Canadian Books

Young readers will enjoy a personal tour of one of Canada’s loveliest provinces. This charming board book explores Ontario's most iconic landmarks and famous attractions, including Niagara Falls, Ripley’s Aquarium, Parliament Hill and Buildings, Toronto Island Park, Lake Ontario, Saint Lawrence River, Rideau Canal National Historic Site, CN Tower, and more.

This book is part of the bestselling Good Night Our World series, which includes hundreds of titles exploring iconic locations and exciting, child-friendly themes.

Little ones will love exploring all the fascinating things Ontario has to offer.

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 treasure trove of new poems by one of our most sought-after poets: poems that range from descriptions of the Detroit of her childhood to her current life on Cape Cod, from deep appreciations of the natural world to elegies for lost friends and relationships, from a vision of her Jewish heritage to a hard-hitting take on today’s political ironies.

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

Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour

About the Book

Meet Helen Thorpe. She’s smart, preternaturally calm, deeply insightful and a freshly trained butler. On the day she is supposed to start her career as an unusually equanimous domestic professional serving one of the wealthiest families in the world, she is called back to a spiritual retreat where she used to work, the Yatra Institute, on one of British Columbia’s gulf islands. The owner of the lodge, Helen’s former employer Edna, has died while on a three-month silent self-retreat, leaving Helen instructions to settle her affairs.

But Edna’s will is more detailed than most, and getting things in order means Helen must run the retreat for a select group to determine which of Edna’s relatives will inherit the institute. Helen’s classmates, newly minted butlers themselves, decide they can’t let her go it alone and arrive to help Helen pull things off. After all, is there anything three butlers can’t handle? As Helen carries out the will’s instructions, she begins to think that someone had reason to want Edna dead. A reluctantly suspicious investigator, Helen and her band of butlers find themselves caught up in the mystery.

Critical Praise

“No one but Susan Juby would come up with the concept of a Buddhist butler detective, then execute it so beautifully. This novel has all the whimsical characters and charm we’ve come to know and love from Juby, but this time wrapped in a murder/mystery. I want to say it's reminiscent of #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency or The Thursday Murder Club, yet it is so entirely unique; a perfect novel to curl up with in front of a fire with a cozy blanket and a mug of tea. I hope this is the first in a long series."
— Susin Nielsen, Bestselling author and creator of Family Law on Global TV

”Take one newly graduated domestic professional, a holistic retreat on an isolated island, a murdered mentor and a group of fractious suspects and you have the makings of this comedic mystery from the lauded author of the hilarious Republic of Dirt.”  — Canadian Living

“A cast of wonderfully quirky characters and plenty of humour round out this truly original mystery.” — The Belleville Intelligencer

“Readers will find her new book to be an intriguing mystery that makes you think, makes you laugh, and may even make you want to go to Hollyhock to soak up the ambience and study mindful meditation.”  — The BC Review

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.

INSTANT 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.

A bold, provocative collection of essays exploring the historical and contemporary Indigenous experience in Canada.

With authority and insight, Truth Telling examines a wide range of Indigenous issues framed by Michelle Good’s personal experience and knowledge.

From racism, broken treaties, and cultural pillaging, to the value of Indigenous lives and the importance of Indigenous literature, this collection reveals facts about Indigenous life in Canada that are both devastating and enlightening. Truth Telling also demonstrates the myths underlying Canadian history and the human cost of colonialism, showing how it continues to underpin modern social institutions in Canada.

Passionate and uncompromising, Michelle Good affirms that meaningful and substantive reconciliation hinges on recognition of Indigenous self-determination, the return of lands, and a just redistribution of the wealth that has been taken from those lands without regard for Indigenous peoples.

Truth Telling is essential reading for those looking to acknowledge the past and understand the way forward.

A sparkling, reader-favourite rom-com for fans of You’ve Got Mail, set in competing halal restaurants  

“A novel of wit, heart, substance and depth—a love story that explores the challenging issues of our times.” —Ausma Zehanat Khan 

“Readers won’t be able to put this Own Voices Muslim romance down.” —Library Journal (starred review) 

Sales are slow at Three Sisters Biryani Poutine, the only halal restaurant in the close-knit Golden Crescent neighbourhood. Hana waitresses there part-time, but what she really wants is to tell stories on the radio. If she can just outshine her fellow intern at the city radio station, she may have a chance at landing a job. In the meantime, Hana pours her thoughts and dreams into a podcast, where she forms a lively relationship with one of her listeners. But soon she’ll need all the support she can get: a new competing restaurant, a more upscale halal place, is about to open in the Golden Crescent, threatening Three Sisters.

When her mysterious aunt and teenage cousin arrive from India for a surprise visit, they draw Hana into a long-buried family secret. A hate-motivated attack on their neighbourhood complicates the situation further, as does Hana’s growing attraction for Aydin, the young owner of the rival restaurant—who might not be a complete stranger after all.

