Best Teen & Young Adult Canadian Historical Fiction

With rambunctious six-year-old twins staying at Green Gables, a village "improvement" project that goes disastrously wrong, and her college entrance exams to study for, Anne will more than have her hands full. A tall, slim girl, "half-past sixteen," with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil. But an August afternoon, with blue hazes scarfing the harvest slopes, little winds whispering elfishly in the poplars, and a dancing splendor of red poppies outflaming against the dark coppice of young firs in a corner of the cherry orchard, was fitter for dreams than dead languages. The Virgil soon slipped unheeded to the ground, and Anne, her chin propped on her clasped hands, and her eyes on the splendid mass of fluffy clouds that were heaping up just over Mr. J. A. Harrison's house like a great white mountain, was far away in a delicious world where a certain schoolteacher was doing a wonderful work, shaping the destinies of future statesmen, and inspiring youthful minds and hearts with high and lofty ambitions. To be sure, if you came down to harsh facts...which, it must be confessed, Anne seldom did until she had to...it did not seem likely that there was much promising material for celebrities in Avonlea school; but you could never tell what might happen if a teacher used her influence for good. Anne had certain rose-tinted ideals of what a teacher might accomplish if she only went the right way about it; and she was in the midst of a delightful scene, forty years hence, with a famous personage...just exactly what he was to be famous for was left in convenient haziness, but Anne thought it would be rather nice to have him a college president or a Canadian premier...bowing low over her wrinkled hand and assuring her that it was she who had first kindled his ambition, and that all his success in life was due to the lessons she had instilled so long ago in Avonlea school. He bounced over the fence without waiting to open the gate, and angrily confronted astonished Anne, who had risen to her feet and stood looking at him in some bewilderment. In early April, before Anne had come home from Queen's, Mr. Robert Bell, whose farm adjoined the Cuthbert place on the west, had sold out and moved to Charlottetown. But before he had been a month in Avonlea he had won the reputation of being an odd person..."a crank," Mrs. Rachel Lynde said. John Henry mournfully averred that he would have starved to death if it wasn't that he got home on Sundays and got a good filling up, and that his mother always gave him a basket of "grub" to take back with him on Monday mornings. Mr. Allan's salary he said he'd wait and see how many dollars' worth of good he got out of his preaching first...he didn't believe in buying a pig in a poke. Mrs. Rachel got herself away and said it was a mercy poor Mrs. Robert Bell was safe in her grave, for it would have broken her heart to see the state of her house in which she used to take so much pride. "Why, she scrubbed the kitchen floor every second day," Mrs. Lynde told Marilla Cuthbert indignantly, "and if you could see it now! Besides, Ginger had bitten a piece right out of the back of John Henry's neck one day when he had stooped down too near the cage. All these things flashed through Anne's mind as Mr. Harrison stood, quite speechless with wrath apparently, before her. In his most amiable mood Mr. Harrison could not have been considered a handsome man; he was short and fat and bald; and now, with his round face purple with rage and his prominent blue eyes almost sticking out of his head, Anne thought he was really the ugliest person she had ever seen. She had been practicing it considerably of late to have it in good working order when