Leroy "Doodlebug" Barnstable likes to call himself the quickest draw in the west—with a crayon. It's 1923 and Doodle is on the run from a couple of abusive cousins. He stumbles into a travelling Chautauqua show where it's easy to get lost in a crowd—but also easy to lose your heart. This funny and endearing novel by Governor General's Award-winning novelist Glen Huser will make an absorbing read for fourteen and fifteen year olds, boys and girls alike.

Includes Author-Curated Discussion Questions!From small-town Alberta, Curtis comes to Edmonton to obtain a teaching degree. There he forms a close friendship with his elderly, blind Aunt Harriet, considered a family pariah due to her eccentric enthusiasm for a lost world of artists and musicians.When Curtis begins reading aloud to Harriet the diary her intended husband Phillip kept before his death during World War One, an obsessed Curtis examines parallels to his own life: his desire to become a skillful artist and to find fulfilling love.Timeless and essential, award-winning author Glen Huser's Burning the Night spans across generations and distance, traversing from Vancouver to Halifax, as it bears down on the history of Canadian painting and Curtis's awakening as a gay man.

Cosmo the clown is the first bit of light to come into Barbara's life in a long time. At home, she takes care of her abusive father, her grandmother, and Livvy, her sick sister. Cosmo encourages Barbara to join a teen clown workshop he is leading, and there she finds true friends for the first time. But she is soon in desperate need of his gentle guidance, when her family situation implodes, and her own resilience and resourcefulness are put to their greatest test.

At fifteen, Tamara has survived the foster-care system through brains, will and attitude. Now there's high school to get through, along with her teacher's latest community project — volunteering at the local seniors' home. Tamara doubts she can endure either the residents or the smells. Then she's assigned to Jean Barclay, a cranky, wealthy and frail former schoolteacher. As the two size one another up, they realize each is the key to achieving their own very different goals. Miss Barclay wants to attend an opera in Seattle — a trip doctors insist she's too weak to undertake. Tamara wants to enroll in modeling school in Vancouver — an expense she can't begin to afford. They plan the road trip of a lifetime — but can these two bossy, manipulative women keep from throttling each other before their goals are realized?

When Carolina Giddle moves into the Blatchford Arms, no one knows what to make of her sequin-sprinkled sneakers and her trinket-crusted car. But the parents are happy there's a new babysitter around, and Carolina seems to have an uncanny ability to calm the most rambunctious child with her ghostly stories.