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Killings at Little Rose
Publisher: Acorn Press$22.95In a coastal village where what’s been buried doesn’t stay buried, what’s lost at sea doesn’t stay lost.
Sleuth Anne Brown finds herself in an eastern PEI fishing community, working undercover for the new owner of a seafood-processing plant plagued by vandalism, loss, and ill luck. The community around Little Rose Harbour has been shocked by the discovery of old, secret remains of a baby, and all their entangled secrets are coming to the surface.
On the cusp of a clandestine love affair and herself keeping secrets, Anne must sort through gossip, rumours, and lies—and dodge the menace of violence—to uncover the canker at the core of Little Rose.
But will she learn in time to prevent the mystery from becoming motive for murder?
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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.
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A Future for the Fishery
$22.95Canadian fisheries industries face rapid change. With key stocks stable or rebuilding and most commercial fisheries managed sustainably, a younger workforce must be attracted and retained for this industry to thrive. Industry professional and author Rick Williams examines fisheries in rural-coastal Canada and explores strategies to develop new labour supply. This timely read for decision-makers features illustrative charts, data tables and crucial perspective from fish harvesters themselves.
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Come Back to Earth, Esther!
Artist: Josée BisaillonPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Prepare for liftoff! Award-winning illustrator Josée Bisaillon makes her authorial debut with the story of fun-loving, space-obsessed Esther, who dreams of building a spaceship to explore the galaxy. This STEM-friendly book, featuring an exceptional protagonist and a loving, diverse family, shows young readers there is no outer limit to the imagination.
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Cod Collapse The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95It’s 1992 in Newfoundland and Labrador and the cod moratorium has put some thirty thousand fishers out of work. Journalist Jenn Thornhill Verma blends memoir and research in this gripping account of the enduring legacy of the largest mass layoff in Canadian history. Tracing the early history of the fishery to the present, Verma considers what lies ahead and what was lost along the way.
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I’m Finding My Talk
Artist: Pauline YoungPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95I’m Finding My Talk reflects on the destructive effects on colonialism, rediscovering community and finding culture. Former Halifax Poet Laureate and second-generation residential school survivor Rebecca Thomas writes honestly and powerfully in this companion piece to Rita Joe’s I Lost My Talk. With vibrant illustrations from Mi’kmaw artist Pauline Young.
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I Lost My Talk
Artist: Pauline YoungPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Rita Joe’s essential poetry is presented anew in this children’s picture book with illustrations from Pauline Young. Joe, known as the Poet Laureate of the Mi’kmaw, tells her childhood story of losing her language at Shubenacadie’s residential school. Mi’kmaw culture and language are celebrated in this collection, which joins current conversations about Canada’s shameful history, truth and reconciliation.
Published simultaneously with the companion book I’m Finding My Talk by Rebecca Thomas.
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Crocuses Hatch from Snow
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95In North End Halifax, past and present interweave through the relationships of the characters in Crocuses Hatch from Snow. A soaring exploration of diverse communities across generations, author Jaime Burnet’s debut novel introduces an exciting lyrical voice in queer literary fiction.
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Turning Points 15 Pivotal Moments in Nova Scotia’s History
Publisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$22.95Paul Bennett tells the history of Nova Scotia through 15 key turning points. From Nova Scotia’s problems with Confederation to wartime Halifax, the Springhill Mining Disaster, Viola Desmond and Ray Ivany’s ‘Now or Never’ report, Bennett recounts these decisive moments that have shaped the province’s destiny.
With rarely seen photography, Bennett shows how these turning points helped define the Nova Scotia we live in today. Each episode helped forge the province’s identity, change its trajectory, and shape its collective sense of purpose.
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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.
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Deep Water Pearls A Collection of Women’s Memoir
Editor: Kathleen HamiltonPublisher: Acorn Press$22.95Thirteen writers dive into the deep emotional waters of their lives to write their most personal, honest stories. In doing so they transform the grit of female experience into pearls of truth and beauty.
Guided by memoir coach and editor Kathleen Hamilton, the writers reveal the most intimate turning points in their lives, memories deeply charged with meaning, moments after which their lives were never the same.
