Search results for ""Great Plains Publications""

On the last day of elementary school, eleven-year-old Anna finds a leather-bound book about handwriting analysis. Anna could use help deciphering people. Her best friend has started wearing mascara and plans to spend the summer with a more fashionable classmate. And her parents threaten to give away her tortoises just because she’s a little forgetful about taking care of the sick one.Why does everyone expect Anna to change before middle school starts? She’sgoing to stay exactly the same. After all, large loopy letters, like Anna’s, showshe’s perceptive and generous. It’s everyone else’s sloppy writing that is so hard to understand. But a mysterious note forces Anna to make a choice between her graphology obsession and the people — and tortoises — she cares about the most.

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Sandwiched between North Dakota and Nunavut, Manitoba has never been the busiest chunk of tourism real estate in North America. To independent travellers, this is a good thing: Canada's undiscovered province offers uncrowded beaches, innumerable lakes, and unlikely cultural attractions, especially in the gritty/cool capital, Winnipeg. A Daytripper's Guide to Manitoba is the only comprehensive travel handbook to the province, and an indispensable tool for visitors from abroad, Canadians passing through, and Manitobans who want to get to know their own backyard. The new edition of the best-selling Canadian guidebook has expanded coverage of Winnipeg's cultural attractions, more Churchill ecotourism options, and a brand-new chapter on the Lake Of The Woods region of northwestern Ontario. Get the straight goods on cities, towns, and natural attractions in every corner of the province, compiled by one of Manitoba's most tenacious independent travellers, Bartley Kives. Remember, the only thing flat about Manitoba is the Trans-Canada Highway.

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Gord Mackintosh was not your typical politician and this book is not your typical political memoir. Mackintosh steps out of his familiar role as the Manitoba NDP’s go-to guy, foot soldier and law reformer to provide a unique take on the quirky places and people behind his long and varied career. From secret passages, archaisms, and funny business at Manitoba’s Legislature, to door-knocking surprises, crime-fighting and “saving Mother Earth,” Mackintosh weaves warm-hearted anecdotes of his many years in public life. Hooey, hijinks, and embarrassment that humanize our political system are interspersed with major political events of the last thirty years, for which he had suspiciously differing roles. Whether Manitoba’s French Language Crisis, the Meech Lake Crisis, the MTS Debate, the Flood of the Century, the Auto Theft Capital of North America, or the internal rebellion against Premier Greg Selinger, he still urges, “It wasn’t me.” Calling it “more sunshine sketches than social science”, Mackintosh exposes what it’s really like in politics, with seasoned political advice, strong opinion -- including an “unbiased view” of opponents, and a celebration of leadership. He also offers a self-deprecating backstory to many government decisions—required reading for Manitoba citizens of any political stripe.

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Anna Hill is a McGill assistant professor of Medieval History and Gender on the eve of her 40th birthday. She specializes in the birth of romance. But after devoting decades of study to her subject, she craves an exotic romance of her own. When nobody steps up, she secretly crafts a bodice-ripping Harlequin set in Medieval Spain. But love soon takes on new meanings when a visiting Parisian professor wants to prove to her that romance is history.

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When Anders Hedberg, Bobby Hull and Ulf Nilsson took to the ice they created a dynamic line that saw the Winnipeg Jets win two World Hockey Association championships. Their chemistry on the ice and impact on the game is explored in The Hot Line: How the Legendary Trio of Hull, Hedberg and Nillson Transformed Hockey and Led the Winnipeg Jets to With a foreword from acclaimed General Manager, Glen Sather.

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Maggie Johnson is dealing with too much — the rising distrust and hate of the townspeople, her growing (and unpredictable) supernatural powers, and the dead, waiting to be transitioned from this side to the next. Right now, they’re her saving grace. But when a soul-eater steals the ghost she’s transitioning, things don’t just take a turn for the worse, they take a turn for the personal. This thing has a connection to her and to her family, and it’s coming for revenge. As Maggie races to stop the entity, the body count ticks up, and the soul-eater’s touch reaches close to home. The answers Maggie seeks are coming to a head, but will she survive the revelation?

