. How can you miss-out on ants and peanuts? And yes, the book gives you the basics of sail maneuvers.
Heartland Stars
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The Bear of Byzantium
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The Good Egg
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Feral: Shadow Bred: Book 3
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The Girlfriend Arrangement
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