Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People

Carol Matas shares a “powerful account” of two young teenagers who are willing to stop at nothing to prevent the danger the German invasion of 1940 brought to Denmark (Publishers Weekly). The Nazis have invaded Denmark, putting Lisa and her family’s safety in danger. But they refuse to parish without a fight, leading Lisa and a group of teenage Jews to an underground resistance movement. As the Nazi’s plan to send anyone of Jewish faith to concentration camps, Lisa realizes that the war her people are fighting is a lonely and deadly one. Desperately wanting to prevent the harm and danger to come, Lisa and her brother, Stefan, fight desperately to prove that even just one person can make a difference.

Rachel Miller is 14 years old and caught in the middle of the American Revolution. Rachel makes her way to Halifax, when Boston is evacuated and is led into a series of exciting adventures.

On July 2, 1857, 14-year-old Peter Griffin and twenty-five other men climbed aboard the refitted yacht, FOX, and set sail for the frozen lands of the Arctic sea. Their mission? To find out, once and for all, what had really happened to Sir John Franklin and his crew of 128 men. Twelve years earlier, Sir John had sailed from England to complete the search for the Northwest passage through the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific. Mysteriously, Franklin and his whole expedition had disappeared without a trace. And now Peter Griffin was going to the Arctic to help solve this mystery. In his journal, Peter makes his Arctic adventures come to life—the long, dark days cooped up on board the ship, the dangers ever present in the forbidding, icy landscape, the sadness he and his companions experience as they come closer to realizing the ultimate end of Franklin and his men. In Mystery in the Frozen Lands Martyn Godfrey has written an original and intriguing story. Drawing on historical writings, Godfrey tells a tale that is gripping, moving, and absolutely real.

In the summer of 1940 as the war in Europe begins to intensify, a reluctant ten-year-old Norah and her five-year-old brother Gavin are sent by their parents to safety in Canada where to Norah's dismay they are taken in by the rich Ogilvie family.

Flames are bright against the night sky. Thirteen-year-old Emma watches with horrified fascination as they consume the family's log cabin, leaving her and her younger brother orphaned. These three books are set in the early 1830s. Emma's grief and shock, and her bravery in building a new life, are timeless.

Marianne Brandis's vivid evocation of pioneer life in Upper Canada – the texture of the log cabin, the sights and smells of harvest, the raw cold of outdoor chores at dawn – has been delighting readers since the first book was first published in 1982.

In 1945, after living in Canada for five years to escape the war in Europe, ten-year-old Gavin and his fifteen-year-old sister Norah face the prospect of returning home to their family in England with radically different emotions.

While on an expedition with his father to get lumber to take back to Greenland, Thrand is captured by the native Osweet, who have taken him to replace one of their own who was killed by a Greenlander.

A young-adult historical novel about Mackenzie's rebellion of 1837, published to co-incide with the celebrations commemorating the 200th anniversary of the establishment of Yonge Street.

"Oh, Dougie," she said through her tears, "I'll be going to Canada soon. How can I leave you?" He laid his blackened hand against her cheek. "You know it's right to go, Aggie. The money will be a great help to Mum and Da. I'm past worrying about now." And Aggie relized that even though Dougie was with her he was dead. When young Aggie leaves Scotland in search of a better future, she must say goodbye to everything dear to her and face the unknown as bravely as she can. In Toronto, Aggie is employed as a servant, and over time she adapts to city life, new ways, and the possilibity of happiness she has never befroe dreamt of.

The play opens on 15 November 1938, six days after the launching of the government planned and sponsored anti-Semitic program called Kristallnacht?the Night of Broken Glass. It is the day that German State schools closed their doors permanently to Jewish students. Young Marianne's world crumbles; hostility surrounds her every step. Her father is in hiding from the Gestapo and her mother surrounds her with over-protectiveness. Then, Marianne meets Ernest, a boy staying in her apartment building while on holiday in Berlin. They have a lot in common, but then Ernest discovers Marianne is Jewish, and she sees him in the uniform of the Hitler Youth. "Goodbye Marianne" is documentary fiction, based on the author's own personal experiences as a child in Nazi Germany and of other Holocaust survivors. Winner of the Jessie Award for Best Children's Play.