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Famous Last Meals is a trio of contemporary novellas about the roles we play in an age when everyone is an actor. The curtain opens on "Candidates," a gentle satire starring a recent university grad who knows and cares little about politics but who finds himself working as a summer intern on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. "Famous Last Meals" examines two couples and their complex relationship as they re-enact the final repasts of famous people who died before the age of 30. "The Woman in the Vineyard" completes the triptych with a compulsive story about literary jealousy and the danger of becoming lost in the labyrinth of another writer's sources.

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Spanning the twentieth century to the beginning of the twenty-first, this masterful collection of linked stories follows the life of Amy, through tales stretching back to her youth in 1950s Ottawa, her experiences as a young wife and mother in a small Ontario town, and her later years back in the city. Through a collage of unique voices and points of view — including a dog that introduces us to the neighborhood where Amy lived as a child – The View from the Lane examines the authenticity of memory and the brimming life in the everyday.

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The young occupy a territory of their own, a foreign land inaccessible to nostalgia and regret. In these eloquent, arresting stories, an assortment of exotic youth send tremors through the foundations of the established world: four summer students interrupt a once-famous artist's retreat from society; a naive job seeker shakes a frustrated employee out of middle-aged complacency; and a high school student's safety is threatened by her teacher's passion for the Riel Rebellion. Unsentimental, often funny, rarely nostalgic, each story of The Young in Their Country is a complete world.

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Following the events of Pulse Point, 12-year old Ama and the other Underlanders living in a world of darkness dig for brine, the City’s real energy source. Underland is a dangerous place: cave-ins, starvation and illness areconstant threats. When their leader deserts them, Ama goes looking for him and stumbles on two Citizens. Neither knew the other existed.18-year old Sari lives in the City, blissfully unaware of what goes on beneath her feet. The disappearance of her best friend, Kaia, has left her feeling isolated. A chance encounter with her sister leads her to join a group called the Resistance who are on a secret mission to reveal the secrets the Council keeps hidden.When Kaia mounts an attack on the City, Sari and Ama are thrown together in a battle that will decide their futures and the fate of the City.

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The Truth About The Barn offers answers to important questions about how barns came into being, why they look the way they do, why they’re worth reflecting on,and what possible future they may have. Chapters investigate the barn’s place in culture and religion, art and literature. Psychological and philosophical implications are explored.Readers are treated to an occasional recollection of the author’s own experiences with barns.

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Charles Cedar Dance has little in common with his "hippie" mother. At the annual school camp, Charles has a chance encounter with the father he has never known and while spying on him at a nearby anti-logging protest camp, Charles finds himself at the centre of a mystery involving a saboteur-turned-kidnapper. When Charles decides he wants to get to know his dad, he learns the truth about his parents and must re-evaluate his view of his family...

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In the stories in Winning Chance, Katherine Koller explores second chances, how we find them, and how we find the courage to take them. Whether they are contractors running into an ex while on the job, a busy mother pursuing community theatre, or a family building an illegal ice rink after an environmental collapse, Katherine Koller has created empathetic portraits of characters searching to connect.

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Venture to a place where reality bends: where a dying butterfly may inspire a revelation, where after being electrocuted, an artist's body becomes a work of art, where a man may wake up after falling four stories to find himself face to face with his ten-year-old self. This outright defiance of that which we hold to be impossible is rooted to varying degrees in each story, not simply because fiction allows it, but because it is within the geography of the imagination that the lost souls of this collection attain transcendence and emotional reconciliation.

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"Why do we fall ill? How do we get better? When his two-year-old develops epilepsy, Shane Neilson, a doctor, struggles to obtain timely medical care for his son. 'Saving' shares his familys journey through the medical system, but also Shanes own personal journey as a father who feels powerless when faced with his childs illness. It entwines these stories with Shanes personal history of mental illness as a child and his professional experience with disability. By exploring the theme of family, Shane Nielse manages to show that, over time, it is possible to not only escape the wreckage of the past, but to celebrate living with disability in the present."

