Prentice Hall Press

Beloved author/illustrator Isabelle Arsenault returns to the Mile End Kids of Montreal in this charming picture book told in comic book-inspired panels about practice, overcoming fears and getting back on the wagon . . . er, bike. A perfect pick for introducing 4-to-8-year-olds to graphic novels. Tom is ready to take the training wheels off his bicycle, but his friends aren''t so sure. How will he convince them that his next stop is the Tour de France?!Tom won''t let a few mishaps keep him from becoming the cyclist he knows he was born to be; that''s what bandages are for. But his friends in the Mile End neighborhood think he needs more practice. Helping him train, they build an obstacle course to get ready for the road . . . but when Tom announces he''s ready for a longer ride, without training wheels, his friends are overwhelmed with worry! What if he gets lost? What if he falls? What if he just goes and goes FOREVER?    But Tom knows he has what it takes. A combination of experience, grit and determination is all he needs to prove to his friends he''s ready for the ride of a lifetime!    Join Tom and familiar faces Colette, Maya, Albert, Jimmy and the rest of the gang on a Mile End Kids adventure in this beautiful picture book told in graphic novel-style panels from Isabelle Arsenault, one of Canada''s most beloved children''s illustrators.

From award-winning journalist Jessica Barrett, an honest and urgent look at our housing crisis and lessons from around the world that will make better homes for all Canadians.After living in Vancouver for her entire adult life, Jessica Barrett packed up her apartment, quit her dream job as a magazine editor, and headed for Calgary in search of an affordable place to call home. In the years since Barrett was priced out of Vancouver, the issue of housing affordability has become a national crisis, fanning the flames of social inequality and setting us up for financial ruin. But our obsession with rising housing prices obscures a more complex and pressing issue: we have lost our reverence for and our understanding of home.In No Place Like Home, Barrett dives behind the headlines and statistics of Canada''s housing crisis to examine how it has eaten away at our psyches by undermining our human needs for belonging, connection, and stability. Through a mix of powerful memoir and rigorous journalism, she delivers an eye-opening portrait of our housing system while scouring the world for examples of how we might do things differently, pulling inspiration from the slum communities of Harare, Zimbabwe, the stately streets of Vienna, Austria, and the Cold-war era apartment blocks of West Berlin. In the process, Barrett forms a framework for solutions and the basis for achievable change. Her biggest discovery? We cannot solve our housing crisis until we first address our crisis of home.

Life is hard in Attawapiskat. Outsiders see the poverty and despair, the sagging, mold-filled houses with generations packed into each one. The substance abuse and the suicides. The decaying water system, that has come to symbolize the everyday injustice faced by First Nations communities. So why does Juno-nominated Cree musician Adrian Sutherland live there? The Work of Our Hands reveals a dimension of his own experience that headlines cannot capture and outsiders cannot see. The answer to why? is the answer to how? By exploring his world through the concrete experience of his hands, as they hold a guitar, a hammer, a rifle, or a cannister used to carry water to his family home, and the materials from which the traditional Cree sweat lodge is constructed, Sutherland not only paints a portrait of a world few of us have ever seen, he also lays out the way the world itself can teach us right and wrong as clearly as we can detect a musical note that is off-key. Everyday life in Attawapiskat means choosing a difficult path, learning from the contours and hard edges of the world, and striving to do what is right. That is freedom. How many of us can say we are free? Gritty, personal, and above all attuned to the meaning that we can discern only when we carefully hold the physical world in our hands, Sutherland''s story pulls us away from the abstractions and false promises of the disembodied reality we have stumbled into to approach deeper truth and meaning.

Meet Spaghetti the mouse - a tiny collector, recycler, artist and the ultimate noodle-powered problem solver! Spaghetti loves collecting - lost buttons, bits of string, old pencil stubs and lots and lots of dried spaghetti. Spaghetti''s family sees a mousy mess. Spaghetti sees mouse treasure! But when too much treasure takes up all the space in the mouse house, Spaghetti''s parents insist that something needs to change. It''s time for Spaghetti to put on his thinking cap (a pencil shaving) and come up with a creative solution for everyone in the mouse house. A charmingly illustrated picture book that celebrates creativity, recycling, and thinking outside the pasta box. Perfect for inspiring young makers, dreamers, and spaghetti-lovers alike!

