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GOLDEN OAK™ 2013 NOMINATED TITLES

2013 Tracking Sheet (pdf)

	A Stranger At Home Christy Jordan-Fenton, Liz Amini-Holmes Annick Press Ltd.

The sequel to the unforgettable memoir FATTY LEGS. Traveling to be reunited with her family in the arctic, 10-year-old Margaret Pokiak can hardly contain her excitement. It’s been two years since her parents delivered her to the school run by the dark-cloaked nuns and brothers. Coming ashore, Margaret spots her family, but her mother barely recognizes her, screaming, “Not my girl.” Margaret realizes she is now marked as an outsider. And Margaret is an outsider: she has forgotten the language and stories of her people, and she can’t even stomach the food her mother prepares. However, Margaret gradually relearns her language and her family’s way of living. Along the way, she discovers how important it is to remain true to the ways of her people — and to herself. Highlighted by archival photos and striking artwork, this first-person account of a young girl’s struggle to find her place will inspire young readers to ask what it means to belong.

	Behind Enemy Lines: World War II Carol Matas Scholastic Canada Ltd.

Eighteen-year-old Sam Frederiksen has come a long way from the Prairies. Trained to be a gunner in a Lancaster bomber during WWII, he is shot down over France. Battered and bruised, he does survive, and joins forces with the French Resistance... only to be betrayed by one of its members. He and other flyers from various Allied countries are rounded up by the Gestapo and held in Fresnes prison just outside of Paris. Treated as spies, rather — than POWs, these men are beaten, some tortured — then sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in eastern Germany. It is here, in these wretched conditions, that Sam witnesses the darkest side of humanity — gas chambers, torture and starvation. Yet it is also here that he comes to understand the true resilience and unfathomable courage of the victims. Author Carol Matas has won numerous awards for her previous novels about the Holocaust. Behind Enemy Lines is partially based on a true incident from WWII, in which 168 Allied airmen were captured and sent to Buchenwald. Twenty-six of these men were Canadian.

	Remembering The Titanic Frieda Wishinsky Scholastic Inc.

On April 10, 1912, the TITANIC set sail. On April 15, 1912, the great ship sank. This simple reader tells the story of the TITANIC for the 100th anniversary of its tragic voyage. Find out what life was like aboard the ship and meet some of the passengers and the crew. Read about Robert Ballard's triumphant discovery of the wreck 73 years later and what's been discovered since. Full-color photographs throughout and clearly leveled text make history come alive for younger readers.

	Home Invasion Joy Fielding Grass Roots Press

Kathy Brown suddenly wakes up. Was that a noise in the house, or part of her dream? In her dream, Kathy was about to kiss Michael, her high school boyfriend. Her husband, Jack, lies beside her, snoring. Michael is exciting. Jack is boring. When Kathy hears the noise again, she gets up. Then she hears whispers. Then she feels a gun at her head. Two men are in the house. Kathy and her husband face a living nightmare. Kathy must also face her real feelings about her husband. The outcome surprises everyone, most of all Kathy herself.

	In The Bag! Margaret Knight Wraps It Up Monica Kulling, David Parkins Tundra Books

Tundra’s Great Idea Series is comprised of biographies of inventors for early readers. The third book in the series introduces the fascinating Margaret Knight. Known as Mattie, she was different from most American girls living in 1850. She loved to make things with wood and made the best kites and sleds in town. Her father died when she was only three, and by the time she was twelve, she was working at the local cotton mill alongside her two older brothers. One day, she saw a worker get injured by a shuttle that had come loose from the giant loom, and the accident inspired her to invent a stop-motion device. It was the first of her many inventions. Margaret Knight devoted her life to inventing, and is best known for the clever, practical, paper bag. When she died in 1914, she had ninety inventions to her name and over twenty patents, astounding accomplishments for a woman of her day. Monica Kulling’s easy-to-read text, peppered with lots of dialogue, brings an amazing, inspiring woman to life.

	Matatu Eric Walters, Eva Campbell Orca Book Publishers

Come for an African bus ride with a dog, a goat and a sheep! Kioko had been watching the matatus come and go for as long as he could remember. But today, for his fifth birthday, he climbs aboard one with his grandfather. As the matatu pulls away from the market, the village dogs chase after them. When Kioko asks his grandfather why the dogs always bark and chase after matatus, his grandfather tells him an entertaining tale about a dog, a goat and a sheep. Set in East Africa, The Matatu is a colourful story filled with many unexpected turns and twists along the way.

	No Ordinary Day Deborah Ellis Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press

An American Library Association 2012 Notable Children's Book, a Booklist Editors’ Choice, and a finalist for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards: Young Adult/Middle Reader Award, the Governor General's Literary Awards: Children's Text and the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award. There’s not much that upsets young Valli. Even though her days are spent picking coal and fighting with her cousins, life in the coal town of Jharia, India, is the only life she knows. The only sight that fills her with terror are the monsters who live on the other side of the train tracks -- the lepers. Valli and the other children throw stones at them. No matter how hard her life is, she tells herself, at least she will never be one of them. Then she discovers that she is not living with family after all, that her “aunt” was a stranger who was paid money to take Valli off her own family’s hands. She decides to leave Jharia . . . and so begins a series of adventures that takes her to Kolkata, the city of the gods. It’s not so bad. Valli finds that she really doesn’t need much to live. She can “borrow” the things she needs and then pass them on to people who need them more than she does. It helps that though her bare feet become raw wounds as she makes her way around the city, she somehow feels no pain. But when she happens to meet a doctor on the ghats by the river, Valli learns that she has leprosy. Despite being given a chance to receive medical care, she cannot bear the thought that she is one of those monsters she has always feared, and she flees, to an uncertain life on the street.

	Sable Island: The Wandering Sandbar Wendy Kitts Nimbus Publishing Limited

Wendy Kitts has written for More magazine, Saltscapes, Canadian Children's Book News, and The Beaver. A member of the Professional Writers Association of Canada, she has been a regular reviewer of middle school and young adult literature for the Globe and Mail's books section for close to five years. In August 2009 she spent six days on Sable Island and experienced first-hand its beauty and ferocity. Wendy lives in Moncton.