Top Grade Fall 2015 Selections (High School)

A young man is on a dangerous mission that will secure his future … or leave him dead.

Seventeen-year-old Diego dreams of a brighter future. His small town near the Mexican-United States border has been ravaged by the drug war, and the newspaper headlines are filled with body counts. Diego worries about his parents, particularly his tenderhearted father. Their road trips in his dad’s beloved, rusty Datsun are the only times the family can truly be carefree.

One day, Diego’s older brother Ern …

Winner, Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers
Not every story has a happy ending.

Since her brother's death, eight-year-old Egg Murakami has been living day-to-day on the family ostrich farm near Bittercreek, discovering life to be an ever-perplexing condition. Mama Murakami has curled up inside a bottle, and Papa has exiled himself to the barn with the birds. Big sister Kathy tells stories to Egg so that the world might not seem so awful.

The Murakami family is not happy. But in the h …

Dot, whose name reflects her stature, has always had big dreams—but her dreams have to be put on hold while she searches for the truth about her parents. She gets a job as a seamstress at a lakeside resort in rural Ontario and falls hard for Eddie, a charming local boy who is equal parts helpful and distracting as Dot investigates her past. Searching for answers to questions about her birth, Dot learns more than she ever wanted to about the terrible effects of war, the legacy of deceit—and t …

Jace has it all—money, cars and status. What he doesn’t have is a happy home life.

Forced to protect his brother from an abusive father and a neglectful mother, Jace lives a double life on the wrong side of the tracks, learning to box and trying to survive on his own merits while plotting to expose his father as the monster he is. Working reluctantly with two girls who have their own thoughts of vengeance, Jace finds that he is not as alone as he thought and that there are people he can trus …

Playing with Fire is the second in a series of mysteries featuring journalist and sleuth Claire Abbott.

Small-town journalist Claire Abbott has a sixth sense, what the fire chief calls a "radar for crime." When a string of suspicious fires breaks out in town, Claire thinks she knows who the firebug is. Or does she? She finds there is much more to the story than she imagined. Worse, no one will believe her. The firebug is getting bolder, and the fires he sets more dangerous. Claire is now in a rac …