Curriculum Connections: Family

What if the only way to get rid of your worst enemy was to sacrifice your brother?

When hyenas snatch Tara

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.

In 1874, after their father is wounded by hard men who have stolen a number of mares and Smokey, a prized stallion, sixteen-year-old Rob McCann and his adopted Native brother, Luke, ride frantically to Fort Ellice, Manitoba, in the vain expectation that the horse rustlers have stopped there. Learning that a new force called the North-West Mounted Police has come west, the brothers continue south to locate them and ask for help. The NWMP commander, Colonel George French, desperately attempts to have the boys escorted home.

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.

After the conclusion of The Silver Anklet, Tara’s triumphant return to Morni is short-lived. Tara’s deceased former stepmother, Kali, seeks revenge through her daughter, Layla. And so begins a series of carefully orchestrated events to cast suspicion on Tara: a dead dog in the village temple, contaminated well water, and whispers that Tara is still possessed.

Layla fuels the villagers’ blind superstitions and fears. Soon all of Morni is against Tara, even her own family. Death seems to be the only way to stop her evil stepsister.

Fourteen-year-old Jake MacRae’s life is spinning out of control. He’s making all the wrong choices — gambling, drinking, hanging around gang members — and now he’s been asked to make a “special delivery.” What should he do? Jake knows either way that his decision will seal his fate, but what he doesn’t realize is that this choice might not only destroy his life but the lives of those close to him.

Fifteen-year-old Danny is a troubled kid, and trouble always seems to follow him.

Meet Little Jane Silver, the twelve year-old granddaughter of notorious Treasure Island pirate Long John Silver.

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

Who is the girl staring out of the old photograph? Every time Alyssa Dixon looks at it, even by accident, she finds herself on an Iowa farm in 1931.

Canada was young during the First World War, and with as many as 20,000 underage soldiers leaving their homes to join the war effort, the country's army was, too.

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.