The stories are diverse: we meet a PEI farm girl exploring her early intuitive knowings, a tattooed millennial struggling with PTSD, a mature academic rebounding from the betrayal of her marriage, and a bride whose wedding day is a triumph over a treacherous past.
In The Strength it Took to Ditch You, a woman reveals her years in an abusive same-sex relationship. High School Reunion is set in Unit 9, a psych ward in Charlottetown. In The Waiting Place, a young mother from western PEI explores the meaning of home.
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A Forest for Calum
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95The story is Roddie’s. The stage is his guardian and grandfather Calum’s. A quiet and stoic man, Calum Gillies and his aging friends illuminate for us the changing world around them: the loss of the coal mines, the labour strife and lean years endured, the religious parochialism that divides families and communities and, most important, a disappearing language. The setting is Cape Breton; the themes of cultural and rural change and decline are universal.
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Historic PEI : Vintage Postcards of Prince Edward Island
Publisher: Acorn Press$22.95Throughout Canada’s early days, Prince Edward Island was a thriving province with a strong tourist industry. Historic Prince Edward Island portrays the quaint lifestyle and the busy industry that Canada’s smallest province had to offer. With unique messages to friends and family, these early postcards paint a picture of history not available in history books.
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Wolverine and Little Thunder
Artist: Alan SyliboyPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95From the bestselling creator of The Thundermaker comes another adventure featuring Little Thunder and Wolverine—a trickster, who is strong and fierce and loyal. The two are best of friends, even though Wolverine can sometimes get them into trouble. Their favourite pastime is eel fishing, whether it’s cutting through winter ice with a stone axe or catching eels in traditional stone weirs in the summer. But that all changes one night, when they encounter the giant river eel—the eel that is too big to catch. The eel that hunts people!
At once a universal story of friendship and problem-solving, Wolverine and Little Thunder is a contemporary invocation of traditional Mi’kmaw knowledge, reinforcing the importance of the relationship between the Mi’kmaq and eel, a dependable year-round food source traditionally offered to Glooscap, the Creator, for a successful hunt.
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If I Were the Moon Twentieth – anniversary edition
Artist: Leslie WattsPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95If I were the moon
I’d shine down my light
Right into your bedroom
To warm up the night.A timeless bedtime book that “beautifully captures that perfect moment when a child is tucked up in bed, spellbound by the voice of an older sibling or an adult sharing a special book” (Books in Canada).
With lyrical text, lit up by soft and gentle illustrations, If I Were the Moon makes its triumphant return to print in a beautiful hardcover just in time for its twentieth anniversary.
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Found Drowned
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Based on a true unsolved crime from 1877, Laurie Glenn Norris’s debut novel tells the story of two small towns linked by the disappearance of a teenage girl. Mary Harney is a dreamy teenager in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, whose ambitions are stifled by her tyrannical grandmother and alcoholic father. When Mary’s mother becomes ill, an already fragile domestic situation quickly begins to unravel until the September evening when the girl goes missing.
Across the water on Prince Edward Island we meet Gilbert Bell, whose son finds a body washed up on the beach below the family farm. As the community is visited first by the local coroner and then by investigators, Glenn Norris paints a fascinating and darkly comic picture of judicial and forensic procedures of the time. At once tightly plotted and pensive, the novel travels back to the circumstances that led to Mary’s disappearance and then back further to the circumstances of her parents’ marriage, all the while building toward a raucous courtroom finale.
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My Mommy, My Mama, My Brother, and Me These Are the Things We Found By the Sea
Artist: Mathilde Cinq-MarsPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95And these are the things we find by the sea
My mommy, my mama, my brother, and me.With this gentle refrain, the debut picture book from celebrated author and playwright Natalie Meisner (Double Pregnant) reflects on her own two-mom, two-son family’s early days growing up in Lockeport, Nova Scotia.
Living by the sea offers myriad charms for the two young brothers in this poetic ode to beachcombing. When the fog disappears, the path to the beach beckons, with all the treasures it leaves behind: lobster traps, buoys, fused glass, urchins, a note in a bottle. But best of all is all the neighbours they meet along the way. An unforgettable instant classic for families of all shapes and sizes. Featuring glorious watercolours by Mathilde Cinq-Mars, which capture the warmth and magic of time spent with family by the sea.
