Curriculum Connections: Conflict and Change

"No one pays much attention to you if you don't have much to say, so there was no way I could have predicted what would happen when I stopped talking altogether."

Twelve-year-old Lewis Castorman is a master locksmith: there is no lock on earth that he is unable to open. He is therefore flattered when world-renowned chemist Ernst K. Grumpel invites him to his office in New York City and offers him a lock-picking assignment. His confidence quickly turns to dismay, however, when he learns this job will take him to Yellow Swamp in northern Alberta, the scene of a disastrous chemical spill a year earlier. He is also horrified to discover that Grumpel is utterly ruthless and, through his chemical inventions, can alter the rules of nature at his will.

Fourteen-year-old Casey Templeton has recently moved with his family to the southeastern Alberta town of Richford. One night Casey seeks refuge from a snowstorm in an abandoned farmhouse and stumbles upon his nearly frozen, unconscious science teacher, Mr. Deverell. Casey attempts to revive his teacher and searches the house for something to make a fire with. In the attic he makes a frightening discovery -- a sophisticated office filled with computers, a printer, and racist posters and flyers!

Fifteen-year-old Mackenzie Hill knows something is up when she arrives home to find her father making a home-cooked dinner, instead of his standard delivery pizza. But nothing prepares her for the bombshell announcement: Mackenzie and her dad, alone since the death of her mother a year ago, are moving to Jerusalem, where her father has taken a position as a visiting professor at a university.

In 1755, on the eve of the Seven Years' War, fifteen-year-old Nola and her Acadian parents face expulsion from Grand Pr

Angela Wroboski has recently moved with her mother from their small hometown into the city to rid them of a dark past. Now, Angela must deal with the fact that her home will be anything but "normal." Her dad, the infamous Nick "The Weasel" Wroboski, has served three jail terms for various crimes, including robbery, during her lifetime, and on June 5, Angela's fifteenth birthday, he's released from a two-year sentence in Fort Gavin Prison.

Living in grim Depression-era Toronto with her actress mother, Frannie, Ivy Chalmers has never met her father.

A Victorian garden, a fishing lure, and a ghost named John ?

Absolutely nothing is going right for Max Green. His parents have just uprooted their family from Vancouver to the bleak suburbs of Toronto, he has no friends, and everybody at his new high school is ignoring him. To make matters worse, he?s in love with an older girl who?s completely out of his league.

Thirteen-year-old Jak Loren is a typical boy with the usual problems a family with older sisters and younger brothers presents. Never mind the troubles at school - bullies and girls! When Jak goes to the ravine near his home in Brantford to get away from Steven Burke, a bully who's been tormenting him, he discovers the ravine has a history that's much older than he thought. He meets Grandfather Rock, who shares with him the story of the people who have lived near the ravine for thousands of years. Soon Jak's eyes are opened to a new world of beings and respect.

In 1910, while twelve-year-old Addy McLeod waits in a cabin in the Kootenay wilderness of southeastern British Columbia for her brother, Cask, to send for her, she fends off the unwanted advances of her alcoholic stepfather. When tragedy strikes, she is forced to flee and disguise herself as a boy.

Addy’s determined search for Cask becomes a journey of self-discovery as she encounters a tough trapper woman who cares for her when she’s ill, works in a hotel in the silver town of Kaslo on Kootenay Lake, and meets her first love, Ian.

Avi Greenbaum is Jewish and lives in West Jerusalem. Moussa Shakir is Palestinian and lives in East Jerusalem.

Mike Watson's team has just won the Alberta Bantam Provincial box lacrosse championships.

“Before you judge me, there are two things you should know about why I did it.”

Bullies, baseball, and kids who defy the odds. Hawk, a poor, half-Native boy who lives on the street, is eager to go back to school, to play baseball, and to please both his divorced parents.

Canadians enjoy one of the most stable forms of democracy on the planet, but there is a crisis in their understanding of the role the Crown plays in their country.