As life on the Golden Crescent unravels, Hana must learn to use her voice, draw on the strength of her community and decide what her future should be. 

Uzma Jalaluddin

Biography

UZMA JALALUDDIN is the bestselling author of Ayesha at Last and Hana Khan Carries On, both of which have been optioned for film, the latter by Mindy Kaling. A high school English teacher, Jalaluddin is also a contributor to the Toronto Star and the Atlantic. She lives near Toronto with her family.

Critical Praise

Jalaluddin portrays a swoon-worthy romance as skilfully as she captures the heart of a community. A novel of wit, heart, substance, and depth—a love story that explores the challenging issues of our times.  — Ausma Zehanat Khan, author of A Deadly Divide

A sweet and satisfying retelling of “You’ve Got Mail” and absolutely irresistible. I read the whole book in one sitting and cannot wait for more from Uzma Jalaluddin!  — Sonya Lalli, author of Serena Singh Flips the Script

Hana Khan Carries On serves us all the ingredients of a delicious tale: a dynamic setting, vibrant characters, a romantic problem of wires-crossed proportions, and a lead you’ll find yourself rooting for until the end. Truly a burst of joy!   — S.K. Ali, author of Love from A to Z

A grand celebration of a novel: big, noisy, and joyous. Jalaluddin’s new book is a wholly original romantic comedy for our times, with irresistible banter, near-misses, ulterior motives, and an all-out Bollywood-style climax. I loved it. — Kate Hilton, author of Better Luck Next Time

Cute, emotional, and ultimately joyful. A romance with a warm heart, one wrapped in the bonds of family and friendship, this book left me with a delighted smile on my face. — Nalini Singh, New York Times bestselling author

"Jalaluddin follows Ayesha at Last with another charming contemporary romance, which maintains a fun, energetic mood while tackling serious themes of prejudice." — Publishers Weekly

"The clever and independent protagonist, large cast of vivid characters, strong family ties, and satisfying enemies-to-lovers trope all have the feel of a classic remake and will thoroughly delight readers looking for modern Indian Muslim representation in a love story that hits real-life issues on the way to a very satisfying conclusion." — Booklist

"Packed with emotion, this romance is also a beautifully written coming-of-age story about a first-generation immigrant. Hana is a relatable, flawed narrator, and the other characters are complex, nuanced, and well-developed. The story is intricately plotted, with dramatic, often heartwrenching scenes that build to a satisfying, realistic conclusion.... Readers won’t be able to put this Own Voices Muslim romance down." — Library Journal (starred review)

"A delicious treat filled with South Asian fervor and Canadian heart." — Kirkus Reviews

“Jalaluddin cleverly illustrates the social pressures facing young Indian-Muslim adults...a highly entertaining tale of family, community, and romance.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A delicious and entertaining novel.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Come for Darcy reimagined as a hyper-conservative young man and Elizabeth Bennet as a wannabe poet frustrated by family obligation; stay for Uzma Jalaluddin’s warm portrait of life for twentysomething Muslims in suburban Toronto struggling to honor their heritage while pursuing their dreams.” — The Globe and Mail

"'Ayesha at Last' is light and incandescent and deeply pleasurable from start to finish." — Christian Science Monitor

"There’s an overabundance of Pride and Prejudice retellings, but few are as thoughtful and creative as this stellar debut from an author to watch." — Library Journal (starred review)

"Jalaluddin constructs a timely and enlightening narrative that validates the experiences of many South Asians and Muslims today, while weaving in universal themes of identity, class, and discrimination....Ayesha at Last's fictional universe acts as a microcosm of a diverse and oft-misunderstood community, and Jalaluddin's compassionate and sensitive writing about it radiates off the page." — NPR

“Ayesha At Last is a beautiful testament to the power of family, kindness, and getting out of one’s own way.” — Entertainment Weekly

“[An] irresistible debut.” — Goodreads

“This sweet debut novel ticks all the boxes for one of summer’s best reads: it’s smart, witty, romantic and utterly charming.” — Canadian Living

"Ayesha at Last is a delight from the first word to the last. Rich with cultural texture, replete with social nuance, and brimming with humor, it is one of the best retellings of Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.”  — Frolic

“An uproarious romp, filled with farcical cases of mistaken identity, disastrous proposals and a big Bollywood wedding.” — Toronto Life

“This is the book I’ve been waiting for since my long-running Jane Austen obsession. Move over Darcy, Khalid’s in town.” — S. K. Ali, author of Morris Award finalist, Saints and Misfits

“Uzma Jalaluddin blazes a brilliant new trail with Ayesha At Last, a captivating romance set in the Muslim community, brimming with humour and heart. You will fall in love with Ayesha and Khalid—an Elizabeth and Darcy for our times.” — Ausma Zehanat Khan, author of A Dangerous Crossing

“Ayesha At Last is the modern Pride & Prejudice retelling I never knew I needed. Warm, witty, romantic, and relatable. Honestly, Darcy who? Khalid is everything.” — Alisha Rai, award-winning author