There was once a village bred by evil. On the barren coast of Cornwall, England, lived a community who prayed for shipwrecks, a community who lured storm-tossed ships to crash upon the sharp rocks of their shore. They fed and clothed themselves with the loot salvaged from the wreckage; dead sailors' tools and trinkets became decorations for their homes. Most never questioned their murderous way of life. Then, upon that pirates' shore crashed the ship The Isle of Skye. And the youngest of its crew members, 14-year-old John Spencer, survived the wreck. But would he escape the wreckers? This is his harrowing tale.

Charlie Wilcox, a Newfoundlander, is interested in one thing only: going to sea, just like his father and uncles. He'll make his family proud. His parents have different plans for him, however: they want him to go to university.

Humiliated, Charlie sets out to prove he can measure up to the men in his family, and stows away on a sealing ship. It's only when they are far out to sea, and he is discovered, that he realizes he's on a troopship bound for France!

Alone in Europe, he manages as best he can. He finds a regiment of fellow Newfoundlanders, and because he's too young to fight he works as a stretcher bearer instead. The trenches along the front lines of the Somme are no place for anyone, but especially for a kid, and it's very hard not to be afraid. Especially on the morning of July 1, 1916, when Charlie's friends are ordered out of their trenches and over the top, and the German guns are waiting for them...

In 1861, thirteen-year-old Phoebe runs away from her master's Alabama plantation and joins four other slaves as they journey to Canada on the Underground Railroad.

It is 1924. Sadie and her little sister, Flora, are struggling with the challenges of a new school, a new town and a life without their parents. They used to live in Canada, but then their mother died and their father decided to try his luck prospecting for gold in the interior of Newfoundland. With no home of their own, Sadie and Flora must stay in a cold, grim boarding house in St. John's, owned by the stern Mrs. Hatch.

Sadie tries hard to provide her sister with love and stability, but it's an uphill struggle. The girls at Bishop Spencer School for Girls are mean to Sadie, partly because she is a foreigner from Canada, and partly because she is smart and does well in her classes. And although she makes a new friend-Teddy, whom she met when her family stayed at the hotel his parents run-theirs is a different kind of friendship, one that Sadie finds difficult to navigate.

Sadie's world is rocked when her father stops writing to her and, more crucially, stops sending money to Mrs. Hatch. Terrified that something has happened to her father, and well aware she and Flora may be sent to an orphanage, Sadie quickly learns that everything depends on her.

With The Word for Home, award-winning author Joan Clark has created a moving novel about one girl's search for friendship, love and security, and the place her search leads her-a place called home.

Martin O'Boy 's loving grandmother and true friends help him deal with the poverty of Ottawa's Lowertown during the end of World War II, a developmentally delayed twin brother, a mother who is overly dependent on his help, and the abuse he receives at the hands of a church choir leader.

Winner of the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction The year is 1959, and fifteen-year-old Nipishish returns to his reserve in northern Quebec after being kicked out of residential school, where the principal tells him he's a good-for-nothing who, like all Indians, can look forward to a life of drunkenness, prison and despair. The reserve, however, offers nothing to Nipishish. He remembers little of his late mother and father. In fact, he seems to know less about himself than the people at the band office. He must try to rediscover the old ways, face the officials who find him a threat, and learn the truth about his father's death.

Twelve-year-old Emaline Bitterman loves her home on the prairies. She loves helping her father in the fields and her dog, Prince. But farming in southern Saskatchewan in the mid 1960s is not easy. And then one day Emaline tries to stop Prince from chasing a hare into the path of the tractor her father is driving, and her leg is caught in the discer, leaving her with a permanent disability. In his grief and guilt her father shoots Prince and then leaves Emaline and her distraught mother on their own.