school began; but it had no apparent effect on the irate J. The trouble is, miss, that I found that Jersey cow of your aunt's in my oats again, not half an hour ago. "If you mean Miss Marilla Cuthbert she is not my aunt, and she has gone down to East Grafton to see a distant relative of hers who is very ill," said Anne, with due increase of dignity at every word. You'd better go and look at the havoc that animal has made in my oats...trampled them from center to circumference, miss." It is your part of the line fence that separates your oat field from our pasture and I noticed the other day that it was not in very good condition." And I can tell you, you redheaded snippet, that if the cow is yours, as you say, you'd be better employed in watching her out of other people's grain than in sitting round reading yellow-covered novels,"...with a scathing glance at the innocent tan-colored Virgil by Anne's feet. I can easily imagine how very trying it must be to find a cow in your oats and I shall not cherish any hard feelings against you for the things you've said. "Well, mind you she doesn't," muttered Mr. Harrison in a somewhat subdued tone; but he stamped off angrily enough and Anne heard him growling to himself until he was out of earshot. Grievously disturbed in mind, Anne marched across the yard and shut the naughty Jersey up in the milking pen. I wish I'd sold her to Mr. Shearer when he wanted her last week, but I thought it was just as well to wait until we had the auction of the stock and let them all go together. Marilla Cuthbert was driving into the yard as Anne returned from the house, and the latter flew to get tea ready. We'll have to keep Dolly shut up in the pen till Martin comes, for she must be put in the back pasture and the fences there have to be fixed. "If you went to your own room at midnight, locked the door, pulled down the blind, and sneezed, Mrs. Lynde would ask you the next day how your cold was!" Then that shiftless Timothy Cotton family are going to move up from White Sands and they'll simply be a burden on the public. You remember his father, Marilla...Stephen Irving, him that jilted Lavendar Lewis over at Grafton?" "Well, anyway, he didn't marry her, and she's been as queer as possible ever since, they say...living all by herself in that little stone house she calls Echo Lodge. His wife died two years ago and he's sending the boy home to his mother for a spell. Mrs. Lynde looked upon all people who had the misfortune to be born or brought up elsewhere than in Prince Edward Island with a decided can-any-good-thing-come-out-of-Nazareth air. Her husband had been cheated out of ten dollars by an employer for whom he had once worked in Boston and neither angels nor principalities nor powers could have convinced Mrs. Rachel that the whole United States was not responsible for it. "Avonlea school won't be the worse for a little new blood," said Marilla drily, "and if this boy is anything like his father he'll be all right. Steve Irving was the nicest boy that was ever raised in these parts, though some people did call him proud. For instance, if we could coax Mr. Levi Boulter to pull down that dreadful old house on his upper farm wouldn't that be an improvement?" I don't want to discourage you, Anne, for there may be something in your idea, though I suppose you did get it out of some rubbishy Yankee magazine; but you'll have your hands full with your school and I advise you as a friend not to bother with your improvements, that's what. Gilbert Blythe, who was to teach in White Sands but would always be home from Friday night to Monday morning, was enthusiastic about it; and most of the other young folks were willing to go in for anything that meant occasional meetings and consequently some "fun."

