Winner of CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal Winner of the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award A young boy wakes up to the sound of the sea, visits his grandfather’s grave after lunch and comes home to a simple family dinner with his family, but all the while his mind strays to his father digging for coal deep down under the sea. Stunning illustrations by Sydney Smith, the award-winning illustrator of Sidewalk Flowers, show the striking contrast between a sparkling seaside day and the darkness underground where the miners dig. With curriculum connections to communities and the history of mining, this beautifully understated and haunting story brings a piece of Canadian history to life. The ever-present ocean and inevitable pattern of life in a Cape Breton mining town will enthrall children and move adult readers.

It's 1953 in sunny Florida, and 15-year-old Lydia Isleworth thinks her ultimate life goal, like that of every woman she knows, is to marry a respectable man and raise a family. Then, she meets an aspiring Hollywood actress Marlena DiPluma, who says four life-changing words -- YOU CAN DO ANYTHING -- and gives her a journal to read. The journal, written by Ava, a defiant girl of Lydia's age, becomes the catalyst for Lydia's awakening and new life adventure. A story of parallel lives, Portion of the Sea follows two young women in passionate pursuit of their independence -- Lydia during the cultural revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, and Ava during the late-1800s when a few pioneering American ladies set the course for women's freedom. In this stirring follow-up to her debut novel Sanibel Scribbles, Christine Lemmon offers a trademark story of how women can inspire each other to pursue bold dreams, make courageous choices, and reclaim lost treasures.

A young boy wakes up to the sound of the sea, visits his grandfather's grave after lunch and comes home to a simple family dinner, but all the while his mind strays to his father digging for coal deep down under the sea. Stunning illustrations by Sydney Smith, the award-winning illustrator of Sidewalk Flowers, show the striking contrast between a sparkling seaside day and the darkness underground where the miners dig. With curriculum connections to communities and the history of mining, this beautifully understated and haunting story brings a piece of history to life. The ever-present ocean and inevitable pattern of life in a maritime mining town will enthrall children and move adult readers.

Draws on critical and radical change theory to equip both aspiring and practicing library and teacher candidates with practical, research-based ideas for enacting critical literacy practices in middle grade libraries and classrooms. Genre Based Strategies to Promote Critical Literacy in Grades 4-8 provides strategies and lesson plans with additional resources and tools for school librarians and teachers to engage middle grade students in reading children's literature through a critical literacy lens. To be critically literate readers and thinkers, students must learn to question what they read, asking themselves who wrote the text, why the text was written, and how the text positions its readers and others. Teaching students how to read from a critical literacy stance is a timely and relevant practice in a world in which text is available instantly and on nearly any mobile device. In many cases, preparation programs for school librarians and teachers do not teach candidates how to incorporate critical literacy practices in library and classroom settings. This book provides both pre-service and in-service school librarians and teachers with that professional development and guidance for teaching critical literacy in children's literature courses.

'When I awoke the tongue of the tide was lapping at my feet and the sea had claimed my belongings. The sand on which I lay was so stiff there was no trace of my footprints across it. An observer viewing me from above might have imagined I had been washed upon the shore from a shipwreck. Another would perhaps have construed that I had been cast away by choice. If I had encountered my inert body I would have made the former assumption although the latter is much closer to the truth. . .' With these words, the narrator of A Town by the Sea sets off towards a coastal town which lies some distance to the east of him. But he also embarks on a journey into his past. Along the way he encounters ghosts, he climbs a tall tower and is marooned in the clouds, he meets a ruffian and a dandy, he is attacked and tied to a cart, and, in the garden of a derelict house, he glimpses a scene from his childhood. Slowly, the mystery of how he arrived on the shoreline is solved, but is this the end of his journey, or just another stop along the way?