In November 1910, explorer Hubert Darrell vanished in the uncharted wilds of the Northwest Territories. A prospector who had been swept up in the Klondike Gold Rush, Darrell later made his name as an expert guide, trapper, and restless wanderer who ventured where few others dared. At a time when travel by dogsled in the North was the norm, Darrell became legendary for traversing alone and on foot thousands of kilometres; ranging over mountains and across windswept tundra from Alaska to Hudson Bay. During his epic journeys, he helped rescue sailors trapped in sea ice, led Mounties on their patrols, and even guided some of the era''s most famous explorers. Roald Amundsen, the first person to reach the South Pole, held Darrell in awe, remarking once that with men like him, he could go to the moon. Contemporaries regarded Darrell as the hardiest, most competent explorer of his day. Alone, Darrell set off to map a remote region of the western Arctic near the Anderson River but never returned. Despite clues reported by Inuit trappers and Mounted Police inquiries, his fate remains a mystery. While his disappearance sparked headlines around the world, ironically soon Darrell''s name would also vanish from the history books, just as surely as he had in the wild. Yet Darrell left behind a trail of letters, journals, and hand-drawn maps. With these faded clues and his zeal for adventure, Adam Shoalts retraces Darrell''s forgotten routes through the wilderness, searching for cabin ruins and old campsites. He unearths water-stained records and tracks down elderly individuals in the hopes that they might remember someone who''d known Darrell. Part detective story, part biography, and part first-person adventure narrative, Vanished Beyond the Map combines expeditions with historical research to solve one of exploration history''s enduring cold cases - the mystery of Hubert Darrell.

On opposite sides of the pond, Sonia Butt, an adventurous young British woman, and Guy d''Artois, a French-Canadian soldier and thunderstorm of a man, are preparing to go to war. From different worlds, they make their way to fight in Winston Churchill''s secret army against the German forces and, unlike most involved in the world''s deadliest conflict to date, to fight from behind enemy lines. Their lives first intersect during clandestine training to become agents with the Special Operations Executive. Sonia and Guy learn how to parachute into enemy territory, how to kill, blow up rail lines, support the French resistance, and eventually... how to love each other. But not long after their hasty marriage, their love is tested by separation, by a titanic invasion - and by indiscretion. Written in vivid, heart stopping prose, we follow their stories of uncommon courage - as Sonia plunges into Nazi-occupied France and slinks into black market restaurants to throw off German forces who knew she''d arrived, while at the same time participating in sabotage operations against them by night; and as Guy, in another corner of France, trains hundreds into a resistance army, fashioning himself a military leader, weapons instructor, and peacemaker all at once. Reconstructed from hours of unpublished interviews and hundreds of archival and personal documents, Ayed tells a story of sacrifice and youthful folly; a story about the ravaging costs of war paid for disproportionately by the young. But more than anything, The War We Won Apart is a story about love: two secret agents who were supposed to land in enemy territory together, but were fated to fight the war apart.

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 Metis Studies professor, yearns to uproot from Vancouver and move. With her loving partner, Sigh, 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, searing memories from their unresolved childhood trauma 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 (Metis) people to regain ownership of their identity and the right to say who is and isn''t Metis.

As a child, Roxana Spicer would sometimes wake to the sound of the Red Army choir. She would tip-toe downstairs to find her mother, cigarette in one hand and Black Russian in the other, singing along. Roxana would keep her company, and wonder... Everyone in their village knew Agnes Spicer was Russian, that she had been a captive of the Nazis. And that was all they knew, because Agnes kept her secrets close: how she managed to escape Germany, what the tattoo on her arm meant, even her real name. Discovering the truth about her beloved, charismatic, volatile mother became Roxana''s obsession. Throughout her career as a journalist and documentarian, she took every chance to visit the few places that she knew played a role in her mother''s story: Bad Salzuflen, Germany; notorious concentration camps; and Russia. Under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the early years of Putin, she was able to find people, places, and documents that are now - perhaps forever - lost again. The Traitor''s Daughter is intimate and exhaustively researched, vividly conversational, and shot through with Agnes Spicer''s irrepressible, fiery personality. It is a true labour of love as well as a triumph of blending personal biography with sweeping history.

