2024 TRCA Winner

The results are in! 360 votes were cast and the winner is Promise Boys by Nick Brooks. Described as a  “page-turning thriller perfect for fans of Karen McManus, Jason Reynolds, Angie Thomas, and Holly Jackson,” Brooks' novel received 42 percent of the vote. 

Voting ended on May 17th, and CCRCE library staff is pleased to announce the following results. 

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks  (152)

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds  (39)

A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy Lin (38)

The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum  (34)

As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh  (33)

The Well by Jake Wyatt and Choo (29)

Little Monarchs by Jonathan Case (12)

Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley (11)

Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Monique Gray Smith (9)

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jan Ferguson (3)

• The staff winner was As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh 
• The winner of the Coles Gift Card was Em Pratt. 

Vote Now!

Voting for your favourite book from this list will take place from May 13th until May 17th. A winner will be announced on May 21st. CEC students will be able to vote electronically on the TRCA blog or in the library by paper ballot. If you vote, and your name is drawn, you will win a Cole's gift card. 

 

2024 Teen Reader's Choice Award

Attention all CEC students! It’s time to participate in this year's CCRCE Teen Readers' Choice Award program. This year's top ten books are as follows:

• A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin 
• As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh 
• Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, adapted by Monique Gray Smith, and illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt
• Little Monarchs by Jonathan Case 
• Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
• The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum
• The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson
• The Well by Jake Wyatt and Choo 
• Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley 
• We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds 

Beginning on February 12th, participants are encouraged to read one or more of these books and discuss the titles with other CCRCE students and staff. Voting for your favourite book from this list will take place from May 13th until May 17th. A winner will be announced on May 21st. Students will be able to vote electronically online or in the library by paper ballot.

In addition to in-person discussions, and the TRCA blog, CCRCE is introducing the hashtag #LEAP2024 this year to further build the conversation around literature. 

African Heritage Month

 Visit African Nova Scotian Affairs Website

This year’s African Heritage Month provincial theme, Our Smiles, Our Joy, Our Resilience as African Nova Scotians, the spirit of perseverance that people of African Descent have demonstrated over the centuries in our province. African Heritage Month provides us another opportunity to celebrate our culture, legacy, achievements and contributions of our people – past and present.

New Fiction

A Study in Drowning

“Effy Sayre has always believed in fairy tales. Haunted by visions of the Fairy King since childhood, she's had no choice. Her tattered copy of Angharad, Emrys Myrddin's epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, then destroys him, is the only thing keeping her afloat. So when Myrddin's family announces a contest to redesign the late author's estate, Effy feels certain it's her destiny. But musty, decrepit Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task, and its residents are far from welcoming. Including Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar determined to expose Myrddin as a fraud. As the two rivals piece together clues about Myrddin's legacy, dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspire against them, and the truth may bring them both to ruin.” -Amazon

Divine Rivals: A Novel

Letters of Enchantment; Book One

“After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette. To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish—into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.” -Amazon

Ruthless Vows

Letters of Enchantment; Book Two

“Two weeks have passed since Iris Winnow returned home bruised and heartbroken from the front, but the war is far from over. Roman is missing, and the city of Oath continues to dwell in a state of disbelief and ignorance. When Iris and Attie are given another chance to report Dacre's movement, they both take the opportunity and head westward once more despite the danger, knowing it's only a matter of time before the conflict reaches a city that's unprepared and fracturing. Since waking below in Dacre's realm, Roman cannot remember his past. But given the reassurance that his memories will return in time, Roman begins to write articles for Dacre, uncertain of his place in the greater scheme of the war. When a strange letter arrives by wardrobe door, Roman is first suspicious, then intrigued. As he strikes up a correspondance with his mysterious pen pal, Roman will soon have to make a decision: to stand with Dacre or betray the god who healed him. As the days grow darker, inevitably drawing Roman and Iris closer together, the two of them will risk their very hearts and futures to turn the tides of the war.” -Amazon

Thieves' Gambit

“At only seventeen years old, Ross Quest is already a master thief, especially adept at escape plans. Until her plan to run away from her legendary family of thieves takes an unexpected turn, leaving her mother’s life hanging in the balance.

In a desperate bid, she enters the Thieves’ Gambit, a series of dangerous, international heists where killing the competition isn’t exactly off limits, but the grand prize is a wish for anything in the world—a wish that could save her mom. When she learns two of her competitors include her childhood nemesis and a handsome, smooth-talking guy who might also want to steal her heart, winning the Gambit becomes trickier than she imagined.

Ross tries her best to stick to the family creed: trust no one whose last name isn’t Quest. But with the stakes this high, Ross will have to decide who to con and who to trust before time runs out. After all, only one of them can win.” -Amazon

Righting Canada's Wrongs

Righting Canada's Wrongs: Anti-Semitism and the MS St. Louis: Canada's Anti-Semitic Policies in the Twentieth Century by Rona Arato

"Prior to the Second World War, Canada's Jewish community was well established in many cities. As war grew closer, countries around the world closed their doors to Jewish refugees. In 1939, the MS St. Louis sailed for Cuba with nearly a thousand Jewish men, women, and children looking for safety. They were turned away by Cuba, then the US. The ship sailed on to Canada.

