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Jack and Mary in the Land of Thieves
Artist: Darka ErdeljiPublisher: Running the Goat$14.95When her husband Jack is duped by an underhanded sea captain, Mary disguises herself as a man, ships aboard a vessel, and sets out to save Jack and restore their fortunes. An award-winning tale of love, treachery, perseverance, and cherry cake.
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The Ferryland Visitor
Artist: Gerald L. SquiresPublisher: Running the Goat$21.95When she moves into an abandoned lighthouse-keeper’s house with her family, Esther is excited by her new surroundings. One day the former constable comes to welcome her family to their new home. But just who is this mysterious man?
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Far Enough Island
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$8.95Sarah’s family has had a streak of bad luck. Her father is a fisherman and the fish have disappeared. Her mother is worried all the time. It seems that nothing is going right for her family. Sarah’s best friend is her dog, Jeremiah, who came into her life in the night in the middle of a horrendous storm. Sarah is concerned about her unhappy mother and her father — who doesn’t always make the right decisions. Here is a story about a young girl’s belief in herself, a family’s struggle to survive and the desire to hold onto hope even when all hope seems to be gone.
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The Other Author Arthur
Artist: Jill QuinnPublisher: Pottersfield Press$9.95With Sheree Fitch’s wonderful and unusual sense of humour, and her alluring way with words, here’s another chapter book for young readers about a mix-up that could happen anywhere.
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Famous at Last
Artist: Jill QuinnPublisher: Pottersfield Press$8.95Another chapter book for the younger set.Lavishly illustrated, a story about being and getting famous. A journey of discovery for everyone.
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Cassandra’s Driftwood
Artist: Terry RoscoePublisher: Pottersfield Press$7.95Set in a beautiful Nova Scotia village, this is the story of a girl and the things she fears. A perfect beginning chapter book for children aged 8-10. Written by the Ann Connor Brimer Award winner, Budge Wilson.
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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.
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Kisses Kisses, Baby-O! Trilingual Edition
Artist: HildaRosePublisher: Nimbus Publishing$10.95Kisses Kisses Baby-O! is a story for newborns told from the point of view of a parent or caregiver, but with high interaction with baby’s world and tuned to events in baby’s day.
Beloved Canadian children’s author Sheree Fitch delivers fun, intelligent, participatory text that is a joy to read. Using rhythm and onomatopoeia, Sheree’s bubbly text begins with baby waking, and follows through eating, bathing, playing, and finally sleeping. Repetition, rhythm and active verbs create a lively story that can be read again and again.
Heart-warming illustrations by HildaRose combine realism and a whimsical, artistic style, while paying close attention to the needs of newborn readers, including such elements as: stimulating visuals, patterns, baby faces, cultural diversity and interaction with others.
This brand new trilingual edition features English, French, and Mi’kmaw text, and thick paper stock for durability.
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Uncle Farley’s False Teeth
Artist: Michael MartchenkoPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$10.95Every afternoon, Uncle Farley takes a three-hour nap. And every afternoon, he pops his false teeth out of his mouth and into a glass of water. One day, Morgan decides she’ll steal them to show her friends. But while they’re on the wharf oohing and ahhing, Morgan accidentally drops Uncle Farley’s teeth into the ocean! She thinks they’re gone forever until she sees a fabulous fish…with a fabulous set of teeth in its mouth.
Morgan and her friends pool their resources to get the teeth back—Ian’s dad is a fisherman, Zakia’s mom is a dentist, Markee’s dad is a police officer—but the fabulous fish just won’t spit them out. Will Morgan be able wrangle Uncle Farley’s false teeth back before he wakes up? Originally published in 1998, this new edition features updated text and illustrations from the artist behind Canadian classics like The Paperbag Princess and Thomas’s Snowsuit.
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Time for Bed
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$9.95The newest book in the popular Baby Steps series, Time for Bed is a fun and simple step-by-step bedtime story for babies and toddlers. From bathtime to storytime, this book guides families through a healthy nightly routine with simple, read-aloud text and joyful photos. Time for Bed is sure to help parents get baby’s bedtime routine off to a great start.
