A YRCA nominee for 2021, Small Spaces has just the right amount mystery and terror to keep you reading and wanting more.

Oof! This book packs a powerful punch. Brilliantly told in verse, this is the story of teenager Ellie. Since she can remember, she has been fat. She has also has been terribly bullied- by peers, strangers, her family, and most painfully, by her Mom. The people around her say and do cruel things about her weight regularly and from her experiences she has created the “Fat Girl Rules”, in an attempt to avoid these humiliating moments. Her parents decide she needs to see a therapist, which she is very resistant to, but over time she begins to trust her as she becomes one of Ellie’s biggest supporters and cheerleaders. The book arrived in the mail today I read it in one sitting tonight- such an amazing book! Told in a brutally honest way, this book is a must for any anyone in middle grades and higher. One of my best reads of the year without a doubt!

Written in text messages and emails this book genuinely captures the friendships, drama, and upsets in the lives of Middle Grades girls. An authentic and sweet view into the lives of these grade 6 girls. Also a YRCA nominee at the intermediate level.

I so loved reading this book. Iris is a 12yr old deaf girl, who's family all hears, as do all of her classmates at school. She hears about a whale who has a different whale song than others (Blue 55). She feels an immediate connection to this lonely whale and makes a plan to create a song at the whale's interval, to let him know he isn't alone. This rich and beautiful story will be loved by so many.

A lovely and sweet graphic novel about friendship.

I have noticed more and more of my kids (students) reading these and they often ask if I have read them, to which I respond "Yes, when they were chapter books". The books in the original series were some of my favourite books growing up (I think I owned the whole series at one point). I have read a few a these and I love that they are as good as the original series. My hope is that they continue making the rest of the series into graphic novels.

I loved Yumi much the same as I loved Mia in the novel Front Desk. Like Mia, Yumi's family is an immigrant family in the USA trying to make a way for themselves. Yumi's Korean parents have high hopes for her in school, and Yumi's struggles with the pressure of living up to her parents dreams and following her own dreams of being a comedian. Will she ever be able to@do what she love?

I loved this book because it was about so many things I know so very little about- set in Victorian England this is the story of a young chimney sweep as she faces huge personal loss and discovers the love of others around her.

An intriguing and timely middle grade fantasy filled that explore Indigenous culture. Morgan and Eli are Indigenous foster kids in Winnipeg, and by all accounts have a wonderful new foster home. This is one of many for Morgan because she has been from foster home to foster home since she was young. For Eli, this is his first, and he misses his family terribly. Morgan lives angrily in this world, and has very little trust in the people around her, while Eli lives in sadness and spends much of his time drawing. One day Morgan and Eli discover that one of his pictures is in fact a portal to new world. When Eli disappears, Morgan is certain he has gone to this new world and heads through the portal too. There begins a fantastical adventure in this new world where they both come to learn more about who they are and make connections to their past and the Indigenous culture they are part of.