There's never a dull moment when she moves into a cozy cottage with her girlfriends, gets adopted by a troublemaker of a cat, and helps her best friend Diana plan the most beautiful wedding Prince Edward Island has ever seen. "Harvest is ended and summer is gone," quoted Anne Shirley, gazing across the shorn fields dreamily. She and Diana Barry had been picking apples in the Green Gables orchard, but were now resting from their labors in a sunny corner, where airy fleets of thistledown drifted by on the wings of a wind that was still summer-sweet with the incense of ferns in the Haunted Wood. The sea was roaring hollowly in the distance, the fields were bare and sere, scarfed with golden rod, the brook valley below Green Gables overflowed with asters of ethereal purple, and the Lake of Shining Waters was blue-blue-blue; not the changeful blue of spring, nor the pale azure of summer, but a clear, steadfast, serene blue, as if the water were past all moods and tenses of emotion and had settled down to a tranquility unbroken by fickle dreams. "It has been a nice summer," said Diana, twisting the new ring on her left hand with a smile. I never walked through that room when Marilla sent me in on an errand-no, indeed, I tiptoed through it and held my breath, as if I were in church, and felt relieved when I got out of it. "‘So passes the glory of this world,'" concluded Anne, with a laugh in which there was a little note of regret. "Charlie Sloane will be a great comfort, of course," agreed Anne sarcastically; whereupon both those irresponsible damsels laughed. I shan't even have the comfort of looking forward to the weekend visit home, as I had when I went to Queen's. "I don't know-there are some nice things about it," answered Diana, again caressing her ring with that little smile which always had the effect of making Anne feel suddenly left out and inexperienced. In no time you'll be a staid, middle-aged matron, and I shall be nice, old maid Aunt Anne, coming to visit you in vacations. "You'll marry somebody splendid and handsome and rich-and no spare room in Avonlea will be half gorgeous enough for you-and you'll turn up your nose at all the friends of your youth." "That would be a pity; my nose is quite nice, but I fear turning it up would spoil it," said Anne, patting that shapely organ. "I haven't so many good features that I could afford to spoil those I have; so, even if I should marry the King of the Cannibal Islands, I promise you I won't turn up my nose at you, Diana." With another gay laugh the girls separated, Diana to return to Orchard Slope, Anne to walk to the Post Office. She found a letter awaiting her there, and when Gilbert Blythe overtook her on the bridge over the Lake of Shining Waters she was sparkling with the excitement of it. I feel that I can face an army with banners-or all the professors of Redmond in one fell phalanx-with a chum like Priscilla by my side." "I wonder if it will be-can be-any more beautiful than this," murmured Anne, looking around her with the loving, enraptured eyes of those to whom "home" must always be the loveliest spot in the world, no matter what fairer lands may lie under alien stars. They were leaning on the bridge of the old pond, drinking deep of the enchantment of the dusk, just at the spot where Anne had climbed from her sinking Dory on the day Elaine floated down to Camelot. The fine, empurpling dye of sunset still stained the western sides, but the moon was rising and the water lay like a great, silver dream in her light. Remembrance wove a sweet and subtle spell over the two young creatures. "I'm afraid to speak or move for fear all this wonderful beauty will vanish just like a broken silence," breathed Anne. Gilbert suddenly laid his hand over the slender white one lying on the rail of the bridge. His hazel eyes deepened into darkness, his still boyish lips opened to say something of the dream and hope that thrilled his soul. "Marilla had a headache this afternoon, and I'm sure the twins will be in some dreadful mischief by this time. She chattered ceaselessly and inconsequently until they reached the Green Gables lane. There had been a new, secret self-consciousness in her heart with regard to Gilbert, ever since that fleeting moment of revelation in the garden of Echo Lodge. Anne had an uneasy doubt that it was not strictly "sensible" that she should still feel on her hand the warm pressure of Gilbert's, as distinctly as she had felt it for the swift second his had rested there; and still less sensible that the sensation was far from being an unpleasant one-very different from that which had attended a similar demonstration on Charlie Sloane's part, when she had been sitting out a dance with him at a White Sands party three nights before. But all problems connected with infatuated swains vanished from her mind when she entered the homely, unsentimental atmosphere of the Green Gables kitchen where an eight-year-old boy was crying grievously on the sofa. "I ain't crying 'cause Dora fell down cellar," said Davy, cutting short Anne's well-meant preachment with increasing bitterness. "Would you call it fun to see poor little Dora fall down the steps and get hurt?" Then she laughed, reminding herself that Mrs. Boulter's crude vulgarity of thought and speech could not harm her. "‘Shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings,'" quoted Anne. I want to know," persisted Davy, for whom the subject evidently possessed a certain fascination. After Davy had gone to bed Anne wandered down to Victoria Island and sat there alone, curtained with fine-spun, moonlit gloom, while the water laughed around her in a duet of brook and wind. She forgot lovelorn youths, and the cayenne speeches of malicious neighbors, and all the problems of her girlish existence. In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of "faëry lands forlorn," where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot, to the land of Heart's Desire.