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Santa Never Brings Me A Banjo
Artist: Murray BainPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95The celebrated holiday song from multi-talented and multiple-award-winning Halifax-based roots musician David Myles is now available as a bright and fun children’s picture book. Young David writes frantic letters to Santa every year, requesting a banjo, but to no avail: “How does he miss / the one thing on my list / in the letter that I sent to him?” Follow the ups and downs of the holiday season with David, his furry friends, and his family, as he pines for his most-wished-for holiday gift.
Featuring illustrations from the animation studio that created the song’s well-loved music video, a special holiday message from David Myles, and original sheet music for those who wish to play along, Santa Never Brings Me A Banjo is sure to inspire many a holiday singalong.
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Music is for Everyone
Artist: Sydney SmithPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95Music 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!
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EveryBody’s Different on EveryBody Street
$22.95If ever you go travelling
On EveryBody Street
You’ll see EveryBody’s Different
Than EveryOne you meetSheree Fitch’s playful words lead you into this beautiful children’s book and invite you to celebrate our gifts, our weaknesses, our differences, and our sameness. Fitch displays her wit and mastery of words in quick, rollicking rhymes that are complemented by Emma Fitzgerald’s lively illustrations. EveryBody’s Different on EveryBody Street was originally produced in 2001 as a fundraiser to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Festival of Trees in support of the Nova Scotia Hospital and to raise awareness for mental illness and addiction.
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My First Book of Canadian Birds
Artist: Angela DoakPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Help your child identify birds like the Canada goose, American robin, and yellow warbler in their natural habitats with colourful and whimsical collage-style illustrations from breakout East Coast artist Angela Doak (Atlantic Animal ABC).
Simple, gentle text gives readers a peek into the habitats of Canadian birds and introduces child and parent to fun facts about everything from bird sounds to egg sizes! My First Book of Canadian Birds is the perfect way to introduce young readers to birds from across the country.
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The Land Beyond the Wall An Immigration Story
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Emma lives on the grey, cold, lonely side of a wall, where people speak in whispers and no flowers grow. On the other side, there is happiness and colour, but she can never go there. When Emma’s parents disappear, she is sent to live with her Aunt Lily, who, “just like the land withered from lack of sunshine, was broken by the life she led.” One day, Aunt Lily discovers Emma drawing and dashes her niece’s dream of becoming an artist. That is, until one day, when a strange boat captain, and an even stranger boat, arrive, and she leaves her world behind forever.
Following Emma’s arrival in a strange land (Halifax’s Pier 21), her placement in a group home, and the discovery of her voice through art, The Land Beyond the Wall is a beautifully rendered allegory that uses magic realism to confront the harsh realities of immigration, and the universal struggle of finding one’s voice, and one’s place in the world.
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The Snow Knows
Artist: Josée BisaillonPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95The snow knows
where the rabbit goes.
It knows the hushshush
of the owl’s wing.In this deceptively simple children’s picture book, a pair of awardwinning storytellers share the joys of winter. A lyrical prose poem, The Snow Knows introduces readers of all ages to animals both domestic (a tabby cat by the wood stove) and wild (a slinking lynx; a choir of coyotes), celebrating wilderness and outdoor play.
With whimsical hideandseek illustrations, readers will love following footprints and catching a glimpse of an owl’s wing or pheasant’s feathers, suggesting what appears on the following page. A beautiful book, destined to be a perennial winter favourite, and read aloud by a crackling fire.
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Cure for Wereduck Book 2 of the Wereduck Series
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95Kate is an odd duck-literally. When the full moon arrives, the rest of her family turns into wolves, but she is a happy wereduck. Relatively happy, that is. Her family has been uprooted from the wilds of New Brunswick to a placid farming community in Ontario, thanks to a fellow werewolf, Marcus, selling them out to sleazy tabloid journalist Dirk Bragg. When Kate discovers her great-greatgrandmother’s recipe “A Cure for Werewolf,” she can’t help but wonder—is it really possible? Could she one day resist the call of the moon? Could she be free from the constant threat of exposure? When Marcus’s abandoned werewolf son, John, books a desperate train journey back to New Brunswick at the full moon, the ancient recipe and its arcane ingredients are put to the test. Will Dirk Bragg finally corner Kate and John in their wereforms and expose them to the world, or will Cure for Werewolf keep them safe?
