Canadian Books

Winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2017 - Best Blogger Book
Winner of the 2017 Taste Canada Awards - Health and Special Diet Cookbooks

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Angela Liddon’s eagerly awaited follow-up to the international bestseller The Oh She Glows Cookbook is packed with amazingly simple and delicious plant-based recipes that will keep you glowing from the inside out every day

Angela Liddon’s irresistible and foolproof recipes have become the gold standard for plant-based cooking. Her phenomenally popular blog and international bestseller, The Oh She Glows Cookbook, have amassed millions of fans eager for her latest collection of creative and accessible recipes. Now, in this highly anticipated new cookbook, Angela shares wildly delicious recipes that are perfect for busy lifestyles, promising to make plant-based eating convenient every day of the week—including holidays and special occasions! Filled with more than 100 family-friendly recipes everyone will love, like Oh Em Gee Veggie Burgers, Fusilli Lentil-Mushroom Bolognese, Apple Pie Overnight Oats, Mocha Empower Glo Bars, and the Ultimate Flourless Brownies, Oh She Glows Every Day also includes easy-to-make homemade staples; useful information on essential pantry ingredients; tips on making recipes kid-, allergy-, and freezer-friendly; and so much more.
 
A beautiful go-to cookbook from one of the most beloved cooking stars and food bloggers, Oh She Glows Every Day proves that it’s possible to cook simple, nourishing, and tasty plant-based meals—even on a busy schedule.

An accessible picture book that oh-so-simply and graphically introduces the term "refugee" to curious young children to help them better understand the world in which they live.

Who are refugees? Why are they called that word? Why do they need to leave their country? Why are they sometimes not welcome in their new country? In this relevant picture book for the youngest children, author-illustrator Elise Gravel explores what it means to be a refugee in bold, graphic illustrations and spare text. This is the perfect tool to introduce an important and timely topic to children.

“A deeply generous and honest gift to the world.”
—Elliot Page
 
The author of I’m Afraid of Men lets readers in on the secrets to a life of reinvention.

Vivek Shraya knows this to be true: people change. We change our haircuts and our outfits and our minds. We change names, titles, labels. We attempt to blend in or to stand out. We outgrow relationships, we abandon dreams for new ones, we start fresh. We seize control of our stories. We make resolutions.
 
In fact, nobody knows this better than Vivek, who’s made a career of embracing many roles: artist, performer, musician, writer, model, teacher. In People Change, she reflects on the origins of this impulse, tracing it to childhood influences from Hinduism to Madonna. What emerges is a meditation on change itself: why we fear it, why we’re drawn to it, what motivates us to change, and what traps us in place.
 
At a time when we’re especially contemplating who we want to be, this slim and stylish handbook is an essential companion—a guide to celebrating our many selves and the inspiration to discover who we’ll become next.

From our former Governor General, a series of fifty (of several thousand) carefully chosen letters he has written to people he has admired and befriended over his seventy-plus years, that sets out David Johnston's frank, informed, and novel thoughts about Canada.


     Touching on a wide range of topics ranging from learning, the law, kindness and courage, to the monarchy, Aboriginal education, justice, bilingualism, mental health and hockey, David Johnston has always used the letter writing form to tackle the passions, challenges, and goals of his incredibly accomplished and varied life. From his earliest years at Harvard, he has written several letters each day, starting with those to his large family, and broadening out to an ever-widening circle of friends that includes ministers and monarchs, educators and entrepreneurs, and many extraordinary Canadians who have deepened his perspective and touched his heart. The letters included in this beautiful volume are all about Canada -- a project to help him understand and share his views on this great country, past, present and future. 
     Presented in three parts -- What Shapes Me, What Consumes Me, and What Comforts Me -- The Right Honourable reaches out to everyone from his grandchildren, Kevin Vickers, Clara Hughes, Chris Hadfield, the Aga Khan, Tina Fontaine, Mike Lazaridis, the teachers of our country, a grade five class in Winnipeg, an unknown Inuit boy he met at Rideau Hall, and many others. The perfect gift for graduates, this unique and lovely book should find its home in every Canadian's library.

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About David Johnston

One of Canada's most respected and beloved governors general, David Johnston is a graduate of Harvard, Cambridge, and Queen's universities. He served as dean of law at Western University, principal of McGill University, and president of the University of Waterloo. He is the author or co-author of twenty-five books, holds honorary doctorates from over twenty universities, and is a Companion of the Order of Canada (C.C.). Born in Sudbury, Ontario, he grew up in Sault Ste. Marie. He is married to Sharon Johnston and has five daughters and fourteen grandchildren.…

A delightfully modern look at what happens for a young woman when tradition, dating, and independence collide, from acclaimed author Sonya Lalli.

