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Bildungsromans

  • Author:
    Hasiuk, Brenda
    Summary:

    Faye is the "good" adopted Chinese daughter. Bev is the wild child. Mannie is the unambitious stoner. What brings them together--and tears them apart--is a need to move beyond the clichés and commit to something--anything--that will bring meaning and joy to their lives. When Faye's long-lost childhood neighbor, Bev, turns up out of the blue, wanting something from her old friend, Faye goes along with Bev's plan. But Mannie, the joyriding daddy of Bev's baby, has a half-crazed romantic agenda of his own. As one cold, miserable prairie spring inches toward summer, a series of unexpected and sometimes explosive decisions sends the trio hurtling toward disaster. A darkly funny portrayal of three unforgettable teenagers feeling their way into adulthood in an imperfect world.

  • Author:
    Hammer, Alison
    Summary:

    After opening her own advertising agency, Alexis relied on her husband, Tommy, for the household duties and supervision of their teenage daughter, CeCe. When Tommy receives a terminal cancer diagnosis, Alexis puts her career on hold. But CeCe too is forced to confront her feelings about losing the one person who has always been there for her. When the magic of first love brings a bright spot to her summer, CeCe is determined not to let her mother ruin that for her, too.

  • Author:
    Brennan, Kevin
    Summary:

    In this “coming-of-old-age” tale, Jack Peckham finds himself on a journey into his distant past, helped along the way by Joe Easterday, a young man with Down syndrome, and Ida Pevely, a middle-aged waitress with her own mountain of regrets. Jack has a hundred grand in cash that he can’t explain, since he can’t remember yesterday much less forty years ago. Setting out from Northern California for “points east,” he gets lost, carjacked, abandoned, and arrested, but he’s always homing in on the one object of his inner drive — home. With humor and plenty of unexpected turns, Kevin Brennan’s second novel is a lyrical and poignant story of memory and identity, of how it is the whole of experience — pain and regret along with love and pleasure — that gives life its fullness. We all tow our histories behind us as we make our way down Yesterday Road.

  • Author:
    Körner, Miriam
    Summary:

    Jeremy lives in a small community where winters are long and stray dogs roam the streets. When peer pressure leads Jeremy into a bad prank, he is immediately struck with guilt - and that's when Jeremy's life changes forever. Trying to make amends Jeremy befriends Yellow Dog - and in the process meets a curious old man who introduces him to the adventures of dog sledding. Soon Jeremy is forming his own old-time dog team with Yellow Dog at lead - and in the process discovers more about himself - and the old man - than he ever thought possible.

  • Author:
    Wayman, Tom
    Summary:

    It’s late 1969 and Communist China has successfully launched its first satellite. Inspired by this feat, a group of college students in Laguna Beach, California, set out to put their own satellite into orbit in homage to the recent Woodstock Festival.A young Canadian graduate student at the University of California finds himself at the centre of the mayhem when he and his friends break into a mothballed missile silo and commandeer everything they need, including a nuclear warhead, to blast the Woodstock Nation into the space age. The activists have big plans for their loot, schemes that may well culminate in the Light Show to End All Light Shows in the Nevada desert.An extraordinary black comedy shot full of the social and political issues of the time, Woodstock Rising is a coming-of-age tale couched in free love, rock anthems, and revolution as well as a chronicle of an era whose causes continue to speak to us.

  • Author:
    Acevedo, Elizabeth
    Summary:

    From the New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award longlist title The Poet X comes a dazzling novel in prose about a girl with talent, pride, and a drive to feed the soul that keeps her fire burning bright. Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago's life has been about making the tough decisions-doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it's not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.

  • Author:
    Oakes, Cory Putman
    Summary:

    Enter the gates of Witchtown to find a mischievous coming-of-age story for fans of Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic and the Danielle Paige's Dorothy Must Die series. When sixteen-year-old Macie O'Sullivan and her masterfully manipulative mother Aubra arrive at the gates of Witchtown-the most famous and mysterious witch-only haven in the world-they have one goal in mind: to rob it for all it's worth. But that plan derails when Macie and Aubra start to dig deeper into Witchtown's history and uncover that there is more to the quirky haven than meets the eye. Exploring the haven by herself, Macie finds that secrets are worth more than money in Witchtown. Secrets have their own power.

  • Author:
    Murakami, Haruki
    Summary:

    In the spring of 1978, a young Haruki Murakami sat down at his kitchen table and began to write. The result: two remarkable short novels-Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973-that launched the career of one of the most acclaimed authors of our time. These powerful, at times surreal, works about two young men coming of age-the unnamed narrator and his friend the Rat-are stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism. They bear all the hallmarks of Murakami's later books, and form the first two-thirds, with A Wild Sheep Chase, of the trilogy of the Rat. Widely available in English for the first time ever, newly translated, and featuring a new introduction by Murakami himself, Wind/Pinball gives us a fascinating insight into a great writer's beginnings.