A rare sequel that is as full of action and revelations as its predecessor, A Cure for Wereduck is imaginative, exciting, and peppered with Hackmatack Award nominated David Atkinson’s delightful humour.
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Be a Pond Detective
$17.95Do dragonflies bite? What is the difference between a frog and a toad? Are leeches dangerous? Naturalist and artist Peggy Kochanoff answers these questions and more in this illustrated guide to solving the many nature mysteries of freshwater ponds.
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Baby Steps (3 Book Set)
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95“Baby Steps” is a series of three board books: Baby Play, Baby Look, and Baby Talk. These are perfect “starter books” for baby’s first year and are offered here in one package. Based on developmental research, the books encourage playful interaction between parent and child. The series features bright, bold images that will grab baby’s attention, bouncy text that parents will love to read aloud, and great information on how parents can connect with their baby.
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If I Were a Zombie
Artist: Eric OrchardPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95If I were a zombie
I’d package my drool
put it in a mason jars
sell it at school.In this hilarious picture book written by Hackmatack Award-nominated author Kate Inglis and brilliantly illustrated by Eric Orchard, two best friends imagine ordinary life as classic monsters and mythical creatures. What would Evan the Zombie do for the school talent show? Who would Poppy the Muddy Wood Fairy have over for dinner? From an alien with three hundred eyeballs to giants and goblin queens, this book of tickle trunk fun will delight kids of all ages.
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The Thundermaker
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Mi’kmaw artist Alan Syliboy’s The Thundermaker is based on Alan’s spectacular mixed-media exhibit of the same name. In the book, Big Thunder teaches his son, Little Thunder, about the important responsibility he has making thunder for his people. Little Thunder learns about his Mi’kmaw identity through his father’s teachings and his mother’s traditional stories. Syliboy’s spectacular, vibrant artwork brings the story of Little Thunder to vivid life.
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Abigail’s Wish
$22.95Spring. Beautiful blossoms. Chirping peepers. Trees swaying in their new greenery. Pussy willows glistening in furry white coats. Rain and warmth. New births and new beginnings…
Ten-year-old Abigail Price is excited about spring in her new home in Birchtown. Spring means lots of things, like flower buds and fresh leaves and her Aunt Dinah’s new baby. She’s hoping it also means she’ll get a new dress to wear for the celebration, but new clothing, like many things, is hard to come by.
The first children’s picture book set in historic Birchtown, Nova Scotia, Abigail’s Wish is a window into the life of a Black Loyalist family in the early years of the historic colony. Through the eyes of young Abigail, this stunning collaboration between poet and novelist Gloria Ann Wesley and awardwinning illustrator Richard Rudnicki will teach readers about Black Loyalist life, and the value of friendship and patience.
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Touch of Gold
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95When thirteen-year-old Jamie Francis’s parents divorced, she and her mother moved from Halifax to the small town of River Bend, Nova Scotia. Jamie doesn’t have any friends and isn’t sure how she’ll ever make any, when she comes across a neglected-looking horse in a field: a golden palomino she names Peach.
After befriending Peach’s widowed owner, Jamie learns that her newfound friend is being sold to notorious horse-trainer, Valerie Scott, at nearby Tamarack Stables. Jamie offers to pitch in, mucking out stalls and doing chores around the barn, and becomes enchanted with the world of competitive horseback riding. She even makes a few friends, including Val’s cute red-headed son, Nick, and Naomi, a popular girl from school. But she still isn’t sure if she fits in. If only she could ride Peach herself…
Will horseback-riding be the key to Jamie’s happiness, or will it gallop off into the sunset without her?
