• Age: 9 to 14
• Grade: 4 to 9

A beautiful celebration of small town life, friendship, and opening up to change!

Hope’s world is shaken when her parents announce that they’re leaving their small New Brunswick town and moving to Toronto for her father’s job.

Hope’s anxiety, manageable before that point, skyrockets as she fears making new friends and leaving her beloved ocean, and the sea glass that she has been carefully nurturing for years. At least there’s a tremendous diversion for her final summer — her village of St. David’s is one of five entrants in a nationwide TV contest that celebrates “Canada’s Tiniest Treasures.”

In the countdown to the summer’s end — and the move date —Hope and her best friend, Willa, dedicate themselves to the St. David’s campaign, celebrating what is unique about small town life, and their friendship.

RIEL NASON is a Canadian novelist and textile artist. Her acclaimed debut novel The Town That Drowned won the 2012 Commonwealth Book Prize for Canada and Europe, and the 2012 Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. It was also shortlisted for several other literary awards as well as longlisted for the 2013 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her second novel, All the Things We Leave Behind, was published in September, 2016. Riel’s original quilts have been exhibited across Canada including being shown twice at Quilt Canada (the National Juried Show). Nason grew up in Hawkshaw, NB, and now lives in Quispamsis, NB, with her husband, son, daughter and cats.

Riel Nason's profile page

• Commended, TD Summer Reading Club Selection
• Commended, TD Summer Reading Club, Top Recommended Read
• Commended, Best Books for Kids and Teens, Canadian Children's Book Centre, Starred Selection
• Winner, Mrs. Dunster's Award for Fiction, New Brunswick Book Awards

Praise for The Town That Drowned:

"If her debut novel, The Town That Drowned, is any indication, Riel Nason is a writer to watch. This tender tale about a New Brunswick village threatened by the provincial government's plan to build a dam has a ton of soul." — NOW Magazine, Toronto

"The strength of The Town That Drowned is Ruby’s voice: charming, wry, and believable. The prose style is smooth and clean, and avoids calling attention to itself, allowing Ruby’s voice, vibrating with contradictory desires, to deliver shot-to-the-heart moments of real humour and pathos." — Quill & Quire

Praise for All the Things We Leave Behind:

"[All the Things We Leave Behind is a] powerful rumination on the universal aches of loss, existential dread and adolescence." — Quill & Quire