Kanada. The name meant untold riches and promise to Jutka, a young Hungarian girl who was captivated by stories of a vast, majestic country where people were able to breathe free of hatred and prejudice. Freedom was in short supply, but hatred was everywhere in Hungary as hundreds of thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps during the last year of WWII. Jutka, her friends, and her family are sent to Auschwitz.

In that hellish place, there was another Kanada. It was the ironic name given to the storehouse at Auschwitz where the possessions — clothing and jewelry — stripped from the victims were deposited, and where Jutka was put to work.

The war may have ended, but it did not end the suffering of many of the inmates of concentration camps. Many had no homes to go to, and if they did, they were not welcome. Hundreds
went back to Poland and were murdered. Famished, diseased, and homeless, they lived in the hopelessness of camps, wondering if they could ever find a home in the world. Some went to Israel, but for Jutka there was only one dream left her — the dream of a country full of hope, where she would no longer have to live in fear.

Eva Wiseman's powerful novel describes the war and its long, difficult aftermath with compassion and tenderness.

Master storyteller Christopher Paul Curtis's Newbery Honor novel, featuring his trademark humor and unique narrative voice, is now part of the Scholastic Gold line! Elijah of Buxton, recipient of the Newbery Honor and winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. This edition includes exclusive bonus content!Eleven-year-old Elijah lives in Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves near the American border. Elijah's the first child in town to be born free, and he ought to be famous just for that -- not to mention for being the best at chunking rocks and catching fish. Unfortunately, all that most people see is a "fra-gile" boy who's scared of snakes and tends to talk too much. But everything changes when a former slave steals money from Elijah's friend, who has been saving to buy his family out of captivity in the South. Now it's up to Elijah to track down the thief -- and his dangerous journey just might make a hero out of him, if only he can find the courage to get back home.

Ben thinks he will always be stuck at Cook's Landing, barely making ends meet like his uncle. But when he meets a wealthy widow from New York City, he sees himself there too. When she hires him to play his violin, he realizes his gift could unokc the possibilities of the world. Then, during a stormy night on Lake Muskoka, everything changes.

In broad daylight, a high society girl vanishes on a crowded street. Days pass, then weeks; the daring abduction remains an impenetrable mystery, without a ransom note, a single clue, or even public information. The moment young Sherlock reads about it, he knows that it's the case that will make his name.

Luke meets Gracie, and despite her being a girl, they become close friends. When the citizens of the small, rural, 1940s town that Luke lives in learn that Gracie and her mother have a shady past, Luke must decide whether he will stand up for his new friend or save his own reputation.

Françoise Laurent has never had an easy life. The only surviving child of a destitute washerwoman and wayward soldier, she must rely only on herself to get by. When her parents die suddenly from the smallpox ravishing New France (modern-day Montreal), Françoise sees it as a chance to escape the life she thought she was trapped in. Seizing her newfound opportunity, Françoise takes a job as an aide to the wife of a wealthy fur trader. The poverty-ridden world she knew transforms into a strange new world full of privilege and fine things — and of never having to beg for food. But Françoise’s relationships with the other servants in Madame Pommereau’s house are tenuous, and Madame Pommereau isn’t an easy woman to work for. When Françoise is caught stealing a pair of her mistress’s beautiful gloves, she faces a future even worse than she could have imagined: thrown in jail, she is sentenced to death by hanging. Once again, Françoise is left to her own devices to survive ... Is she cunning enough to convince the prisoner in the cell beside her to become the hangman and marry her, which, by law, is the only thing that could save her life? Based on an actual story and filled with illuminating historical detail, THE HANGMAN IN THE MIRROR transports readers to the harsh landscape of a new land that is filled with even harsher class divisions and injustices.