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A Giant Man from a Tiny Town A Story of Angus MacAskill
Artist: Christopher HoytPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95When Angus MacAskill was still just a boy, he began to grow…and grow…and…grow! Known far and wide as the Cape Breton Giant, Angus was loved by his neighbours as much for his beautiful singing voice as for his renowned strength. But as much as Angus loved his little town of St. Ann’s, Cape Breton, he decided to leave and seek fortune and adventure.
With heartfelt text from critically acclaimed author Tom Ryan and meticulously researched and joyful illustrations from Christopher Hoyt (A is for Adventure), A Giant Man from a Tiny Town tells the story of a remarkable man who travelled the world performing for crowds, but never stopped longing to return to the place he loved the best: his Cape Breton home.
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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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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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Berth
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Uprooted, longing for love and to feel somehow situated, Willa Jackson flees life as a military wife when she meets Hugh, the lighthouse keeper on McNabs Island in Halifax Harbour. The object of her fantasies, a musician, he’s the last of a dying breed in this story set during the final days of lightkeeping before automation. Romanced by this magical location—so close to the city and its lively communities, yet so remote—she involves her ten-year-old son, Alex, in her escape. Things sour when isolation and Hugh, harbourer of secrets deadlier than she can imagine, turn as brutal as the forces of nature—and of self-deception—that threaten to engulf all three. A tender yet heartbreaking story of one woman’s reckoning.
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A Circle on the Surface
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95It’s 1943. Enman and Una Greene are newly married. Each is haunted by their respective pasts, and each harbours secrets. They have hopes of a happy life together—though they have little idea how to create such a life.
Enman brings Una to his childhood home in rural Barrein, Nova Scotia, where he hopes they will stay. Una is restless and feeling increasingly trapped, and longs for the city life she once had. Una meets a mysterious man, and then a body washes up on a beach. There are rumours of German sailors roaming the dunes. When the Greenes receive the news they have been waiting for, and that Una is convinced will save her and her marriage, she begins to unravel in ways neither is prepared for.
From critically acclaimed and bestselling author Carol Bruneau comes an achingly honest portrait of a marriage in a time of war—and an examination of how it is that we come to know ourselves.
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In the Wake
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Set on the shores of modern-day Nova Scotia, two women are stagnated by grief and their own flawed versions of the past. Can the truth set them free?
When Emily and her family move back to Nova Scotia from Calgary, it is a return to the coastal landscape that already haunts her—and the waters where her father died. She meets her neighbour Linda, a gruff but loving widow and Linda’s grown son, Tom, who struggles to stay on an even keel. As they settle in, Emily and her husband, Daniel, learn more about the short but turbulent history of the house they’ve just bought. With Daniel away for work, Emily becomes caught up in the lives of her neighbours, relying on Linda’s friendship and growing closer to Tom, despite his unsettling knack for appearing when she least expects him. As the tension in each family builds, both Emily and Linda must confront long-unanswered questions.
With its nuanced depictions of marriage, parenting, grief and mental illness, and humorous, understated dialogue, Davison’s debut is at once suspenseful and subtle.
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A Halifax Time-Travelling Tune
Artist: Marijke SimonsPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Grandma closed the piano lid. “I love singing those old tunes with you.
I wish you could have seen the Halifax I once knew.”This dreamy and whimsical story follows a young child who travels back in time to 1950s Halifax with a whimsical tune. Follow the pair through Point Pleasant Park, the Public Gardens, Spring Garden Road, Citadel Hill, and other historic Halifax landmarks, showing off all the sights and sounds of the city. With lively text from Governor General’s Literary Award finalist Jan Coates and vivid illustrations of mid-century Halifax by Marijke Simons, A Halifax Time-Travelling Tune is bound to conjure more than a few bedtime singalongs.
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Somewhere North of Where I Was
Publisher: Acorn Press$22.95Somewhere North of Where I Was is the heartrending story of a young girl whose childhood innocence was stolen. Retold with the reflective voice of a woman who has survived and transcended the trauma of childhood poverty, neglect, and abuse, Spence’s wisdom and poignant storytelling abilities suck you into the world of a little girl whose tragic circumstances are tempered with fond family memories. One may be left to wonder how it is a child can survive and move beyond such experiences.