Adulting shouldn't be this hard. Especially in your thirties. Having been pressured by her tight-knit community to get married at a young age to her first serious boyfriend, Anu Desai is now on her own again and feels like she is starting from the beginning. 

But Anu doesn't have time to start over. Telling her parents that she was separating from her husband was the hardest thing she's ever done—and she's still dealing with the fallout. She has her young daughter to support and when she invests all of her savings into running her own yoga studio, the feelings of irresponsibility send Anu reeling. She'll be forced to look inside herself to learn what she truly wants.

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Sonya Lalli is a romance and women’s fiction author of Punjabi and Bengali heritage. Her books have been featured in Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Washington Post, Glamour and more. She lives in Vancouver with her husband.…

 This action-adventure picture book featuring a grandfather and grandson duo celebrates the power of imagination and the magic of make believe.

Charlie loves when Grandpa comes to babysit because he always brings his magical imagination. Grandpa was a magician who knows the most amazing tricks; he can pull a rabbit from a hat and make a coin disappear. But what Charlie loves most are his wonderful adventure stories, and they all begin with something his grandfather has saved in his Magic Story Chest. An hourglass is a reminder of how he defended the treasure in King Tut's tomb from raiders. A long white scarf inspires the story about Grandpa's dogfight with the notorious Red Baron, the great First World War fighter pilot. A coconut shell heralds the story about his encounter with a nasty Tyrannosaurus Rex. Charlie's parents, though, aren't too sure they like Grandpa's stories and warn Charlie that they're just "tall tales." What is Charlie to believe? How can his grandpa convince him that all you need to do is believe and a dream can be turned into something real?

Pages: 40

Age Range: 5-8 years

ZACHARY HYMAN is a Canadian professional hockey player with the Edmonton Oilers, formerly with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He is the author of Hockey Hero and The Bambino and Me, two inspiring sports-themed picture books. The Magician's Secret is his third book.

In this second book in the Narnia-inspired Indigenous middle-grade fantasy series, Eli and Morgan journey once more to Misewa, travelling back in time.

Back at home after their first adventure in the Barren Grounds, Eli and Morgan each struggle with personal issues: Eli is being bullied at school, and tries to hide it from Morgan, while Morgan has to make an important decision about her birth mother. They turn to the place where they know they can learn the most, and make the journey to Misewa to visit their animal friends. This time they travel back in time and meet a young fisher that might just be their lost friend. But they discover that the village is once again in peril, and they must dig deep within themselves to find the strength to protect their beloved friends. Can they carry this strength back home to face their own challenges?

A picture book celebrating Indigenous culture and traditions. The Governor General Award--winning team behind When We Were Alone shares a story that honours our connections to our past and our grandfathers and fathers.

A boy and Moshom, his grandpa, take a trip together to visit a place of great meaning to Moshom. A trapline is where people hunt and live off the land, and it was where Moshom grew up. As they embark on their northern journey, the child repeatedly asks his grandfather, "Is this your trapline?" Along the way, the boy finds himself imagining what life was like two generations ago -- a life that appears to be both different from and similar to his life now. This is a heartfelt story about memory, imagination and intergenerational connection that perfectly captures the experience of a young child's wonder as he is introduced to places and stories that hold meaning for his family.

About the Author

One of the Toronto Star’s 25 books to read this season • One of Indigo’s Most Anticipated Books

An extraordinary career-spanning collection from one of the most revered poets and storytellers of our age.

Tracing the legacy of Margaret Atwood—a writer who has fundamentally shaped the contemporary literary landscapes—Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems, 1961–2023 assembles Atwood’s most vital poems in one essential volume.

In pieces that are at once brilliant, beautiful, and hyper-imagined, Atwood gives voice to remarkably drawn characters—mythological figures, animals, and everyday people—all of whom have something to say about what it means to live in a world as strange as our own. “How can one live with such a heart?” Atwood asks, casting her singular spell upon the reader and ferrying us through life, death, and whatever comes next. Atwood, in her journey through poetry, illuminates our most innate joys and sorrows, desires and fears.

Spanning six decades of work—from her earliest beginnings to brand-new poems—this volume charts the evolution of one of our most iconic and necessary authors.

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Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize;The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

A video gamer’s championship aspirations are dashed when his parents send him to Camp Reset, where electronics are forbidden and you're forced to socialize, eat healthy, and spend time outside. Gamerville is a timely and vulnerable exploration of the importance of human connection and what it means to run in a pack, brought to you by award-winning author Johnnie Christmas.