What Readers Are Saying: "The sweetest romance I have ever read, full of laugh-out-loud moments and obnoxious 'villains'...on par with Jane Austen's best." All her life, Valancy Stirling lived on a quiet little street in an ugly little house and never dared to contradict her domineering mother and her unforgiving aunt. Montgomery book, and I'm a huge 'Anne' fan!...I loved the drama and the romance, and the beautiful descriptions of the Canadian wilds. "I finished reading The Blue Castle with the same engrossed delight I had in meeting Anne Shirley years ago." But Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that Romance would come her way yet-never, until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man. And she was afraid her mother would notice her red eyes at breakfast and keep at her with minute, persistent, mosquito-like questions regarding the cause thereof. "Suppose," thought Valancy with a ghastly grin, "I answered with the plain truth, ‘I am crying because I cannot get married.'. "It is not," Valancy could hear her mother's prim, dictatorial voice asserting, "it is not maidenly to think about men." The thought of her mother's expression made Valancy laugh-for she had a sense of humor nobody in her clan suspected. But her laughter was very superficial and presently she lay there, a huddled, futile little figure, listening to the rain pouring down outside and watching, with a sick distaste, the chill, merciless light creeping into her ugly, sordid room. The yellow-painted floor, with one hideous, "hooked" rug by the bed, with a grotesque, "hooked" dog on it, always grinning at her when she awoke; the faded, dark red paper; the ceiling discolored by old leaks and crossed by cracks; the narrow, pinched little washstand; the brown-paper lambrequin with purple roses on it; the spotted old looking-glass with the crack across it, propped up on the inadequate dressing-table; the jar of ancient potpourri made by her mother in her mythical honeymoon; the shell-covered box, with one burst corner, which Cousin Stickles had made in her equally mythical girlhood; the beaded pincushion with half its bead fringe gone; the one stiff, yellow chair; the faded old motto, "Gone but not forgotten," worked in colored yarns about Great-grandmother Stirling's grim old face; the old photographs of ancient relatives long banished from the rooms below. The other picture was a faded, passe-partouted engraving of Queen Louise coming down a stairway, which Aunt Wellington had lavishly given her on her tenth birthday. Mother and Cousin Stickles would have been aghast, or, as Valancy irreverently expressed it in her thoughts, would have had a fit. Valancy, so cowed and subdued and overridden and snubbed in real life, was wont to let herself go rather splendidly in her daydreams. They never knew that Valancy had two homes-the ugly red brick box of a home, on Elm Street, and the Blue Castle in Spain. Always, when she shut her eyes, she could see it plainly, with its turrets and banners on the pine-clad mountain height, wrapped in its faint, blue loveliness, against the sunset skies of a fair and unknown land. Jewels that queens might have worn; robes of moonlight and fire; couches of roses and gold; long flights of shallow marble steps, with great, white urns, and with slender, mist-clad maidens going up and down them; courts, marble-pillared, where shimmering fountains fell and nightingales sang among the myrtles; halls of mirrors that reflected only handsome knights and lovely women-herself the loveliest of all, for whose glance men died. One who wooed her with all the romantic ardor of the age of chivalry and won her after long devotion and many deeds of derring-do, and was wedded to her with pomp and circumstance in the great, banner-hung chapel of the Blue Castle. At twelve, this lover was a fair lad with golden curls and heavenly blue eyes. Valancy never grew older than twenty-five in her Blue Castle, but recently-very recently-her hero had had reddish, tawny hair, a twisted smile and a mysterious past. As far as she could look back, life was drab and colorless, with not one single crimson or purple spot anywhere. The moment when a woman realizes that she has nothing to live for-neither love, duty, purpose nor hope-holds for her the bitterness of death. Aunt Wellington, of whom Valancy stood in abject awe, would tell her about Olive's new chiffon dress and Cecil's last devoted letter. Valancy would have to look as pleased and interested as if the dress and letter had been hers or else Aunt Wellington would be offended. Aunt Alberta, enormously fat, with an amiable habit of always referring to her husband as "he," as if he were the only male creature in the world, who could never forget that she had been a great beauty in her youth, would condole with Valancy on her sallow skin-"I don't know why all the girls of today are so sunburned. And once, six years ago, a silver teaspoon from Aunt Wellington's wedding set had been lost. Since there would be no picnic, Valancy made up her mind that, if the rain held up in the afternoon, she would go up to the library and get another of John Foster's books. They were "nature books"-so the librarian told Mrs. Frederick Stirling-"all about the woods and birds and bugs and things like that, you know." It was permissible, even laudable, to read to improve your mind and your religion, but a book that was enjoyable was dangerous. Valancy did not know whether her mind was being improved or not; but she felt vaguely that if she had come across John Foster's books years ago life might have been a different thing for her. "Oh-well-" Miss Clarkson smiled in a patronizing fashion that relegated Valancy's opinions to limbo, "I can't say I care much for bugs myself. It was not John Foster's uncanny knowledge of wild creatures and insect life that enthralled her. She could hardly say what it was-some tantalizing lure of a mystery never revealed-some hint of a great secret just a little further on-some faint, elusive echo of lovely, forgotten things-John Foster's magic was indefinable. It had come rather often lately, and the palpitations were becoming annoying, not to speak of an occasional dizzy moment and a queer shortness of breath. None of the Stirlings ever consulted a doctor without holding a family council and getting Uncle James' approval. As for his bill, she had the two hundred dollars that her father had put in the bank for her the day she was born, but she would secretly take out enough to pay Dr. Trent. Dr. Trent was a gruff, outspoken, absentminded old fellow, but he was a recognized authority on heart-disease, even if he were only a general practitioner in out-of-the-world Deerwood. None of the Stirling clan had ever gone to him since he had told Cousin Gladys, ten years before, that her neuritis was all imaginary and that she enjoyed it.