With brazen honesty and a driving spirit of hope, perseverance and sometimes sheer stubborn will, Spence brings the reader into her world as she lived it, moving us along, pulling us apart, compelling us to continue reading. In the years of being shuffled from one alcoholic parent to another and finally into foster care, Spence becomes a little girl we cry for, love and and cheer for. Spence is everybody’s child.
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Summer in the Land of Anne
Artist: CarolynPublisher: Acorn Press$22.95Six-year-old Elspeth’s mother has a surprise in store for her daughters. She’s taking Elspeth and her eleven-year-old sister on a surprise vacation. When she starts reading Anne of Green Gables aloud to the girls, they catch on–they’re going to Prince Edward Island!
Elspeth proudly dons her Anne hat on the ferry, ready to explore the Land of Anne. Although she knows she’s really visiting Lucy Maud Montgomery?s house, she feels like she recognizes everything from the books and is thoroughly enchanted. At first devastated that Montgomery’s first house was torn down by Montgomery’s uncle, Elspeth sees signs of life–chipmunks living in the old cellar.
Elspeth’s imagination is ignited. No longer satisfied with pretending to be Anne, Elspeth is instead inspired to become more like Montgomery: famous writer Elspeth of Cavendish, writing about the world she loves.
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Electric City Second Edition The Stehelins of New France
$22.95This new edition tells the true story of the Stehelins, a prestigious family from Normandy, France, who came to Nova Scotia in the early twentieth century to carve out a new life in the wilderness. The family’s achievements were legendary–they built their own railway and installed their own electricity to the incredulity of all those around. Their amazing tale of creating an “electric city” in the wilds of Nova Scotia is the stuff of romance, challenge, and intrigue. Includes updates and a new chapter.
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The Black Battalion 1916-1920
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Black military heritage in Canada is still generally unknown and unwritten. Most Canadians have no idea that Blacks served, fought, and died on European battlefields, all in the name of freedom. The story of the overt racist treatment of Black volunteers is a shameful chapter in Canadian history. It does, however, represent an important part of the Black legacy and the Black experience. It is a story worth reporting and worth sharing.
In this thirtieth-anniversary edition of Ruck’s celebrated history of Nova Scotia’s No. 2 Construction Battalion, known as the Black Battalion, the original text and over 60 photographs and documents is presented for a whole new generation of readers, along with a new foreword and photographs from journalist Lindsay Ruck, Calvin W. Ruck’s proud granddaughter.
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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 awardÂwinning illustrator Richard Rudnicki will teach readers about Black Loyalist life, and the value of friendship and patience.
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Deux Pays Le Canada à l’ère du Grand Déséquilibre démographique
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Ce que l’auteur Richard Saillant appelle le Grand Déséquilibre démographique canadien– « le rythme très inégal auquel vieillit la population des diverses régions du Canada » — est, selon l’expert des politiques publiques Donald J. Savoie, « l’un des défis les plus exigeants du pays pendant les deux prochaines décennies ».
L’ouvrage Deux pays, dont l’orientation générale est profondément ancrée dans la démographie, développe la thèse de Saillant selon laquelle « les forces jumelées de la gravité économique et démographique » causeront de graves difficultés dans l’Est du Canada et l’ensemble du pays si nous n’agissons pas dès maintenant. Nous devons d’abord faire face à la dure réalité : « on observe entre les provinces les mieux et les moins bien nanties un contraste marqué qui est appelé à s’accentuer ». Résultat? Deux Canadas distincts, l’un âgé et peu nanti, l’autre jeune et dynamique. Sans un important changement de cap, affirme Saillant, le Canada sera un pays déchiré.
Deux pays est un incontournable pour ceux qui cherchent une analyse stratégique et basée sur des données probantes de l’avenir incertain du Canada, ainsi que des recommandations visant à remédier aux répercussions du Grand déséquilibre démographique sur toute la population canadienne.
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Shipcarver’s Handbook
Publisher: WoodenBoat Books$22.95Jay S. Hanna was a professional carver and modelmaker for more than 40 years. His models will be found on display in such institutions as the Mariner’s Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the Maine Maritime Museum, and in many private collections. His carvings adorn many yachts and cruise schooners, as well as stores and homes.
