SecondStoryPress Latest Books

A Chanukah Noel

SecondStoryPress — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:16:55 -0400

A Christmas at Chanukah?

Charlotte and her family have just moved to a small town in France. There is a lot to get used to – a new language, new friends, a new school. Even the milk tastes different. As Christmas draws near, Charlotte is amazed to see the town transform itself. The streets are decorated, the shops are full of presents, and the smells of cinnamon and chocolate fill the air. Charlotte, who is Jewish, longs to have a Christmas too. Can she find a way to celebrate the spirit of both Christmas and Chanukah?

Old Photographs

SecondStoryPress — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:12:26 -0400

Coming this Fall...

Summer vacation turns into a real-life mystery tale for a teen detective

Fourteen-year-old Phoebe Hecht is slowly making her way through the long boring days of summer vacation. It doesn’t help that her mom’s marriage to a wealthy heart surgeon means that they’ve left their old, comfortable lives behind – so much so that her mom now seems ashamed at the merest mention of their humble beginnings. Now they live in a fancy Toronto neighborhood where she doesn’t belong, and the only friend she made at her new school, Yuri Kimura, has gone to Tokyo for the summer. The only thing getting Pheobe through the summer is her obsession with Agatha Christie mysteries and her covert spying on Colin, her crush who works at the local grocery store.

A chance meeting with a kind elderly neighbor named Mrs. Tomblin changes everything and brings all Phoebe’s interests together. When Mrs. Tomblin is robbed and assaulted she can’t remember anything about what happened, due to the fact that she is in the early stages of dementia. It is up to Phoebe and Colin to try and solve the mystery of the robbery. Could Mrs. Tomblin’s collection of old photographs be at the centre of the puzzle?

Dazzling Women Designers

SecondStoryPress — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:08:28 -0400

Coming this Fall...

Women who have shaped the world, from architecture and urban design to fashion and robotics

In the early 1900s, UK furniture designer Eileen Gray was at the forefront of Art Deco. American Suzanne E. Vanderbilt was one of the first women to design for General Motors. Canadian urban designer Jane Jacobs caused controversy in the 1960s with her campaign against a New York expressway.

The other women profiled are:

Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander

Roboticist Cynthia Breazeal

costume designer Eiko Ishioka

interior designer Aissatou Djionne

fashion designers Ritu Kumar and Vera Wang

architect Zaha Hadid

The Orphan Rescue

SecondStoryPress — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:00:49 -0400

Miriam and her little brother, David, are poor. They don’t have much, but they have their grandparents who love them.

Miriam is upset when she has to leave school to work in a butcher shop. But something even worse happens when, because their grandparents can no longer afford to take care of them, David is sent to live at the Jewish orphanage. Miriam and David don’t understand. How can you be an orphan when you still have a family?

Miriam wants to rescue David and bring him home. But how? Does Mr. Reznitsky, the orphanage director, care about the children, or is he using them? Miriam is determined to make a plan. She will think of it like a game of checkers, and this time the prize will be her brother.

Gladdy's Wake

SecondStoryPress — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:57:33 -0400

Passionate politics and obsession link a family over three generations

James Kelly, a cocky young Irishman with nothing to lose, has made his way to New York city in the wake of the First World War. Working as a Pinkerton – a detective for hire – he’s paid to find a girl named Gladys Sage, gone missing from Northern Ontario. His search leads him back to New York, where he finds Gladys entangled with a group of radical communists. The assignment will turn into an obsession, affecting the Kelly family for generations to come.

Decades later, in post 9-11 New York, James’ granddaughter, Janie Kelly, is on a desperate search for her missing son. All signs point to his involvement with a fanatical Muslim organization. Herself a convert to Islam, Janie is astonished, feeling at once guilty and terrified. In desperation she turns to the family she hasn’t seen since she fled home as a pregnant teenager.