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On Goat Loops, in the realm of Niff, Sam learns a scary new truth about the Son of the Solstice prophecy, one his long-absent mother had neglected to tell him. Not only is he destined to fight an ancient sorcerer, but it will result in his certain death. As Sam’ s powers grow, he and his half-giant friend chase mysterious no-magicpockets, battle annoying, bitey dokkas, and look for a way to save the worlds— and his own skin.

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Abandonment, loss, endless transitions, self-reliance, continued persistence, and fierce beauty all coexist in this compelling collection of stories of ten women who journey from victims of the child welfare system to survivors, and beyond. These women face endless challenges, oppression, and trauma but discover their power through: creativity, advocacy, self-awareness, education, motherhood, and extreme empathy. They decipher their personal stories looking back through the lens of their lived experience to contribute to changing the narratives of how people who grew up in the child welfare system see themselves, and how society sees them. These stories create compassion and understanding, breaking down biases. They also illustrate the direct and multi-faceted relationships between residential schools, the breakdown of Indigenous families, the perpetuated systemic racism of the child welfare system, and oppression through other societal systems. Many of these women are the voices of those who could have been murdered and missing Indigenous women or girls but have lived to tell their stories.

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Grow up, get a job, find a partner, have a family, live the dream. This was always the plan...with some deviations along the way. Using sarcasm and vulnerability, Morwenna speaks about growing up, finding love, and then struggling when the rest of "the plan" isn't meant to be. This is the raw & real story of one couple's rollercoaster ride as they discover infertility, try various treatments, suffer an adoption reversal, and learn to make new plans and find the funny moments. A raw, sarcastic, and sometimes funny account of the struggles of growing up, dealing with infertility, fertility treatments, and the adoption process.

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Journeyman is a first-person biography of Ojibwe rightwinger Jamie Leach, son of the legendary NHL superstar Reggie Leach. Follow the fascinating hockey trajectory from his childhood years watching his father play for the Philadelphia Flyers, to Jamie’s first goal in the NHL.Journeyman touches on Jamie’s summers on Lake Winnipeg, the World Junior Hockey Championships, his life in the minor leagues, and his eventual draft into the NHL as a Pittsburgh Penguin. Discover how some of hockey’s biggeststars such as Bobby Clarke, Jaromir Jagr, and Mario Lemieux influenced Jamie’s life.Written in close consultation with Jamie and his mother, readers will learn about the struggles Jamie conquered, including his father’s alcoholism and his own crippling self-doubt.A story of determination, heartbreak and perseverance.

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The battle for Vimy Ridge one hundred years ago has been characterized as a defining moment in Canadian history. The idea of thousands of Canadian young men dying together in the mud and tangled wire of northern France was, and still is, considered by many as nation-building.Tom Goodman generally accepted this view until he discovered a rich trove of letters between his grandmother and Archie Polson, the uncle he has never met. Reading through the exchanges, Goodman came to realize that war is sometimes about winning, but it is always about loss. He has now collected many of these letters, along with his own contextual narrative, so that we can see the true cost of war to a family and a country.

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This is a story about the fur trade and First Nations, and the development of northern Canada, seen and experienced not only through Leonard Flett's eyes, but also through the eyes of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.The lives of indigenous people in remote areas of northern Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the 1960s and 1970s are examined in detail. Flett's successful career with both the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company provides an insight into the dying days of the fur trade and the rise of a new retail business tailored to First Nations.

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This is the story of the formative years of Canada's most famous newspaper editor, John Wesley Dafoe. Written by his grandson, it is an honest account of the man that his family and his friends knew, from his unpromising beginnings in the backwoods of pre-Confederation Ontario to his early and unexpected success in nineteenth-century Canadian journalism. It includes an examination of Dafoe's family background, his education, his early career, his rise as a national and international figure and his lifelong search for a true Canadian identity. Some of it is told in his own words, some is drawn from the recollections of those who knew him. It is a quintessentially Canadian story and one that is worth remembering.

