New Release Books by Penny Draper

When another ballet dancer’s injury lands him a major role, mischief-loving Robin must face his friends’ jealousy and the biggest challenge of his dance career in this novel for teens.

One cold day in 1929, a tsunami strikes the Burin Peninsula in Newfoundland and suddenly twelve-year-old Murphy is doing a man's work, saving lives and caring for the people he loves.

Ella is surprised by her birthday gift from her father: a Brownie camera and the advice to seek pictures of things that ‘don’t belong’. This is how Ella first notices Billy, a boy at her school. They become good friends, although Ella is sure Billy is keeping something from her. Ella soon realizes there are others to whom the ‘don’t belong’ tag applies. They include herself! Helping out at her mother’s IODE group, Ella finds out about women’s rights – or the lack of them. When Ella’s mother’s purse is raided, suspicion falls on Billy. Then, just as Ella is learning more about both her mother and her mysterious friend, the cyclone arrives, and it’s the substandard housing of the poor that’s worst-hit. How can Ella, armed only with her camera, help her friend? Praise for Ice Storm: “Draper covers the terror and impact of the storm. She also weaves in a subtle environmental message about overreliance on electricity...an unusual story of survival.” – Kirkus Reviews Praise for Graveyard of the Sea: “the author makes the setting of her Newfoundland tale as satisfying as the smell of seafood chowder”; “readers are...sensually and emotionally embedded in 12-year-old Murphy’s life in the outport” – Canadian Children’s Book News

Instead of fishing for “channel cats” with his great-grandfather in southern Manitoba, thirteen-year-old Finn Armstrong winds up fight-ing the Red River Flood of 1997, the biggest flood since 1826.

Cousins and best friends, city girl Alice and country girl Sophie must each cope with the effects of the 1998 Ice Storm in their own way.

Nell helps in her father's lighthouse on the Vancouver Island coast but when a ship crashes on the rocks will she be able to actually save lives.

Fourteen-year-old Jack Gordon, one of the best sailors on Ward's Island, constantly finds himself in trouble for his impulsive actions, but he redeems himself on the summer night in 1949 when the Great Lakes cruise ship Noronic catches fire in Toronto Harbour.

At 4:00 a.m., April 29, 1903, Nathalie lies awake in the booming coal town of Frank, at the base of Turtle Mountain, listening for the whistle of a train - the Spokane Flyer, bringing her American cousin Helena for a visit. Instead, Nathalie hears rocks tumbling down the mountain onto the town and the railway track. She and her mother are safe, but what about others? As she helps search for survivors, desperate questions fill her mind. How many have died? Will the men inside the mine be safe? Will the train be stopped in time? That morning, the northeast face of Turtle Mountain dropped one hundred million tons of limestone on the town. Seventy-six people died, but twenty-three were rescued from under the rocks, seventeen escaped from the mine, and the Flyer was stopped in time. This is a beautifully written novel, with engaging characters and authentic historical detail. It's a story of discovery, as Nathalie - Nattie to her friends - finds her own strengths and skills and the courage to use them.