BC Books for BC Schools 2018/19

Born on a cotton plantation in South Carolina, twelve-year-old Rebecca knows only slavery. But when Grower Brown decides to sell her father to a plantation downriver, Rebecca convinces her parents to run away with her on the Underground Railroad to Canada. Led by the famous Harriet "Moses" Tubman, the family hides in coffins, rides a handmade raft through alligator-infested waters, and pumps hand cars across Illinois amidst a blizzard. Escaping federal marshals and bounty hunters isn't easy, but …

The month of Ramadan offers the opportunity to improve one's personal and spiritual behavior. By focusing on positive thoughts and actions, Muslims build a closer connection with God and come away from the month feeling spiritually renewed. Ramadan: The Holy Month of Fasting explores the richness and diversity of the Islamic tradition by focusing on an event of great spiritual significance and beauty in the lives of Muslims. Rich with personal stories and stunning photographs, Ramadan demystifie …

In 1888, a prosperous industrial family in Calne, Wiltshire, sent one of its younger sons, a lad judged to have no head for business, to Guelph Agricultural College in Ontario to learn to be a farmer.

Joseph Colebrook Harris, the author’s grandfather, didn’t take to Ontario and after visiting a friend on Salt Spring Island, fell in love with BC. Eventually fetching up on the shores of the Slocan Lake, Joe bought 270 acres of hilly land in the Slocan Valley, less than thirty acres of which was …

In 1970, twenty-two-year-old Thom Henley left Michigan and drifted around the northwest coast, getting by on odd jobs and advice from even odder characters. He rode the rails, built a squatter shack on a beach, came to be known as "Huckleberry" and embarked on adventures along the West Coast and abroad that, just like his Mark Twain namesake, situated him in all the right and wrong places at all the right and wrong times. Eventually, a hippie named Stormy directed him to Haida Gwaii where, upon …

A beautifully illustrated 30th anniversary celebration of Rick Hansen's Man in Motion Tour, which broke barriers for people with disabilities and inspired ordinary citizens to realize impossible dreams.

On March 21, 1985, world-class wheelchair marathoner and multiple Paralympic medalist Rick Hansen set out from Vancouver, British Columbia, on his Man in Motion World Tour. The twenty-six-month trek took him and a small but determined crew almost 25,000 miles through 34 countries on four continent …

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR by The New Yorker and Science News

What happens when you try to recreate a woolly mammoth—fascinating science, or conservation catastrophe? Jurassic Park meets The Sixth Extinction in Rise of the Necrofauna, a provocative look at de-extinction from acclaimed documentarist and science writer Britt Wray, PhD.

In Rise of the Necrofauna, Wray takes us deep into the minds and labs of some of the world’s most progressive thinkers to find out. She introduces …

"Vallely transports the reader to places few will ever go: the very edges of the earth and of human endurance."
—Evan Solomon

In this gripping first-hand account, four seasoned adventurers navigate a sophisticated, high-tech rowboat across the Northwest Passage. One of the "last firsts" remaining in the adventure world, this journey is only possible because of the dramatic impacts of global warming in the high Arctic, which provide an ironic opportunity to draw attention to the growing urgency …

Found in public spaces and parks, art galleries and university buildings, along riverbanks as well as in city squares, private gardens and even underwater, Canadian sculpture encompasses a range of materials and styles from traditional bone and bronze to postmodern multimedia installations. As this book demonstrates, artistic intentions among the nation's sculptors, whether political, social, theoretical or aesthetic, are as diverse as Canada itself.

The distinguished cultural historian Maria Ti …