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Bildungsromans

  • Union of Smokers, The
    Author:
    Scott, Paddy
    Summary:

    Kaspar Pine begins his day with a simple task: replace a pet canary. By day's end, as Kaspar is being loaded into an ambulance, he delivers one hell of a "theme essay," covering such subjects as his ability to source and...
  • Under the zaboca tree
    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...
  • Trust me
    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...
  • Thirteen shells
    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...
  • The night tiger : a novel
    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...
  • The Kite Runner
    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...
  • The cat's table
    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 "...
  • The boy who came in from the cold
    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...
  • Sons and lovers
    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.
  • Reading by lightning
    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...
  • Principle and propensity experience and religion in the nineteenth-century British and American bildungsroman
    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...
  • On Agate Hill
    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...
  • On a clear day
    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...
  • Night music
    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...
  • Mouthing the Words
    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...
  • Motherwild
    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...
  • Holbrook academy
    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...
  • Girl in Shades
    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...
  • For the Love of Mary
    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...
  • Fire starters
    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...

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