Books

WJB's Book Club Pick for June 2026!

Use code BOOKCLUB to get 20% off at checkout. 

Moving on is hard. Even harder when it’s from a make-believe friend—someone, or in this instance, some thing—who’s been your strongest source of support. On what should be one of the happiest days ever, the day her granddaughter is born, Minoo is faced with a terrible choice: make a clean break from her constant companion, a sock puppet named Ecology Paul, or lose her daughter and granddaughter, and maybe all of the people she loves. On an emotional drive home from the hospital, Ecology Paul shares the story of how Minoo got to this point, recalling Minoo’s early teenage pregnancy in Iran, her exile to Canada, her questions about her sexuality, and how a ragtag sock puppet came to her when she desperately needed to be seen. Full of imagination, whimsy and heart, The Unravelling of Ou follows Minoo’s struggles to justify the puppet’s existence and untangle herself from her dependence on it, and reconnect with the people she loves.

Praise for The Unravelling of Ou

“Wildly original and captivating. A phenomenal examination of female shame, sexuality, queerness, motherhood, and intimacy, Hollay Ghadery writes with sensitivity and resonating beauty through an unconventional narrator: a sock puppet, Ecology Paul, who delivers the emotional coming-of-age tale of young Minoo with whimsy and emotional depth. Minoo feels trapped in her body and guilt over its sensual pleasures, as she grapples with a complicated relationship with a traditional Iranian mother. In The Unravelling of Ou, the immigrant Canadian narrative is dismantled, and headstrong mothers and daughters clash with patriarchal structures that want to control their bodies, their vanity, and their desires. Vulnerable, brave, and heartbreaking, this powerful novel asks: how do women function in a world that is not designed to love them back? How do oppressed individuals understand and ultimately save themselves? Ghadery delivers answers in a lyrical and imaginative debut.”—Lindsay Wong, Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies

“With poignant and delicate prose, The Unraveling of Ou draws the reader in through the unique voice of Minoo’s puppet. Ou knows all the secrets for Ou lives inside Minoo, and only Ou can reveal the depth of the brutal choice forced upon Minoo by her mother when she was a little girl. It’s a choice that shapes Minoo’s life in irreversible ways, even after estrangement from its root cause. A daring, not-to-be-missed short novel by the one and only Hollay Ghadery.”—Nilofar-Lily Soltani, author of Zulaikha

“The Unraveling of Ou is wonderfully layered, with a compelling plot and deeply realized characters. Its bracingly effective central conceit—first person narration by the protagonist’s sock puppet—is fresh and satisfying and, ultimately, quite moving.”—K.R. Wilson, author of Call Me Stan and An Idea About My Dead Uncle

“This novel is a delicious titration of acts of betrayal and care. I’ve never read anything like it before and yet it felt familiar in hard-to-reach places of the soul.”—Margo LaPierre, editor and author of Ajar

“Ghadery has written a surprising narrative that interrogates the treatment of young women caught in the crossfire of cultural norms and mental health.  Beautifully told with her trademark use of evocative and poetic language, Ghadery has once again challenged readers to ponder identity and what it means to be seen.”—Lucy E.M. Black, author A Quilting of Scars, The Brickworks, Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth

From the #1 bestselling author of The Push, a propulsive page-turner about four suburban families whose lives are changed when the unthinkable happens—and what is lost when good people make unconscionable choices.

On Harlow Street, the well-to-do neighbour­hood couples and their children gather for a barbecue as the summer winds down. Everything is fabulous until Whitney, the picture-perfect hostess, explodes in fury because her son disobeys her. Everyone at the party hears her exquisite veneer crack—loud and clear. Before long, that same young boy falls from his bedside window in the middle of the night. And then his mother can only sit by her son’s hospital bed, where his life hangs in the balance.

Over the course of a tense three days, the women of the neighborhood grapple with what led to that terrible night. People-pleasing Blair, Whitney’s best friend, suspects something isn’t as it seems. Rebecca, the ER doctor who helps treat Whit­ney’s son, has struggled to have a child of her own. And the all-knowing Mara, the older woman next door, watches everyone’s world unravel from her front porch.

Exploring envy, women’s friendships, desire, and the intuitions that we silence, The Whispers is a chilling novel that marks Ashley Audrain as a major fiction talent.

Rupi Kaur’s Writing Prompts Self-Love card deck is a step in the road towards healing.

Rupi Kaur shares her writing journey with a thoughtfully curated deck of 70 writing prompts that invoke curiosity and a deeper connection with the self. While focusing on the theme of gratitude, use this card deck as a part of your daily ritual to inspire appreciation and creativity. We hope it becomes a tool for you to continue to discover more about your inner and outer worlds, and a light to help navigate you through it all.

Raffi's delightful rendition of the classic song about the bus that goes "all around town!"

Singing supports and encourages even the youngest child's speech and listening skills, which makes Wheels on the Bus perfect for early learning. With its charming illustrations, this is the ideal sing-aloud for a whole new generation of readers.

Raffi's most popular and beloved songs--"Baby Beluga," "Wheels on the Bus," and "Down by the Bay"--are available in a boxed set, just the right size for babies and toddlers!

Singing supports and encourages even the youngest child's speech and listening skills, which makes these adorable books perfect for early learning. With its delightful illustrations, this boxed set is the ideal sing-along collection for a whole new generation of readers.…

Hours of word-hunting fun, perfect for puzzle lovers!

Searching for fun? You’ve found it right here! This collection of more than 120 word search puzzles is just right for grab-and-go play. Look up, look down and all around—puzzles start out easy and get trickier as you go. Challenge yourself with extra bonus riddles for even more fun, all in a package that’s just the right size to toss in a backpack!

*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE*

From the author of the nationally bestselling Strangers saga comes a heartrending story of two Michif sisters who must face their past trauma when their mother is called out for false claims to Indigenous identity.

June and her sister, lyn, are NDNs—real ones.

Lyn has her pottery artwork, her precocious kid, Willow, and the uncertain terrain of her midlife to keep her mind, heart and hands busy. June, a Métis Studies professor, yearns to uproot from Vancouver and move. With her loving partner, Sigh, and their faithful pup, June decides to buy a house in the last place on earth she imagined she’d end up: back home in Winnipeg with her family.

But then into lyn and June’s busy lives a bomb drops: their estranged and very white mother, Renee, is called out as a “pretendian.” Under the name (get this) Raven Bearclaw, Renee had topped the charts in the Canadian art world for winning awards and recognition for her Indigenous-style work.

The news is quickly picked up by the media and sparks an enraged online backlash. As the sisters are pulled into the painful tangle of lies their mother has told and the hurt she has caused, searing memories from their unresolved childhood trauma, which still manages to spill into their well curated adult worlds, come rippling to the surface.

In prose so powerful it could strike a match, real ones is written with the same signature wit and heart on display in The Break, The Strangers and The Circle. An energetic, probing and ultimately hopeful story, real ones pays homage to the long-fought, hard-won battles of Michif (Métis) people to regain ownership of their identity and the right to say who is and isn’t Métis.

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katherena vermette (she/her/hers) is a Michif (Red River Métis) writer from Treaty 1 territory, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her first book, North End Love Songs (Muses’ Company), won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her novels The Break (House of Anansi), The Strangers and The Circle (Hamish Hamilton) were all national bestsellers and won multiple literary awards. Her work for children and young adults includes the picture book The Girl and the Wolf (Theytus) and the graphic novel series A Girl Called Echo (Highwater). She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia, and an honourary Doctor of Letters from the University of Manitoba. katherena lives with her kids—fur and human—in a cranky old house within skipping distance of the temperamental Red River.