Max Lightning is howling at the moon—he’s finally qualified for Gamerville, a championship where players compete to be top dog in the multiplayer video game Lone Wolf of Calamity Bay. But his dreams of domination are doomed when his parents send him to Camp Reset. Gone are the long nights of downing energy drinks and getting copious amounts of screen time. They've been replaced with fresh air and group activities under the hot sun—a shock to the system for a lone wolf like Max. Can Max escape Camp Reset and level up at Gamerville, or has he finally played his last match?

Praise for SWIM TEAM:

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor

National Book Award Longlist

Kirkus Best Book of the Year

Eisner Award Best Publication for Kids Nominee

Harvey Award Best Children’s or Young Adult Book Nominee

"Combines wonderful characters and history to create a story that will make you want to dive right in!" —Jerry Craft, author of the Newbery Award–winning New Kid

“A revelation! You’ll root for Swim Team—the water is just right.” —John Jennings, New York Times bestselling and Eisner Award–winning creator

“Swim Team is a beautiful story about trying new things. Johnnie Christmas is a fantastic storyteller and artist.” —Kazu Kibuishi, author of the Amulet series

“Full of charm, heart, and pulse-pounding races. A winner!” —Gene Luen Yang, author of American Born Chinese and Dragon Hoops

Take a ride down Lilypod Lane with Weasel and Pam Pam as they try to solve a mystery in their neighborhood in this hilariously fetching picture book: could their peculiar neighbor actually be a dog in disguise?

On Lilypod Lane, everyone knows everything about everybody . . . or so they believe! When curious paperboy Weasel encounters his mysterious neighbor Roy on his route, he becomes convinced that Roy is actually a dog! But when his friend Pam Pam disagrees, Weasel must put on his detective cap and do his best sleuthing to reveal Roy's extraordinary secret, and prove that not everything is as it seems, once and for all!

An endearingly offbeat picture book that celebrates neighbors and neighborhoods, Roy Is Not a Dog delivers laughs and lessons about accepting others for who they are as well as the risks and rewards of showing your true self.

Age Range: 3-7 years

ESMÉ SHAPIRO grew up in Laurel Canyon, California and Ontario, Canada, and is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Her previous picture books include Ooko, which was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award in 2016, Alma and the Beast, Carol and the Pickle-Toad and, most recently, My Self, Your Self, which has received two starred reviews. Esmé also illustrated Yak and Dove by Kyo Maclear, Eliza: The Story of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton by Margaret McNamara and A Garden of Creatures by Sheila Heti. She has exhibited at the Society of Illustrators, and her work has been featured in Taproot and Plansponsor magazines. Esmé lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband, Daniel, and their two dogs.

NSTANT BESTSELLER
FINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS’ TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION

From a leading scholar on the politics of race comes a work of family history, memoir, and insight gained from a unique journey across the continent, on what it is to be Black in North America.

When Debra Thompson moved to the United States in 2010, she felt like she was returning to the land of her ancestors, those who had escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad. But her decade-long journey across Canada and the US transformed her relationship to both countries, and to the very idea of home.

In The Long Road Home, Thompson follows the roots of Black identities in North America and the routes taken by those who have crisscrossed the world’s longest undefended border in search of freedom and belonging. She begins in Shrewsbury, Ontario, one of the termini of the Underground Railroad and the place where members of her own family found freedom. More than a century later, Thompson still feels the echoes and intergenerational trauma of North American slavery. She was often the Only One—the only Black person in so many white spaces—in a country that perpetuates the national mythology of multiculturalism.

Then she revisits her four American homes, each of which reveals something peculiar about the relationship between American racism and democracy: Boston, Massachusetts, the birthplace of the American Revolution; Athens, Ohio, where the white working class and the white liberal meet; Chicago, Illinois, the great Black metropolis; and Eugene, Oregon, the western frontier. She then moves across the border and settles in Montreal, a unique city with a long history of transnational Black activism, but one that does not easily accept the unfamiliar and the foreign into the fold.

The Long Road Home is a moving personal story and a vital examination of the nuances of racism in the United States and Canada. Above all, it is about the power of freedom and the dreams that link and inspire Black people across borders from the perspective of one who has deep ties to, critiques of, and hope for both countries.

NEW YORK TIMES AND NATIONAL BESTSELLER

First loves, first songs, and the drugs and reckless high school exploits that fuelled them—meet music icons Tegan and Sara as you’ve never known them before in this intimate and raw account of their formative years.