Despite pleas from the Canadian Jewish community, the government refused to allow the passengers to land in Canada. After war broke out, Canada continued to refuse Jewish refugees entry. When Britain forced Canada to take some refugees in, Canada imprisoned them in internment camps ― alongside Nazis. Some of these Jewish refugees were only teenagers.

Three years after the war ended and after the horrors of the Holocaust were universally known, Canada finally changed immigration policies and begin to accept Jews equally with other immigrants.” -Amazon

Other books in this collection currently available through the CEC library include:

Righting Canada's Wrongs: Africville: An African Nova Scotian Community Is Demolished ― and Fights Back

Righting Canada's Wrongs: Japanese Canadian Internment in the Second World War

Righting Canada's Wrongs: Residential Schools: The Devastating Impact on Canada's Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Findings and Calls for Action

Righting Canada's Wrongs: The LGBT Purge and the fight for equal rights in Canada

New Nonfiction

Gas! The Battle for Ypres, 1915 by J. McWilliams and R. J. Steel

“By 1915, the Western Front had descended into deadlock. Near the town of Ypres soldiers from Canada, Britain, India, France, Belgium, the French Colonies and Germany sat in long winding trenches facing each other. German commanders sought to break through the Allied lines by using a new weapon: chlorine gas. At five o’clock on 22nd April 1915 German troops opened the valves on their deadly steel cylinders and chemical warfare entered the First World War.” -Amazon

Seeking Social Democracy: Seven Decades in the Fight for Equality by Edward Broadbent, Frances Abele, et al.

“Part memoir, part history, part political manifesto, Seeking Social Democracy offers the first full-length treatment of Ed Broadbent’s ideas and remarkable seven-decade engagement in public life. In dialogue with three collaborators from different generations, Broadbent leads readers through a life spent fighting for equality in Parliament and beyond.” -Amazon

The Rise of Devils: Fear and the Origins of Modern Terrorism by James Crossland

“In the dying light of the nineteenth century, the world came to know and fear terrorism. Much like today, this was a time of progress and dread, in which breakthroughs in communications and weapons were made, political reforms were implemented and immigration waves bolstered the populations of ever-expanding cities. This era also simmered with political rage and social inequalities, which drove nationalists, nihilists, anarchists and republicans to dynamite cities and discharge pistols into the bodies of presidents, police chiefs and emperors. This wave of terrorism was seized upon by an outrage-hungry press that peddled hysteria, conspiracy theories and, sometimes, fake news in response, convincing many a reader that they were living through the end of days. Against the backdrop of this world of fear and disorder, The Rise of Devils chronicles the journeys of the men and women who evoked this panic and created modern terrorism.” -Publisher

The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and George Douglas Howard Cole

“Rejecting the view that anyone has a natural right to wield authority over others, Rousseau argues instead for a pact, or 'social contract', that should exist between all the citizens of a state and that should be the source of sovereign power. From this fundamental premise, he goes on to consider issues of liberty and law, freedom and justice, arriving at a view of society that has seemed to some a blueprint for totalitarianism, to others a declaration of democratic principles.” -Amazon

New Nonfiction

“Botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer's best-selling book Braiding Sweetgrass is adapted for a young adult audience by children's author Monique Gray Smith, bringing Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the lessons of plant life to a new generation.” -WorldCat

"An exploration of the fascinating poetry, life, and world of Sappho, including a complete translation of all her poems.” -WorldCat

“Jean-Jacques Rousseau is among the most important and influential thinkers in the history of political philosophy. This edition brings together translations of three of Rousseau's works: the Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, and On the Social Contract.” WorldCat

An engrossing biography of Hatshepsut, the longest-reigning female pharaoh in Ancient Egypt and the story of her audacious rise to power.

Explores the lives of six remarkable female pharaohs, from Hatshepsut to Cleopatra--women who ruled with real power.

“In 1914, Ypres was a sleepy Belgian city admired for its magnificent Gothic architecture. The arrival of the rival armies in October 1914 transformed it into a place known throughout the world, each of the combatants associating the place with it its own particular palette of values and imagery.” -WorldCat

"Demon in the Wood" Graphic Novel

Discover the start of a grand and sinister destiny in Demon in the Wood , the must-have graphic novel prequel to the bestselling series and international Netflix sensation Shadow and Bone from spectacular new talent Dani Pendergast and #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo. 

"Before he led Ravka's Second Army, before he created the Fold, and long before he became the Darkling, he was just a lonely boy burdened by an extraordinary power. Eryk and his mother, Lena, have spent their lives on the run. But they will never find a safe haven. They are not only Grisha, they are the deadliest and rarest of their kind. Feared by those who wish to destroy them and hunted by those who would exploit their gifts, they must hide their true abilities wherever they go. But sometimes deadly secrets have a way of revealing themselves. -WorldCat