An in-depth look at the concept and watercolor artwork of the film "My Neighbor Totoro," the story of children who discover a new world in a tree trunk inhabited by magical creatures called Totoros, which can't be seen by adults. Hayao Miyazaki is the prominent director of many popular animated feature films.

This compelling story of adventure, romance, and intrigue, set in ancient Egypt, was written by the three-time Newbery Honor and Edgar Award winning author Eloise Jarvis McGraw. She also contributed to the Oz series started by L. Frank Baum; working with her daughter, graphic artist and librarian Lauren Lynn McGraw, she wrote Merry Go Round in Oz (the last of the Oz books issued by Baum's publisher) and The Forbidden Fountain of Oz .

All three books in the #1 New York Times bestselling Infernal Devices trilogy, are now available together in a collectible paperback boxed set. Enter the secret world of the Shadowhunters with this handsomely packaged boxed set that includes Clockwork Angel , Clockwork Prince , and Clockwork Princess . She is the coauthor of The Bane Chronicles with Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson and Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy with Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, and Robin Wasserman, as well as The Shadowhunter’s Codex, which she cowrote with her husband, Joshua Lewis.

#1 New York Times Bestseller A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One Nights. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. You will fall in love, just as I did.”— Marie Lu , New York Times bestselling author of the Legend series and The Young Elites “In her absorbing debut, Renée Ahdieh spins a tale as mesmerizing as that of her heroine Shahrzad, filled with lush details and brimming with tension. The Wrath and the Dawn is truly an exceptional story, beautifully written .”— Carrie Ryan , New York Times bestselling author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth “Ahdieh weaves a world that is lush with detail .

Rachel Hartman’s award-winning debut will have you looking at dragons as you’ve never imagined them before… Seraphina is a half-dragon, descended from a dragon mother who took human form and a father who has no particular fondness for Seraphina’s kind. Seraphina guards her true self with all of her being, but when a member of the royal family is brutally murdered, she’s suddenly thrust into the spotlight, drawn into the investigation alongside the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian. "—Christopher Paolini, New York Times bestselling author of Eragon. Amazon Best Teen Book of the Month, July 2012 : In Seraphina , dragons and humans maintain an uneasy peace and for a woman who is both there is nowhere to turn for acceptance--not even within herself. Seraphina has spent her young life concealing the truth of her parentage and authentic nature, a task that proves ever more difficult when she is thrust into the spotlight of the royal court. As the anniversary of the treaty between the two sides approaches, court intrigue reaches a fever pitch and hard-won truths, betrayals, and intricacies of the heart are laid bare. She is in charge of Princess Glisselda's music lessons; she books performers for the 40-year celebration of the peace treaty between dragons and humans, and she rehearses the rowdy court musicians. When she plays the solo for the funeral of the realm's murdered prince, Seraphina is suddenly raised into entirely new, visible levels of peril. Seraphina fears that if she tells the prince and the princess what she is, they'll hate her forever, but their work to preserve the treaty celebrations is bringing them closer together.

