In 1962, Bobby's life in an English seaside village is touched with amazing experiences. He has a friend, Alisa Spink, who can heal injured fawns with her dreams and he knows an illusionist, McCultry, who can eat fire. Things begin to change, however, and Bobby's life is filled with darkness. At home, his world is shattered by his father's illness and at school Bobby encounters abusive treatment from his classmates and teacher. Further, the media keep relaying the doom-and-gloom message that Cuba, the United States and the Soviet Union are readying missiles for nuclear warfare.

The Montagues and Capulets have been enemies for as long as anyone can remember. Romeo attends a ball and immediately falls in love with Juliet. They proclaim their love for each other and secretly wed. Unaware of the marriage, Capulet arranges for Juliet to wed Paris. Romeo and Juliet's passion for each other leads towards their tragic end.
The graphic novel format makes Shakespeare accessible to students. Additional material is available online at www.oxfordnext.com
Included is a table of contents, a brief biography, information on Shakespeare's theatre and Shakespeare in Canada.
The text is available in three formats to accommodate varied learning styles.

A Drop of Rain uses diary/journal format to describe the lives of Naomi, her family and friends over a three-month period. Naomi's aunt Hanna is dying, her single mother is stressed and distracted and her mother's male friend makes the situation more complicated. Naomi is attracted to Curtis and concerned about her friend Mary, a middle-aged cleaner who was a doctor in her native Poland. Naomi also copes with school and a part-time job. There are journal entries from all the main characters, therefore, the story is told from a range of perspectives. Several of the main characters come from Poland and a great deal of information about Poland, past and present, is interwoven with descriptions of the characters' daily thoughts, feelings and experiences.

When Laker finds himself homeless after a lifetime of deprivation, Henry, an 83-year-old widower, takes him into his home. From the time he enters Henry's household, Laker is caught up in new and difficult circumstances. He has to cope with Henry's overbearing daughter and his feelings for Charlene, Henry's granddaughter. Through fragments of his journal, Laker's difficult past with his mother is revealed along with his subsequent search for security and love as his relationships with Henry develops into friendship.

At the end of the Second World War, about 1,000 teenage Jewish orphans came to Canada and settled in 38 communities in Canada. This real-life event in Canadian history is told through the fictional stories of Danny, Lilli and Marilyn.
Danny survives the Buchenwald concentration camp but loses his entire family. Lilli is an Auschwitz survivor who saw her mother and younger sister sent to their death and was separated from her other sister by the refugee process. She hopes for a new life in Canada, but has bad experiences with foster families. Marilyn is a Canadian girl who goes to school with the newcomers and gradually comes to understand the adversities that shape their lives and influence their reactions to Canadian life.
The story is told against a background of the Holocaust and the German concentration camps. Readers learn about the horrors of the camps, the atrocities that took place there and the way prisoners survived. There is information about attitudes toward immigrants and the way immigrants were treated during this period in Canadian history.

Fifteen-year-old Ian must complete community volunteer service in order to pass his Civics class. He chooses to work at "The Club," a soup kitchen for the homeless in an unsafe part of the city.
When the man who saved Ian shows up at the soup kitchen, he gets to know "Sarge." Jacques was a soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces and his last tour of duty was as a peacekeeper stationed in Rwanda, an African nation Ian knows little about.
Ian begins to learn truths not only about Rwanda, but about the world, for which he is not at all prepared. Shattered invites students to ask themselves what they can do to make a difference in the world.
Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, the Force Commander for the United Nations Mission to Rwanda, wrote the foreword to the book.

Steve is hiding from the law in Montana when he receives a phone call to come home to Alberta. His brother Beau needs a bone marrow transplant and Steve can be a donor. Steve is bitter with life in general and he is very angry with his mother who left to marry his future stepfather. When Steve returns home, he must face his mother and his new 10-year-old stepsister Jacey. Steve and Jacey have one thing in common - their love of horses. When Steve and Jacey go on an outing to see wild horses, criminals from Steve's past chase them.

The setting is Whitby, Ontario in the summer 1943. Two brothers, 12-year-old George and 14-year-old Jack, are left on their own a lot while their father fights overseas and their mother works in a munitions plant. As the boys explore the town they have moved to, they play war games. One game brings them to what looks like a military base. They are escorted home and ordered to stay away, but curiosity brings them back to Camp X. The boys become involved in the work of the top-secret spy camp and soon learn that everyone is under suspicion, including themselves.
The story is fictitious, but a spy camp was established in Whitby in 1941 by the Canadian who headed British security during the war. This Canadian, Sir William Stephenson, appears in the novel in a minor role as Little Bill.

Travis lives with his aunt and uncle in a trailer court while his mother travels around as a country-and-western singer. Travis loves to sew and he is often bullied because he is different. Travis and his best friend, a physically challenged girl named Chantelle, are encouraged by two teachers to accept new challenges that foster their creativity. The bullying, however, reaches a deplorable level.
A winner of the Governor General's Award in 2003, this story addresses issues relevant to many young students.

In Theories of Relativity, Haworth-Attard has written about the harsh reality of young runaways living on the street. Dylan Wallace calls himself the "throwaway" child. His mother has three children fathered by different men. On his 16th birthday, his mother throws him out because his mouthy presence might prevent her from marrying her fiancé. Dylan struggles with the challenges he has received in life and he tries to avoid a life of crime and drugs.
Haworth-Attard provides a cast of secondary characters including Amber, who shows the difficulties she encounters when tries to extricate herself from street life once she becomes part of it. Dylan reads from Einstein's book about his theories of relativity and time and comes up with his own theories about life based on his experiences. Dylan is a clever young man who deals with harsh circumstances. Dylan grows and realizes his true potential as he matures while surviving on the street.

This novel tells the story of one teenager's attempt to break free of his loser status. Fifteen-year-old Alex Sherwood starts the Losers' Club for the school outcasts in order to deal with the aggressive bullying at McLuhan High. Alex has a disability, but Lekich depicts Alex's disability as just another one of life's challenges as a teen. Alex suggests a contest with school bully Jerry Whitman in the local Christmas lights competition. Alex is supported by other teens who have been harassed by Jerry and by some sympathetic adults. Lekich shows how teens can deal with a number of issues such as bullying and peer pressure. Lekich portrays Alex not as a victim of his disability, but as an individual ready to deal with the world on his terms.

Martin Emerson and his family are having trouble dealing with his mother's death. Martin describes himself as the regular, private and not interesting Martin Emerson; the enigmatic persona created for the Internet at Emerso.com and Martin number three or the no-name Martin. Martin's father has become invisible and his sister Lily pierces another part of her body when she cannot deal with something. Martin's friend, Darrell, helps him create a website at Emerso.com and the website has all the right questions but not the answers.
This book was shortlisted for the Young Adult Canadian Book Award by the Canadian Library Association and won the Ann Connor Brimer Children's Literature Prize in 2002.

While hockey provides a thematic strand for the book, the protagonist, Sean, has more to address than pressures of the team sport and a perfectionist father. Complex family issues include an ethical situation that requires Sean to decide whether to do what is right or to support his father by withholding evidence involving criminal charges. The story is one that provides the hook of hockey and a familiar prairie setting in Alberta, but is given depth through the issues and the complexities of human relationships.