In an alternate history in which the French never surrendered Detroit, children protect their own kingdom in the trees. In an alternate history of Detroit, the Motor City was never surrendered to the US. Its residents deal with pollution, poverty, and the legacy of racism—and strange and magical things are happening: children rule over their own kingdom in the trees and burned houses regenerate themselves. When Gloria arrives looking for answers and her missing granddaughters, at first she finds only a hungry mouse in the derelict home where her daughter was murdered. But the neighbours take pity on her and she turns to their resilience and impressive gardens for sustenance. When a strange intuition sends Gloria into the woods of Parc Rouge, where the city’s orphaned and abandoned children are rumored to have created their own society, she can’t imagine the strength she will find. A richly imagined story of community and a plea for persistence in the face of our uncertain future, The Future is a lyrical testament to the power we hold to protect the people and places we love—together.

White Resin is an ethereal love story of the almost-impossible reconciliation between the manufactured world and the haunting and feminine nature that envelops it. In this impassioned and wildly imagined story of creation, a girl named Daa, is born to "twenty-four mothers," the sisters of a convent at the edge of the Quebec taiga. Nearby, at the Kohle mining company, a woman dies giving birth to Laure, a child with albinism, in the workers' canteen. What follows is a dream-like recounting of their love affair and the family they bear, a captivating magic-realist tale of origins and opposites, that would be fantastical if it did not ring so true to the boreal north. White Resin is at once a dream-like romance and an homage to gorgeous, feral, and fecund nature as it both stands against and entwined with the industrial world.

A graphic novel about bullying, body image and the transformative power of fiction. Helene has been inexplicably ostracized by the girls who were once her friends. Her school life is full of whispers and lies -- Helene weighs 216; she smells like BO. Her loving mother is too tired to be any help. Fortunately, Helene has one consolation, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Helene identifies strongly with Jane's tribulations, and when she is lost in the pages of this wonderful book, she is able to ignore her tormentors. But when Helene is humiliated on a class trip in front of her entire grade, she needs more than a fictional character to see herself as a person deserving of laughter and friendship. Leaving the outcasts' tent one night, Helene encounters a fox, a beautiful creature with whom she shares a moment of connection. But when Suzanne Lipsky frightens the fox away, insisting that it must be rabid, Helene's despair becomes even more pronounced: now she believes that only a diseased and dangerous creature would ever voluntarily approach her. But then a new girl joins the outcasts' circle, Geraldine, who does not even appear to notice that she is in danger of becoming an outcast herself. And before long Helene realizes that the less time she spends worrying about what the other girls say is wrong with her, the more able she is to believe that there is nothing wrong at all. This emotionally honest and visually stunning graphic novel reveals the casual brutality of which children are capable, but also assures readers that redemption can be found through connecting with another, whether the other is a friend, a fictional character or even, amazingly, a fox. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6 Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.

Novelist and poet Claude Le Bouthillier draws on his Acadian and New Brunswick heritage to create Phantom Ships. First published in 1989 as Le Feu du Mauvais Temps, it gives an account of the end of the French Empire in Canada as experienced by the authors own ancestor, Joseph Le Bouthillier.

In this gentle meditation on the cycle of life, author and illustrator Paloma Valdivia gives us an opportunity to reflect on those who have gone, those who will come, and those of us who are here in this world - for the time being. The neighbor's cat, a favorite aunt or the fish in yesterday's soup have gone - and we may well miss them. At the same time, we celebrate the arrival of a new baby or a litter of playful kittens. It's a mystery where we come from and where we are going, so why not enjoy ourselves while we can? Paloma Valdivia's charming illustrations bring a light touch to this candid contemplation of life and death. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.6 With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.7 With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts).

Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies meets Rachel Cusk's The Lucky Ones in this astounding debut novel about a woman on the verge of infidelity. Tessa is a thirty-seven-year-old real estate agent living in Montreal. She adores her husband and three young sons, but she's deeply unhappy and questioning the set of choices that have led to her present life. After a surprising run-in with Francis, her ex-boyfriend and first love, Tessa arranges to see him. During the three days before their meeting, she goes about her daily life - there's swimming lessons, science projects, and dirty dishes. As the day of her meeting with Francis draws closer she has to decide if she is willing to disrupt her stable, loving family life for an uncertain future with him. With startling clarity and emotional force, Fanny Britt gives us a complex portrait of a woman and a marriage from the inside out.

Disturbing and sensuous, Audrée Wilhelmy’s tale of a hermetic family minding a lighthouse in willed isolation is reminiscent of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The Body of Beasts is a startling, gorgeously written novel that tells the story of the Borya family living in isolation. Their lives are altered when young Osip, peering from the lighthouse gallery sees a woman, Noé, arrive — her dress scant, her skin curiously scarred, and her manner mysterious and wild. Noé bears a child, Mie, to the eldest son on whose hunter-gathering the Borya family depends. She lives in a cabin on her own and covers the walls with drawings that allude to her mysterious life. The family’s entrenchment in nature is enthrallingly conveyed in young Mie’s sensuous ability to borrow at will the body of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. Her shape-shifting allows her to know the ways of the natural world, though only to a point. When her own awakening body starts to intrigue her, she asks her uncle Osip to “teach me human sex.� The Body of the Beasts is an imaginative tour de force, a beautifully described portrait of a world that exists outside of words; an uninhibited and erotic novel that, in the singular tradition of Québécois Boreal Gothic, explores our humanity — and animal nature.

A hilarious fairytale for adults facing a complicated world.