The 10th-anniversary edition of the #1 New York Times bestseller and modern classic beloved by millions of readers. Markus Zusak is the author of I Am the Messenger, a Printz Honor Book and LA Times Book Award finalist, and the international bestseller, The Book Thief.

A delightful adveture full of humor and heart set in Elizabethan England! Widge is an orphan with a rare talent for shorthand. Widge mentions square city blocks, describes his dinner kept warm on the back of the stove and notes that a man wounded in a duel had recovered in a hospitalAthis in an age of unplanned cities, meals cooked over open fires and hospitals that were for terminally ill paupers. Lonely outcast Widge is a sympathetic character, but his frequent shifts in voice from Yorkshire dialect to 20th-century American slang may be disconcerting to readers, and the villainy of Widge's nemesis seems all too familiar. Each voice is tailored to fit the subtleties of the character, as in the wicked Falconer.

The 10th-anniversary edition of the #1 New York Times bestseller and modern classic beloved by millions of readers. Markus Zusak is the author of I Am the Messenger, a Printz Honor Book and LA Times Book Award finalist, and the international bestseller, The Book Thief.

He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. and ultimately, as Jesus says to Daniel on page 224: “Can’t you see, Daniel, it is hate that is the enemy? Elizabeth George Speare (1908-1994) won the 1959 Newbery Medal for THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND, and the 1962 Newbery Medal for THE BRONZE BOW. She also received a Newbery Honor Award in 1983, and in 1989 she was presented with the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for her substantial and enduring contribution to children’s literature.

But now Joseph Bruchac brings their stories to life for young adults through the riveting fictional tale of Ned Begay, a sixteen-year-old Navajo boy who becomes a code talker. At 16, he enlists in the U.S. Marines during World War II and is trained as a code talker, using his native language to radio battlefield information and commands in a code that was kept secret until 1969. Rooted in his Navajo consciousness and traditions even in dealing with fear, loneliness, and the horrors of the battlefield, Ned tells of his experiences in Hawaii, Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

The world of Newbery Honor Book Shabanu is vividly re-created in this novel of a young Pakistani woman's heartbreaking struggle against the tyranny of custom and ancient law. While Rahim plans to consolidate family holdings through two marriages--of his spiteful daughter Leyla to her cousin Omar, just returned from the US with a graduate degree; and of his only son Ahmed, a foolish, slobbering idiot, to lovely Zabo, Shabanu's dear friend, daughter of Rahim's vicious brother Nazir (villain of the first book)--the intrigues against Shabanu and Mumtaz escalate. The two find temporary sanctuary in the haveli (mansion) of Rahim's widowed sister in Lahore, where Shabanu helps Zabo hide, in hope of escape, much of the money Nazir has given her for a trousseau; and where Shabanu falls in love--poignantly, without hope--with Omar.

When soldiers arrive in his hometown, Arn is just a normal little boy. Arn's never played a note in his life, but he volunteers. “This compelling chronicle deserves to be widely read, discussed, and reflected upon by a generation of young people who may be largely unaware of this dark chapter in world history.” (Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review) ). Praise for PURPLE HEART: “In this suspenseful psychological thriller…McCormick raises moral questions without judgment and will have readers examining not only this conflict but the nature of heroism and war.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review) ).

Sweeping a path from the sleepy English coast to the raging high seas to a tropical island concealing a buried treasure, this story of friendship and greed, loyalty and courage stars an unforgettable cast of characters: young Jim Hawkins, the terrifying Blind Pew, the wild man Ben Gunn, and one of literature’s most dastardly villains, the charming, crafty, and utterly unscrupulous Long John Silver. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), the Scottish-born, world-renowned poet and novelist, is best known for TREASURE ISLAND but wrote countless books for children and adults, including A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES and THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE.