Spin to Sea
Publisher: Acorn Press$12.95Every year at harvest, in a cosy cove on the south shore of Nova Scotia, families and neighbors gather by the water and send their carved pumpkins out into the bay. Spin to the Sea celebrates this enchanted, annual event through magical illustrations and lyrical text. Izra Fitch is 15 years old and lives in the Annapolis Valley with her parents, two brothers and their cats.Her first book, Spin to the Sea was created outside, in cafes and at the kitchen table. Izra loves to make art, stories and music. She also likes rainy weather, graphic novels, travelling, gorillas and chocolate. No pumpkins were harmed in the making of this book.
Such a Winter’s Day
Publisher: Acorn Press$22.95This is a story of challenge, ambition, love and heartbreak and a story of acceptance, forgiveness, friendship, and hope.
Tallulah the Theatre Cat
Publisher: Acorn Press$9.95Tallulah the village cat is passionately drawn to the theatre in Victoria-by-the-Sea, Prince Edward Island. Her search to fit in takes us on a humourous behind-the-scenes tour of a theatre. Her rise from being most unwelcome to greatly appreciated is a story of the values of persistence, loyalty and following one’s bliss.
Ten Thousand Truths
Publisher: Acorn Press$12.95A moving story of losing family but finding a new one. Thirteen-year-old Rachel is bad news, or so her foster care worker tells her. She’s been shuttled from one rotten foster family to another ever since her mother and brother died in a car accident five years ago, and she’s running out of options. So when she gets caught shoplifting and is kicked out of her latest home, the only place left to send her is the last resort for kids like her: a farm in the middle of nowhere run by a disfigured recluse named Amelia Walton, whom Rachel nicknames “Warty” because of the strange lumps covering her face and neck. Rachel settles into life at the farm, losing herself in her daily chores and Amelia’s endless trivia, and trying to forget her past and the secret she’s holding inside. But when a letter arrives for her out of the blue, Rachel soon realizes that you can’t hide from your past-or your future.
The Bygone Days Folklore, Traditions & Toenails
Publisher: Acorn Press$22.95Reginald—better known as “Dutch”—Thompson is a multi-faceted storyteller with unforgettable voices—those of Roy from Murray Harbour North, Adelaide from Bunbury, Gus from Chepstow, and countless others—to tell the stories of the Bygone days in Prince Edward Island [sometimes NS, too]. Stories that, without Dutch’s talent and care, might be remembered only by family and close friends or lost altogether.
Remember when the train ran from tip to tip and along all the small branches, taking goods, people, and baseball teams to other parts of the Island? How about when ice cream and two pieces of cakes cost 10 cents at White’s Ice Cream Parlour on Kent Street? When lobster was not the gourmet’s delight it is now and the backs were used to fertilize the crops? That butchering the pig before a full moon will mean less fat on the meat? Or that it was bad luck to cut your nails on Sundays.
From CBC Radio to the pages of this book, you’ll hear Dutch’s voice encouraging these informative, illuminating, poignant, and hilarious stories from the minds and hearts of Maritimers born between 1895 and 1925, almost as if they were all still here and telling them to you.
The Keto Solution A Practical Guide for Living Your Low-Carbohydrate Life
Publisher: Acorn Press$19.95At the age of 40, Angela Doucette was seriously overweight and starting to show signs of metabolic disease. She had developed high blood pressure, had some concerning numbers in my cholesterol/lipid profile and was about 50 pounds overweight. She felt miserable and frustrated having tried so many weight loss and exercise programs but nothing seemed to work long term. She switched to “Primal” eating and was finally able to shift the weight. Surprisingly, though, her blood pressure decreased naturally, her hs-CRP (an inflammatory marker) dropped significantly, and her lipid profile improved without medication! As a way to share the benefits, she started a weight loss and coaching program and offers workshops as well as online and in-person meetings. She has created a peer support network through the Keto Solution Facebook group, which continues to grow.
As Dr. Gary Fettke says, “Once you see the benefits, you can’t unsee them.” This journey has not only changed her professional outlook and career path, it has also given her hope for her future. With the knowledge and motivation to make the changes, she feels that other Maritimers can see these changes too. Packed with recipes and helpful hints, The Keto Solution is the only book you need for switching to a Keto lifestyle.
The Reluctant Detective
Publisher: Acorn Press$17.95A young widow, orphan and mother, Wilhelmina Anne Brown is just beginning to find some stability in her new home in Prince Edward Island when she is forced to deal with the death of her beloved uncle, Bill Darby. Darby, a Charlottetown private investigator, leaves Anne and her fourteen-year-old daughter a small savings account and his business, where Anne has worked as office manager for six years. What follows is Anne’s struggle to protect her family, find justice for her clients, and forge a new life for herself in this page-turning thriller.
The Rosary and the Rifle The Murder of Mary Ann MacKinnon
Publisher: Acorn Press$19.95On July 1, 1931, Mary Ann MacAulay married John Charles ‘JC’ MacKinnon at St. Mary’s Church in Souris, PEI. This mother of 12 children was a busy farmer’s wife, known for her optimistic outlook. Her optimism shone through her weekly column in The Charlottetown Patriot entitled “Mrs. Wiggs and Her Garden Patch”. Mrs. Wiggs’ writings not only identify her as an astute observer and chronicler of local events, educational issues, agricultural practices, and economic issues but also that Mary Ann was one of Mother Nature’s admirers and a person inclined to optimism where it could be found.
Mary Ann’s oldest child, Estelle, was 19 years old in 1951. A very attractive young lady, Estelle had graduated from Grade 11. Not long afterward, she was assaulted by an ex-boyfriend, Joey MacDonald, who was about to be tried for attempted rape. Before the trial, Mary Ann and family sat down to say the Rosary. About half way through, they heard glass breaking and first thought it was the chimney of the Aladdin lamp. Immediately when the sound was heard, Mary Ann swayed on her seat and fell backward. Her family members saw blood coming from behind her left ear and they then realized she had been shot. Mary Ann died on the second anniversary of her husband’s death leaving behind eleven orphaned children.
This is the story of the trial of Joey MacDonald and the family Mary Ann left behind.
The Sacred Space
Publisher: Acorn Press$25.95In this intimate collection of writing and art, Brian J. Francis invites us to explore the sacred space within.
The Sea That Sings To Me
Artist: Marla LesagePublisher: Acorn Press$13.95In this story an Island girl can hear music in the ocean — not as a metaphor, but as melodies, percussion, harmonies ringing from the waves. With lyrical words and beautiful illustrations, The Sea that Sings to Me is an ode to the special connection we have with the natural world.
the Whither Poems
Publisher: Acorn Press$17.95the whither poems is a poetry collection by Catherine Edward, a septuagenarian grandmother. “Whither is an oldish word, with a helpful attitude. I love it for that,” she says. “The overarching theme of the book is ‘that which cannot be’ while admitting to ‘what must be’. It is in the response to unanticipated, uninvited change that one’s mettle is revealed.”
The Year Mrs. Montague Cried
Publisher: Acorn Press$12.95Susan White was born in New Brunswick and moved from one New Brunswick city to another. As a teenager her family moved to the Kingston Peninsula and she only left long enough to earn her BA and Bed at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. Settling on the peninsula, she and her husband raised four children and ran small farm while she taught elementary school. Since retiring she is grateful to now have the time to work on her writing and the freedom to regularly visit her new granddaughter in Alberta.
This is How I Connect to You
Publisher: Acorn Press$19.95This collection is challenge, intimacy, and myth, revealed or transmuted in the moments of everyday living
This Navy Doctor Came Ashore
Publisher: Acorn Press$17.95Dr. Read entered the Royal Canadian Navy in 1943 and worked for three years as a flight surgeon. When the war was winding down, he realized that his career as a flight surgeon was also over. But he remembered how much he had enjoyed the three weeks he spent in Charlottetown when he relieved the medical officer at HMCS Queen Charlotte. This city of 20,000, in which this landship was ‘moored’, was much to his liking partly because he had grown up in Amherst, Nova Scotia, just across the Northumberland Strait, where he thought the culture was very similar. He also knew that as the only medical officer there would be independence, significant responsibility and virtual freedom from naval protocol and politics. One couldn’t ask for more. But this was during prohibition on the Island and little did he know that a great deal of his time would be spent writing “prescriptions” for alcohol so that the officers could be allowed to drink. Nor did he know that because of the lack of family physicians on the Island, he would be asked to open a general practice in a rural area of the province. For a flight surgeon who had little experience in family medicine, this would be a whole new adventure. This book chronicles some of the noteworthy events of the time he spent spent as a country doctor.