High School is the revelatory and unique coming-of-age story of Sara and Tegan Quin, identical twins from Calgary, Alberta, growing up in the height of grunge and rave culture in the ’90s, well before they became the celebrated musicians and global LGBTQ icons we know today. While grappling with their identity and sexuality, often alone, they also faced academic meltdown, their parents’ divorce, and the looming pressure of what might come after high school. Written in alternating chapters from both Tegan’s point of view and Sara’s, the book is a raw account of the drugs, alcohol, love, music, and friendships they explored in their formative years. A transcendent story of first loves and first songs, it captures the tangle of discordant and parallel memories of two sisters who grew up in distinct ways even as they lived just down the hall from one another. This is the origin story of Tegan and Sara.

What does it mean to be a Canadian? What great ideas have changed our country? An award-winning writer casts her eye over our nation’s history, highlighting some of our most important stories.

From the acclaimed historian Charlotte Gray comes a richly rewarding book about what it means to be Canadian. Readers already know Gray as an award-winning biographer, a writer who has brilliantly captured significant individuals and dramatic moments in our history. Now, in The Promise of Canada, she weaves together masterful portraits of nine influential Canadians, creating a unique history of our country.

What do these people—from George-Étienne Cartier and Emily Carr to Tommy Douglas, Margaret Atwood, and Elijah Harper—have in common? Each, according to Charlotte Gray, has left an indelible mark on Canada. Deliberately avoiding a top-down approach to history, Gray has chosen Canadians—some well-known, others less so—whose ideas, she argues, have become part of our collective conversation about who we are as a people. She also highlights many other Canadians from all walks of life who have added to the ongoing debate, showing how our country has reinvented itself in every generation since Confederation, while at the same time holding to certain central beliefs.

Beautifully illustrated with evocative black-and-white historical images and colorful artistic visions, and written in an engaging style, The Promise of Canada is a fresh, thoughtful, and inspiring view of our historical journey. Opening doors into our past, present, and future with this masterful work, Charlotte Gray makes Canada’s history come alive and challenges us to envision the country we want to live in.

About the Author

Charlotte Gray, one of Canada’s pre-eminent biographers and historians, has won many awards for her work, including the prestigious Pierre Berton Award for a body of historical writing, the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, the Ottawa Book Award, the Toronto Book Award, and the CAA Birks Family Foundation Award for Biography. Over nine superb biographies, from Mrs. King and Sisters in the Wilderness to The Massey Murder, and masterful books such as The Museum Called Canada and Canada: A Portrait in Letters, she has brought our past to vivid life. Gray is a Member of the Order of Canada and was a panelist on the 2013 edition of CBC Radio’s Canada Reads. She lives in Ottawa.

If you could travel through time, who would you want to meet?

This boxed set brings together the first four titles in the beloved and bestselling Ice Chips series, by acclaimed authors Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor and illustrator Kim Smith. The books feature a vibrant and inclusive cast of characters and inspiring hockey greats.

Including The Ice Chips and the Magical Rink, The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane, The Ice Chips and the Invisible Puck and The Ice Chips and the Stolen Cup, this set scores a hat trick for hockey time-travel adventure!

"The emergence of our true selves is all of our life's work. Pageboy helps chart the course." ―Jamie Lee Curtis

"Searing, deeply moving, and incredibly poignant... This isn’t simply a book on what it means to be trans, it’s about what it means to be human." ―Alok Vaid-Menon

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK by Salon, The Week, Elle, Bustle, and more.

Full of intimate stories, from chasing down secret love affairs to battling body image and struggling with familial strife, Pageboy is a love letter to the power of being seen. With this evocative and lyrical debut, Oscar-nominated star Elliot Page captures the universal human experience of searching for ourselves and our place in this complicated world.

“Can I kiss you?” It was two months before the world premiere of Juno, and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. The hot summer air hung heavy around him as he looked at her. And then it happened. In front of everyone. A previously unfathomable experience. Here he was on the precipice of discovering himself as a queer person, as a trans person. Getting closer to his desires, his dreams, himself, without the repression he’d carried for so long. But for Elliot, two steps forward had always come with one step back.

With Juno’s massive success, Elliot became one of the world’s most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare.

As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his heels, and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed silent, unsure of what to do. Until enough was enough.

The Oscar-nominated star who captivated the world with his performance in Juno finally shares his story in a groundbreaking and inspiring memoir about love, family, fame ― and stepping into who we truly are with strength, joy and connection.