  • Author:
    Harris, William
    Summary:

    Tu aimes les témoignages? Tu adoreras ce livre! C’est un roman basé sur une histoire vraie. Tous les gais ont une histoire intéressante à raconter au sujet de leur coming out, quand la vie les a poussés à devoir assumer leur homosexualité. Si vous demandiez à mes parents, ils vous raconteraient la fois où ils ont trouvé de la porno gaie sur mon ordinateur. L’heure horrible qu’on a passée à la table de la cuisine. Ma mère et son sourire figé. Mon père avec son bel habit d’agent immobilier, cramponné à la table, qui répétait sans cesse «OK, une minute... Attends une minute...» comme si le passage du temps était tout le problème. Psst! L’auteur de ce roman s’appelle Michael! Il vit à Vancouver, avec son amoureux et leur chien. Son moment favori dans une journée est le matin, alors qu’il boit son café. Il déteste discuter avec des gens peu curieux. Tout comme le personnage principal de ce roman, il vit parfois des épisodes de paralysie du sommeil.

  • Author:
    Goobie, Beth
    Summary:

    Kelly Paddik is locked up. Sent to a secure facility because she is a “danger to herself,” all Kelly wants is to escape. But she has been running from everybody since her father abused her and her mother stood by and let it happen. It is only when she meets Chris that she begins to realize she is running from herself, and that if she wants control over her own life, she will first have to gain some self-respect.

  • Author:
    Mitchell, W. O.
    Summary:

    Available for the first time as an ebook, this illustrated edition of W.O. Mitchell's prairie classic Who Has Seen the Wind is a delight to discover again -- or for the first time.Since its publication in 1947, Who Has Seen the Wind -- a classic tale about a boy growing up on the Saskatchewan prairie -- has been read and loved by millions. With his unique blend of poetry and humour, W.O. Mitchell perfectly captures childhood and small-town life. Featuring an unforgettable cast of characters -- young Brian O'Connal and his family, including his fiery-tongued Uncle Sean and his formidable Scotch grandmother, and the colourful inhabitants of their prairie community -- it is not only the story of one boy, but an ageless story of growing up and the search for meaning. This new edition commemorates the 75th anniversary of the book's publication, bringing together the complete and unabridged version of the text with 8 full-colour paintings and 32 black-and-white illustrations by renowned artist William Kurelek. It also includes a new foreword from W.O. Mitchell's friend, the acclaimed novelist Frances Itani, as well as new essays about the book's storied history and legacy. Admirers of W.O. Mitchell will cherish this edition, and a new generation of readers will discover this brilliant, timeless novel for the first time.

  • Author:
    Lapointe, Annette
    Summary:

    Finalist, ReLit Award. Finalist, McNally Robinson Book of the Year (Manitoba Book Awards). Finalist, Bisexual Book Award (USA).

    Whitetail Shooting Gallery, a new novel from award-winning author and Giller Prize nominee, Annette Lapointe, is set in the outer urban, often desolate, landscape of the Saskatchewan prairie. Cousins Jennifer and Jason live close together as small kids, exploring their rural home. They live in adjacent, sometimes overlapping, households. But one act of family violence begets another, and the cousins drift apart. By adolescence, the two are estranged. Jennifer grows closer to her best friend, Donna, an evangelical minister's daughter who rebels against her family by immersing herself in a world of vectors, fractals, perfect math, and porn. Jason's world is hockey. Donna likes his street-hockey bruises. Jason's also interested in Gordon, a semi-recluse ex-teacher who lives on the periphery of town and constructs art installations from leather, tamarack, animal skulls, and other found items. Horses, bears, kissing cousins, and other human animals conspire in a series of conflicts that result in accidental gunfire and scarring--both physical and emotional--that takes many years to heal.

    Praise for Whitetail Shooting Gallery: BC Books for BC Schools Pick "Imagine Alissa York's Fauna but in rural Saskatchewan and with all the sentimentality stripped away. Imagine lots of sex, kissing cousins, a gunshot to the face, and a set of teeth that get kicked in over and over again. Imagine a family farmhouse, country roads, the kind of place you might want to move to raise your kids if you don't look too closely. The hockey player, the pastor's daughter, how he's giving blow jobs to his teammates, and she's having sex with her best friend. ... Whitetail Shooting Gallery baffled me thoughout, disturbed and troubled me, but it also intrigued me, continually surprised me, never stopped me wondering what would happen next. It's an anti-pastoral, a complicated portrayal of rural life. ... Annette Lapointe's literary reputation was established with Stolen, which was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2006. And here in her second book, she's turning Can-Lit on its head, challenging not only her readers' sensibilities, but also ideas about what a novel should be. And the latter seems to be a requirement for the kind of book that I like best." (Pickle Me This) "Wintry, notably offbeat, written with an elegant precision, and at times slyly funny ... Lapointe's beautiful treatment of poète maudit subject matter never fails to impress." (The Vancouver Sun ) "In Whitetail Shooting Gallery, Lapointe gives us an animalistic view of the teen world. This is not small-town rural life as idyllic or pastoral. Lapointe's world reflects the turmoil, raging emotions and hormones brewing inside adolescents. ... the plot is almost secondary to Lapointe's vivid, powerful voice and her beautifully savage view of rural prairie life." (Winnipeg Free Press ) Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2012 Pick, 49th Shelf

  • Author:
    Rawls, Wilson
    Summary:

    A young boy living in the Ozarks achieves his heart's desire when he becomes the owner of two redbone hounds and teaches them to be champion hunters.

  • Author:
    Ward, Jesmyn
    Summary:

    Twin brothers struggle with the responsibilities of adulthood and family in the post-Katrina Mississippi Gulf coast.

  • Author:
    Owens, Delia
    Summary:

    For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say. Abandoned at age ten, she has survived on her own in the marsh that she calls home. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life lessons from the land, learning from the false signals of fireflies the real way of this world. But while she could have lived in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world -- until the unthinkable happens.

  • Author:
    Barnhill, Kelly Regan
    Summary:

    A rollicking feminist tale set in 1950s America where thousands of women have spontaneously transformed into dragons, exploding notions of a woman's place in the world and expanding minds about accepting others for who they really are. • The first adult novel by the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex's beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn't know. It's taboo to speak of. Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this astonishing event: a mother more protective than ever; an absentee father; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and watching her beloved cousin Bea become dangerously obsessed with the forbidden. In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the tyranny of forced limitations. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small--their lives and their prospects--and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve.

  • Author:
    Velasquez, Elisabet
    Summary:

    "The energy. The clarity. The beauty. Elisabet Velasquez brings it all. . . . Her voice is FIRE!"- New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline Woodson. An unforgettable, torrential, and hopeful debut young adult novel-in-verse that redefines what it means to "make it," for readers of Nicholasa Mohr and Elizabeth Acevedo. Sarai is a first-generation Puerto Rican eighth grader who can see with clarity the truth, pain, and beauty of the world both inside and outside her Bushwick apartment. Together with her older sister Estrella, she navigates the strain of family traumas and the systemic pressures of toxic masculinity and housing insecurity in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn. Sarai questions the society around her, her Boricua identity, and the life she lives with determination and an open heart, learning to celebrate herself in a way that she has been denied. When We Make It is a love letter to anyone who was taught to believe that they would not make it. To those who feel their emotions before they can name them. To those who still may not have all the language but they have their story. Velasquez' debut novel is sure to leave an indelible mark on all who read it.  

  • Author:
    Reid, Raziel
    Summary:

    School is just like a film set: there's The Crew that make things happen, The Extras who fill the empty desks, and The Movie Stars, whom everyone wants tagged in their Facebook photos. But Jude doesn't fit in. He's not part of The Crew because he isn't about to do anything unless it's court-appointed; he's not an Extra because nothing about him is anonymous; and he's not a Movie Star because even though everyone know his name like an A-lister, he isn't invited to the cool parties. As the director calls action, Jude is the flamer that lights the set on fire. Before everything turns to ashes from the resulting inferno, Jude drags his best friend Angela off the casting couch and into enough melodrama to incite the paparazzi, all while trying to fend off the haters and win the heart of his favourite co-star Luke Morris. It's a total train wreck! But train wrecks always make the front page.

  • Author:
    Decter, Nora
    Summary:

    The summer Bria Powers turns 16 is sinister. Waves of insects plague her hometown of Beauchamp, where fentanyl has recently infiltrated the drug stream. Forest fires muddy the normally wide-open skies, and everything smells like a barbecue all the time. It’s also the summer Bria goes from having saved a life to ruining her own. Since her drug-dealing father disappeared and his girlfriend overdosed, Bria has lived with her aunt Tash and best friend/cousin Ains. By day, Bria and Ains babysit Ains’s younger siblings and sling fast food at Burger Shack. But at night, Bria has her own secret world, sneaking out to see Someboy, an older guy who captivates her sometimes. Other times, he angers-insults-upends her, and that has a certain charm too. But trouble comes for Beauchamp and for Bria in the form of bears that wander into town, dick pics texted from a mystery number, and a creeping dependence on what Bria should hate most of all. Steeped in tragicomedy and written in starkly observed prose, What’s Not Mine explores inheritance, addiction, and survival when the odds are against you.

  • Author:
    Coster, Naima
    Summary:

    A community in the Piedmont of North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the largely Black east side of town into predominantly white high schools on the west. When Gee and Noelle join the school play meant to bridge the divide between new and old students, their paths collide, and their two seemingly disconnected families begin to form deeply knotted, messy ties that will shape the trajectory of their adult lives. And their mothers, each determined to see her child inherit a better life, will make choices that will haunt them for decades to come.

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