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Will is Shane Neilson’s debut collection of short fiction. The book ranges from straightforward East Coast depictions of alcoholism and frustrated farming told in dense, lyric prose, to experimental works that play overtly with language and form. In Will, a boy is beaten by his father; another father cares for his epileptic son; an anesthetist addicted to sevoflurane ponders the works of Michael Jackson; Vladimir Nabokov takes a writer-in-residence position at Memorial University of Newfoundland; and World War I poet John McCrae dies. And yes, there is a hockey story. Individual stories have appeared widely in magazines including Queen’s Quarterly, The Malahat Review, Fiddlehead, Geist, and The Canadian Medical Association Journal, among others.

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When no one listens, what's the point of talking?Kyle McGinley doesn’t say a word. Fed up with being shuttled from one foster care home to another, he has stopped speaking. But at the home of Scott and Jill Wardman, with the help of a crow, and a swamp, and an excess of blank paint, he begins to think that maybe, just maybe, life could be better.As long as his frigging dad doesn't mess things up.

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A man runs for his life from the promise of death held by trees; a lost VHS tape offers footage of a lost, grisly history; a diaspora clings to magical shards of home and more in this collection of genre fiction by authors from across the Canadian Prairies. Adam Petrash is an author and editor from Winnipeg. He is the co-editor of the speculative fiction anthology, Parallel Prairies: Stories of Manitoba Speculative Fiction, and the author of a novella, The Ones to Make it Through. His work has appeared in journals throughout North America.

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In this book, scientist-historian Gordon Goldsborough hits the road in search of adventure and little-known stories from Manitoba's past. Among the places he visits are underground radiation monitoring posts from the Cold War, a remote hydroelectric generating station, cruise ships on the Red River, and the original route of the Trans-Canada Highway.

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Bill Mosienko was one of Manitobas greatest hockey players and athletes. This is his story. Mosienko became a hockey legend in 1952 when he recorded the fastest hat-trick in NHL history -- a record that stands to this day. This biography tells the story of a Manitoba legend, from his childhood spent skating on the rinks of Winnipegs North End in the 1920s and 30s to his illustrious fourteen-year NHL career to his return to Winnipeg to play with the Winnipeg Warriors to his post-retirement career as the owner of the iconic Mosienko Bowling Lanes. Through exclusive interviews with Mosienkos friends, family, and teammates, Dillello paints a vivid picture of Mosienko, a man known for his sportsmanship and community spirit as well as well as his incredible hockey talent. Mosienko became a hockey legend in 1952 when he recorded the fastest hat-trick in NHL history -- a record that stands to this day. This biography tells the story of a Manitoba legend, from his childhood spent skating on the rinks of Winnipegs North End in the 1920s and 30s to his illustrious fourteen-year NHL career to his return to Winnipeg to play with the Winnipeg Warriors to his post-retirement career as the owner of the iconic Mosienko Bowling Lanes. Through exclusive interviews with Mosienkos friends, family, and teammates, Dillello paints a vivid picture of Mosienko, a man known for his sportsmanship and community spirit as well as well as his incredible hockey talent.

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Errol Ranville is one of twelve siblings who grew up in poverty in rural Manitoba. He rose to fame with a National #1 hit song in 1980 and went on to record a total of twenty albums over a span of forty years in the entertainment business. Errol is recording a new album of original songs and working on a screenplay for a made-for-TV movie of his life. He never sleeps, it seems. Errol Ranville has been running all his life: from chronic poverty and racism in rural Manitoba; a discriminatory music business; alcohol and drug addiction; and the responsibilities that come with being regarded as a role model. Though Errol has faced seemingly insurmountable barriers as an Indigenous performer in a predominately white music business, his band C-Weed & the Weeds released several #1 songs and went on to score JUNO nominations in 1985 and 1986. Errol was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Indigenous Music Awards in 2011. Errols autobiography is filled with love and passion as he embraces the role of trailblazer for the countless musicians that follow his path.