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Who’s a Scaredy Cat ? (revised edition) A Story of the Halifax Explosion
Artist: Marijke SimonsPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95This is the story of two families in Dartmouth at the time of the Halifax Explosion, December 1917. Flossie Wright is a prankster, taking pleasure in practical jokes. Isobel Morton, whose father is listed as missing in the war, dislikes Flossie’s jokes, and is ridiculed by the other girl. Although Isobel knows she is a not a “scaredycat,” Flossie’s jibes still hurt. Can Isobel prove her bravery and win Flossie’s friendship in the terrible days that follow the Halifax explosion? Who’s a Scaredy-Cat? is an enjoyable, historically detailed novel now back in print. Includes black and white illustrations by Marijke Simons.
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Pumpkin People
Artist: Ron LightburnPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95Now in a new smaller format, Pumpkin People tells the magical secrets of Kentville’s famous residents. Sandra Lightburn’s verse reveals the nighttime revelry of the half-funny, half-spooky figures; Ron Lightburn’s colourful illustrations bring their wild celebrations to life.
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Girl on the Run
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95When seventeen-year-old track and field star Jesse Collins’s dreams of a full scholarship are shattered after the sudden death of her dad, she leaves home to work as a summer camp counsellor to escape the nosy stares in small town…and her own secret guilt. After a mix-up at registration, she’s put in charge of a boys’ cabin, and the head counsellor, Kirk, predicts she won’t last the first two weeks.
In the midst of fending off four twelve-year-old boys who are hell-bent on mortifying her and a growing attraction to Kirk, Jesse finds the inspiration to run again from an unlikely source. After all, a good pair of legs can take a girl far, but it’s facing the truth that makes all the difference.
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Sinking Deeper Or, My Questionable(Possibly Heroic) Decision to Invent a Sea Monster
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95The tiny fishing community of Deeper Harbour is in serious trouble, and so is fourteen-year-old Roland MacTavish. His parents are separated, and his mother has just told him that she’s moving to Ottawa and taking him with her. She doesn’t think Deeper Harbour, with its closing school and dismal economic future, has anything to offer her and Roland anymore. But Roland disagrees. He loves his father, his weird friend Dulsie, and most of all, his wild, hilarious, unpredictable grandfather, Angus. So with the help of his friends, he does what any rational teenager would do: he invents a sea monster.
News of the monster spreads, until real live tourists start to turn off the new highway and visit Deeper Harbour, giving everyone hope that the town may actually be resuscitated. But before he can celebrate his successes, Roland faces a sadness that goes far beyond separated parents and new cities, and finally discovers that change, however frightening, is not the most painful thing in the world.
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Quai 21: Écoutez mon histoire
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$15.95Découvrez des moments parmi les plus marquants de l’histoire du Canada en apprenant à connaître les enfants et les familles débarqués au Quai 21 de Halifax. Venus de pays lointains tels l’Estonie, l’Italie et l’Ukraine (pour n’en nommer que quelques-uns), ces immigrants ont tous franchi les « ports de la liberté » pour faire du Canada leur nouvelle patrie.
Jamie, un « enfant invité » originaire d’Ecosse et Mariette, une petite orpheline juive, ont tous deux été envoyés au Canada à un jeune âge afin d’échapper à la même guerre. La famille de Heili, in jeune Estonienne, a fui le régime communiste russe en prenant la mer à bord du Walnut. La famille de Luigi est venue d’Italie chercher du travail au Canada après la guerre et la famille de Maryke est arrivée de Hollande à la rechercher de terres à cultiver.
Aujourd’hui connu sous le nom de Mussée canadien de l’immigration, le Quai 21 a accueilli plus d’un million de nouveaux Canadiens, de 1928 à 1971. Beaucoup d’entre eux craignaient ce que leur réservait leur pays d’adoption. Cependant, toutes ces familles, même si elles étaient de cultures et d’origines différentes, ont cru à promesse d’un vie meilleure et plus sûre que leur offrait le Canada. En débarquant au pays, les immigrants échappaient au passé, emportant dans leur cœur de précieux souvenirs de leur lieu d’origine. Le Quai 21 représentait le premier pas vers une nouvelle vie.