Anne is starting to grow up, but she''s still disappointed with her red hair - it''s one of her lifelong sorrows. One day, she buys a bottle of hair dye in order to have raven-black hair like her best friend and kindred spirit, Diana. Unfortunately, the dye ends up turning her hair green! This upset causes Anne to start focusing on improving herself inside, rather than her looks and leads to a new dream taking shape: Anne wanting to become a teacher! She joins a club for students studying to get into Queen''s College. But can Anne overcome her fear of failing? And how can she study hard when pesky Gilbert is distracting her? Lovingly adapted by Kallie George with beautiful nostalgic illustrations by Abigail Halpin, this series is perfect for fans of Anne, new and old.

Looking out his porch window one spring morning, Adam Shoalts spotted a majestic peregrine falcon flying across the neighbouring fields near Lake Erie. Each spring, falcons migrate from southernmost Canada to remote arctic mountains. Grabbing his backpack and canoe, Shoalts resolved to follow the falcon''s route north on an astonishing 3,400-kilometre journey to the Arctic. Along the way, he faces a huge variety of challenges and obstacles, including storms on the Great Lakes, finding campsites in the urban wilderness of Toronto and Montreal, avoiding busy commercial freighter traffic, gale force winds, massive hydroelectric dams, bushwhacking without trails, dealing with hunger, multiple bear encounters, and navigating white-water rapids on icy northern rivers far from any help. In his signature style, Shoalts roams as much across space as he does time, winding his way through a stunning diversity of landscapes ranging from lush Carolinian forests to lonely windswept mountains, salty seas to trackless swamps, pristine lakes to glittering mega-cities, as well as the sites of long ago battles, shipwrecks, forgotten forts, and abandoned trading posts. Through his travels, he reveals how interconnected wild places are, from the loneliest depths of the northern wilderness to busy urban parks, and the vital importance of these connections. Where the Falcon Flies invites readers on an extraordinary armchair adventure that spans five ecoregions and centuries of fascinating history, and is a masterwork by one of Canada''s most successful and audacious authors.

A successful Black woman in media, Bee Quammie often finds herself being cast as a role model for young women - and especially Black women and other women of colour. But Bee has never quite been comfortable with the idea of being a role model for the next generation. Who is she to suggest anyone live the way she has? Follow a certain path? Who says the path she followed is the ''right'' one - that there even is a ''right'' one? When Bee became a mother, the weight of responsibility became even heavier, and she spent hours agonizing over how she could be the guide her girls needed without getting in their way or imposing her agenda. That''s when Bee decided she needed a new model for understanding the role she should play for her children - and anyone else who might be looking to her for inspiration. Instead of a role model, Bee prefers to think of herself as a possibility model - one example among many of how to live one''s life. But even more important, Bee wants to show her daughters and other women how ripe with possibility their lives really are, how many opportunities and avenues there are to explore. There is so much richness to be found in life, even if you end up somewhere that feels unconventional or unplanned. In The Book of Possibilities, Bee shows us how small acts of bravery and paying careful attention to our inner voice can open up a world of opportunity and lead to a fulfilling life.

Jake loves dinosaurs, so with his birthday coming up, he knows just what kind of party he wants - a dinosaur sleepover! Dino games, dino balloons, dino cake. Dino everything! But when the big day arrives, his friends all come down with the flu, and the party seems to be on the edge of extinction. Then, in the middle of the night, Jake hears a strange noise and goes to investigate. To his surprise, he finds some prehistoric party guests right there in his living room! They''ve invited themselves in to make sure Jake has a birthday he''ll never forget - just don''t tell the T-Rex! An unforgettable birthday tale with huge laughs and heart, this newest picture book from acclaimed author Linda Bailey celebrates friendship, inclusion and fun - and is brought to life with magnificent, cinematic artwork from award-winning animation director and illustrator Joe Bluhm.