Holiday Gift Guide - Our Favourite Books for Kids and Teens
The end of the year brings holidays for many, so we've got gift ideas for the young readers in your life!
Check out our Holiday Gift Guide
For the Young Adults:
Iz the Apocalypse by Susan Currie
A spark ignites inside fourteen-year-old Iz Beaufort when she hears school music group Manifesto perform. Even though she hasn’t written a song since That Place, she recognizes herself in the moving performance and longs to be part of the group, certain that they might actually understand her.
But Manifesto is based at the prestigious Métier School, and Iz has bounced through twenty-six foster homes. Plus, there’s no way Dominion Children’s Care would ever send a foster kid to a private school when a public option is available. So Iz does what any passionate, broken, off-the-chart wunderkind might and takes matters into her own hands.
Iz fakes her way in only to face a new set of challenges: tuition fees, tough classwork, and new classmates she can’t immediately identify as friends or foes. And if she can’t handle all this while keeping how she got into Métier a secret, she’ll risk getting kicked out of both school and her current home.
But a life with music—a life where Iz gets to have a voice—might be worth risking everything.
A Forest of Reading White Pine Award Nominee
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
A BookLife Editor's Pick
Listed in CBC Books' "25 Canadian YA books to read in fall 2023" and Quill & Quire’s "2023 Fall Preview: Young Adult and Nonfiction"
Middle Grade fans will love:
The Caves of Wonder by Kirsten Marion
Book 2 in the Lucy & Dee middle grade series
Lucy and Dee are stranded in the magical world of Sericea with the young emperor Yidi as they flee his stepmother Xixi, the sorceress queen.
Hiding their true identities to protect both themselves and their new friend Mai, the group must make the hazardous trip across Sericea to the Caves of Wonder to find the White Tiger, a fabled warrior who could help them defeat Xixi.
Along their risky journey, developing talents and rumours of revolution challenge their resolve and friendship.
Dangers lurk around every corner, and if Lucy, Dee, and Yidi can’t face them together, their lives and the very fate of Sericea will be in peril.
Ready for Chapter Books:
Asha and Baz Meet Elizebeth Friedman by Caroline Fernandez and Dharmali Patel
Book 3 in the Asha and Baz chapter book series
In the third book in the Asha and Baz series, readers learn about secret codes and how to break them from World War II codebreaker Elizebeth Friedman!
A secret code and a mysterious prize up for grabs at school prompts Asha and Baz to once more use their magic stick to travel to the past. This time they land in 1942, where they meet Elizebeth Friedman, a codebreaker working with the US Navy.
She’s the perfect person to help the kids with their codebreaking challenge, but she’s hard at work decoding secret messages from Nazi spies!
With a navy officer pressuring Elizebeth to work quickly and the Allied war efforts at risk, the kids could be in for more than they expected in Asha and Baz Meet Elizebeth Friedman!
E-shop Favourites:
Faded Glimpses of Time by Nyah Nichol (YA)
The Math Kids: An Artificial Test by David Cole (MG)
Just Watch Me by Erin Silver (MG)
A Girl From The Attic (MG)
Picture Book Picks:
The Adventures of Grandmasaurus At The Supermarket by Caroline Fernandez and Shannon O’Toole
The Adventures of Grandmasaurus At the Aquarium Rescue Centre by Caroline Fernandez and Shannon O’Toole
The Adventures of Grandmasaurus by Caroline Fernandez and Shannon O’Toole
Stop Reading This Book by Caroline Fernandez and Shannon O’Toole