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Elizabeth thinks she knows the gloomy Fenlen Forest. But when her treasured unicorn fawn, Sida, goes missing, Elizabeth tracks her into a strange land where the people think Elizabeth is a changeling, a malignant being who too-closely resembles a missing girl. If Elizabeth can find her fawn and uncover the fate of her lost double, can she stop the fear from turning into hate? To solve the deepening mystery, Elizabeth befriends a handsome, skeptical young shepherd whose stories hint at a dark secret lurking at the forest's edge, and tame a herd of wild unicorns with the ability to unlock the past.

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Take Your Baby and Run is Carol Youngson's first-hand account of the shocking ineptitude and misogynistic behaviour that led to the death of twelve children, primarily infants, under the care of Dr. Jonah Odim at Winnipeg's largest hospital in 1994. Youngson was the nurse in charge of the cardiac unit and in her book she details the dysfunctional hospital hierarchy that allowed this tragedy to unfold, leading to the longest running inquiry in Canadian history. Sadly, the themes of this book are just as relevant today during our current health crisis.

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There may be nowhere to go during The Automatic Age, the autovolts have swept the earth clean of most of its human inhabitants and Kerion fears that his son will grow up a loney anomaly on an earth free of people. Time is running out for Kerion; the prosthetics that keep him alive are breaking down. What will happen to his son Barry if he must grow up alone? The discovery of a group of survivors may be the hope Kerion needs. But is it better to risk isolation then leave his son with a group of religious fanatics? The Last People may have a clue about the Delta City, a fabled refuge of humankind, a place free of the technologies that are trying to kill them. The truth will send them on the run in a fight for survival beneath the sea of stars others called The Backbone of Night.

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Returning to some of the characters first introduced in his award-winning novel The Green-Eyed Queen of Suicide City to tell a unique and all-new tale, Kevin Marc Fournier's Brief Life is the story of a fraught but lifelong friendship; the chronicle of a small town with a bizarre and tangled history; a multi-generational family saga of ghosts, dreams, visions, and visitations, of strange dogs, secret magic, and mysterious disappearances; a maze of funhouse mirrors, grotesque, poignant, and fantastical.

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"What does it mean to be at home? Are we ever truly alone in our houses? In Twisted, a woman loses her best friends daughter while an old acquaintance is on trial for murder; Nectar and Nickle introduces readers to a young girl who digs up the corpse of the family cat and comforts herself with macabre fairy tales. She meets a boy in the woods and turns him into part of her game. In Garden Bed secrets are buried in the garden plot with the best of intentions, but they are dug up by a fox who watches and sees everything. Haunted bodies, haunted houses, and haunted relationships colour this collection to show us that our homes are not our own. We are only guests. "

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The Automatic Age is the story of a father and son navigating an automated apocalypse. Set in a mid-century computerized utopia of automats, self-driving cars, food pills,and happy robo-servants, robot search teams find and remove the troublesome people that clutter it. A perfect future in which humans are forbidden to live.

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In nine memorable new stories and with tragicomic flair, acclaimed master of the short form Richard Cumyn dramatizes lives in tumult and transition. If the sign for migrant soul is an enigma, this remarkably upbeat and innovative collection is anything but.

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Thirteen-year-old Tia is angry. Her mother has disappeared and she and her eight-year-old brother, Tag, have been sent to yet another foster home. In the heart of lake country, Tia feel isolated and farther away from her mother than ever. She desperately tries to convince her brother to return to the city and find her family. But when a freak spring snowstorm and a herd of runaway horses lead her to a job at the Ice Pony Ranch and Animal Rescue Centre, Tia finds a way to deal with the hurt of the past and accept the love that surrounds her.