When Janie’s father gives her the diary her grandfather James Kelly left behind, the parallels to the past come to light. As Janie reads she discovers the hidden story of the Kelly family, and its connection back to the mysterious girl named Gladys Sage.

The history of the 1920 Wall Street bombing and a modern-day terrorist plot come together in this novel of obsessive love, political fanaticism, and family secrets.

The Way It Is

SecondStoryPress — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:51:12 -0400

Coming this Fall...

It may be the ‘60s - the era of equal rights and free love - but two teens find that change is slow in coming to their small town

To Ellen Manery, a brilliant, introverted, socially isolated fifteen-year-old, there is nothing good about the summer of 1967, especially when her parents decide to move to a small town in the interior of British Columbia. None of the big ideas of the decade – the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, women’s rights – have had much of an effect on this small community.

Ellen has always been more interested in studying than a social life, but that begins to change when she meets Tony Paul, an eighteen-year-old who is a Shuswap Indian and lives on the nearby reserve. It is Tony’s friendship that gives Ellen the strength to endure the loneliness, racism, discrimination, and antifeminism she must face during her last year in high school. But as their friendship turns into something deeper, they must decide if they can break free of the small minds around them and forge their own future.

Our Earth

SecondStoryPress — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:01:09 -0400

Coming this Fall...

A windmill built from bicycle parts, a bridge made for a monkey, and a touch of magic

Young people are doing amazing things for the future of our planet. Here are true stories of kids from around the world who each had an idea that started small and turned into something big. Read about ways that you too can make a difference, like William Kamkwamba in Malawi who used the power of wind to change the life of his village. Or Kruti Parekh from India who makes magic with recycling. There is Janine Licare in Costa Rica who is saving the rainforest and its animals, and Ryan Hreljac from Canada who is building wells in Africa to bring people clean water. And Sam Levin from the usa whose organic school vegetable garden is connecting kids directly with their food. All of them are helping our Earth, and you can too.

Holocaust Remembrance Series Teacher's Guide Set

SecondStoryPress — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:01:45 -0500

This comprehensive teacher's guide is designed to accompany the Holocaust Remembrance Series for Young Readers. The guide plus set includes the five part guide plus eight books.

This Package includes five-part teaching guide and set of ten books

Explores major themes: identity – community – rights – responsibilities – the power to choose – how our choices are influenced – the effects our choices have on the world around us.

Highly adaptable and easily integrated into existing classroom programming.

Five separate sections that include full lesson plans with handouts that fulfill Ontario Ministry of Education curriculum expectations in language arts, the arts, social and character education.

The design allows for immediate integration into the language arts block

Holocaust Remembrance Series Teacher's Guide

SecondStoryPress — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:57:05 -0500

This comprehensive teacher's guide is designed to accompany the Holocaust Remembrance Series for Young Readers.

Guide comes in five parts with resources and activities

Explores major themes: identity – community – rights – responsibilities – the power to choose – how our choices are influenced – the effects our choices have on the world around us.

Highly adaptable and easily integrated into existing classroom programming.

Five separate sections that include full lesson plans with handouts that fulfill Ontario Ministry of Education curriculum expectations in language arts, the arts, social and character education.

The design allows for immediate integration into the language arts block

Great Musicians from our First Nations

SecondStoryPress — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:36:50 -0500

Music is their passion

Follow the journeys of ten talented musicians from the Native community as they make their way to the top. All of them, whether their music is traditional drumming or mainstream rock, bring their own cultural traditions to their music.

Rising stars Shane Yellowbird and Crystal Shawanda are steeped in country music. The Blackfire band combines punk rock with Dine’ music, while Four Rivers Drum has been drumming at powwows for more than fourteen years. Leela Gilday is an award-winning folk artist and Michael Bucher's music protects sacred sites. Contrast classical guitarist Gabriel Ayala with rock guitarist Mato Nanji and learn about the talents of jazz vocalist Jamie Coon and Native American flutist Mary Youngblood.