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Bildungsromans

  • Author:
    Guevara, Glynis
    Summary:

    At ten, Melody Sparks, better known as Baby Girl, is excited to move to the tropical island of Trinidad with her single-parent dad, but she silently longs for her mother, a woman she can’t recall ever meeting and doesn’t have a photo of...

  • Author:
    Erno, Jeff
    Summary:

    Shawn Graham and Bobby Wilder couldn’t be more different. Shawn is a devout Christian fundamentalist from northern Michigan; Bobby is a street-smart latchkey kid from southern Ohio. From an early age, they are both confused and troubled...

  • Author:
    Bozak, Nadia
    Summary:

    Spanning the late 1970s to the late 1980s, Nadia Bozak’s thirteen stories are narrated from the perspective of Shell, the only child of bohemian artisans determined to live off their handicrafts and uphold a left-wing lifestyle. At the...

  • Author:
    Choo, Yangsze
    Summary:

    This program is read by the author. A sweeping historical audiobook about a dancehall girl and an orphan boy whose fates entangle over an old Chinese superstition about men who turn into tigers. Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck...

  • Author:
    Hosseini, Khaled
    Summary:

    Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable, beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Raised in the same household and sharing...

  • Author:
    Ondaatje, Michael
    Summary:

    In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the "cat's table"--as far from the Captain's Table as can be--with a ragtag group of "...

  • Author:
    Thomas, B. G.
    Summary:

    Todd Burton has had enough of small-town Buckman. His abusive stepfather calls him a fag; his friend Austin makes him realize he may be gay, but Todd doesn’t want to admit his stepfather is right; and he dreams of being a chef. Three...

  • Author:
    LAWRENCE, D. H
    Summary:

    A detailed account of the life of Paul Morrell, son of a mining family in an English colliery town, and of his emotional attachment to his mother and in turn, to two young women Miriam and Clara, despite his mother's opposition.

  • Author:
    Thomas, Joan
    Summary:

    Winner, Commonwealth Writers Prize, Canada and the Caribbean, Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and On the Same Page, Manitoba Reads. Shortlisted, Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book, Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, and...

  • Author:
    Bennett, Kelsey L.
    Summary:

    Scholars have for many years now relied upon the largely unexamined assumption that the nineteenth-century Bildungsroman in the Goethean tradition is somehow an intrinsically secular genre exclusive to Europe, incompatible with the...

  • Author:
    Smith, Lee
    Summary:

    On Agate Hill is set in North Carolina in the years from 1872 to1927, and also in the present. The novel evokes the South in Reconstruction from an honest female perspective. It is the exuberantly romantic and episodic story of Molly...

  • Author:
    DOUGHTY, Anne
    Summary:

    Clare Hamilton is just nine years old when her childhood is abruptly ended with the death of both her parents in the typhoid epidemic of 1946. When her Granny Scott dies, she seizes her chance to return to Salter's Grange to take...

  • Author:
    Thorne, Jenn Marie
    Summary:

    Ruby has always been Ruby Chertok: future classical pianist and daughter of renowned composer Martin Chertok. But after her horrendous audition for the prestigious music school where her father is on faculty, it's clear that music has...

  • Author:
    Camilla Gibb
    Summary:

    "Thelma is not yet six years old at the outset of this tale, and already the world shows no promise of accomodating itself to her desires. Still, Thelma tries - by asking practically every adult she meets to adopt her. Not that she...

  • Author:
    Rivard, Ken
    Summary:

    Motherwild is an unvarnished journey of the struggle to survive on a violent and dangerous yet loving and alive Montreal working-class street. Set over the course of a year beginning in December 1959, Joey Cantell faces the personal...

  • Author:
    Ocean, Dean
    Summary:

    Growing up is hard. Growing up in a society that silences anyone different is next to impossible. In 1925, the quiet, artistic Paul Blakely is turning seventeen and still hasn’t figured out what he wants to do with his life. His...

  • Author:
    Baggio, Allison
    Summary:

    Eleven-year-old Maya Devine has grown up with a warped view of reality. For one, she sees colour around people’s bodies and can sometimes hear what’s going on inside their heads. These insights make everyone a bit more interesting, but...

  • Author:
    Meades, Christopher
    Summary:

    A hilarious coming-of-age novel about the pain of young love, family secrets, and sick ferrets

    Fifteen-year-old Jacob feels almost on the inside: almost smart, almost funny, almost good-looking, almost worthy of falling...

  • Author:
    Storm, Jen
    Summary:

    Looking for a little mischief after discovering an old flare gun, Ron and Ben find themselves in trouble when the local gas bar on Agamiing Reserve goes up in flames, and they are wrongly accused of arson by the sheriff's son. As the...

  • Author:
    Gunnery, Sylvia
    Summary:

    Seventeen-year-old Emily's world crumbles when her boyfriend dumps her and when she thinks her life can’t possibly get any worse, a series of secrets are revealed that threaten to tear her beloved family apart. Emily feels like she has...

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