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Hannah With The Magic Eye is the story of Hannah and Samir, two unlikely friends who embark on a fast-paced treasure hunt though modern-day Jerusalem to find the famed treasure of King Solomon's Temple— the largest unrecovered fortune in history. But racing alongside them is the Cancellarii, the dangerous secret society of treasure hunters who kidnapped Hannah's grandfather— the famed archeologist Henri Dubuisson. Now Hannah and Samir must rescue her grandfather by reaching the treasure first, and ransoming it back to the Cancellarii for her grandfather's freedom. But first Hannah and Samir must decipher an enchanted map and follow its clues through seven of Jerusalem's most exotic sites. They must evade the Israeli police, ride camels through the desert, swim with hippies in the Dead Sea, drink copious black coffee, hitchhike with friendly Arabs, and somehow outfox the Cancellarii as they search for a pile of gold worth more than 56 billion dollars.

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Before email, before Instagram and selfies, postcards were mailed across the world. At the turn of the 20th century, travellers to Winnipeg were impressed by the city's stately architecture, its broad streets, and its tranquil parks. Hand-tinted postcards expressed the vibrancy and optimism felt by visitors to Manitoba. Dreamlike and evocative, these vintage postcards are truly works of art.

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As a window into the magic and medicine of the Northwest Territories, Richard Van Camp's fourth short story collection is hilarious and heartbreaking. A teenaged boy confesses to a vicious assault on a cross-dressing classmate; Lance tells the sensual story of becoming much closer to his wife's dear friend Juanita; while a reluctant giant catches up with gangsters Torchy and Sfen in a story with shades of supernatural and earthly menace. Night Moves continues to explore the incredible lives of indigenous characters introduced in The Lesser Blessed, Angel Wing Splash Pattern, The Moon of Letting Go, and Godless but Loyal to Heaven. If this is your first time to Fort Simmer and Fort Smith, welcome. If it's another visit—come on in: we've left the lights on for you.

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It's 1978, the year after Elvis Presley died, and Kepler Pressler is a sixteen-year-old Toronto kid with an obsessive attachment to his sock monkey, a tendency to burst into tears, a mother with a nail fetish and a fondness for Shakespeare, and a father who says he works for the Space Agency and disappears a lot. Is dad dead? And what exactly happened on Kepler's 16th birthday? He is devoting a year to figuring it out in a mental health institute.

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The Canadian Prairie teems with life - not all of it of this world. Get acquainted with baby dragons, killer insects, faery kings, infernal entities and more, as 19 authors let the Manitoban landscape inspire weird and wondrous tales.You thought the Prairies were flat, plain, and boring.You were wrong.

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Coop is an aging, cynical, down-and-out dachshund who faces the ultimate test when his new owner, Mike, and Mike’s grandchildren, Zach and Emma, run into trouble. Mike rescued him, but does Coop have what it takes to do the same? Drawing strength from the stories about great dogs that Mike shares with him, Coop charts a dangerous journey to save his new family.

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WHILE SPENDING THE SUMMER trying to deal with her parent’s divorce, Juliana, with the help of her Ojibway friend, uncovers an ancient secret that helps her reconcile with her father and, at the same time, acquire a new appreciation for the dangerous beauty of Canada’s north country. Now in its seventh printing, this bestselling young adult novel is becoming a Canadian classic.

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When twelve-year-old Sam is struck by a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky, he suddenly sees everything in pixels. His life is further upended by Flum, a non-binary being from a parallel world, a missing neighbour, and astonishing powers that may not last long. Science and magic collide as Sam races to solve a mystery and help Flum return home. But what happens when solving one mystery sparks another? Peanut Butter and Chaos is a middle grade fantasy grounded in science.

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In September 2015, Sheila North was declared the Grand Chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO), the first woman elected to the position. Known as a bridge builder, North is a member of Bunibonibee Cree Nation. Norths work in advocacy journalism, communications, and economic development harnessed her passion for drawing focus to systemic racism faced by Indigenous women and girls. She is the creator of the widely used hashtag #MMIW. In her memoir, Sheila North shares the stories of the events that shaped her, and the violence that nearly stood in the way of her achieving her dreams. Through perseverance and resilience, she not only survived, she flourished.

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