Enter for a Chance to Win Free Books!
49th Shelf members can enter to win a copy of any of the books listed here (please sign up here if you haven’t already). At the end of the giveaway period, we do a random draw, and the publishers ship copies directly to the winners. Good luck!
Snow Day
Capturing the magic of a snowfall, Snow Day follows an Indigenous family as they experience all of the delights of a winter's day. While Mom shovels the driveway and Dad cares for her brother by the fire, a young girl and her dog make snowflake tea, build a snow caterpillar, catch snowflakes on their tongues, and make snow angels. All while the snow continues to fall. At the end of the day, the girl is beckoned inside by the promise of hot chocolate, and regails her family with her adventures' and dreams of doing it all again tomorrow.
Atmospheric, nostalgic, and full of winter fun, the debut picture book by mixed-Cree journalist, book reviewer, and podcast host Lindsay Gloade-Raining Bird is a celebration of Indigenous joy and childhood wonder. Features warm, colourful artwork rendered in traditional gouache and coloured pencil from debut illustrator Ashley Thimot.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 88
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Getting Us to Grandma’s
No one knows maps like Nikki — but can she get her family to Grandma's house in time?
Nikki’s family is preparing for a long road trip from Toronto to the Bronx to attend Uncle Travis's wedding. They pack their suitcases, boxes of Jamaican black cake, and most importantly to Nikki, the big map book!
Nikki loves geography and enjoys tracing the routes to all the places her relatives live — her Grandpa in Florida, her cousins in Atlanta, DC, and Boston. She daydreams of England, where other family lives, and Jamaica and Africa, where her roots run deep.
Her attention comes back to the road trip when it’s clear that Daddy’s taken a wrong turn. “I can help!” says Nikki, who proves to be an excellent navigator. She guides them back to the Bronx Expressway, under the elevated subway tracks, onto a street of brown row houses and safely to Grandma’s.
Inspired by the childhoods of author Nadia L. Hohn and illustrator TeMika Grooms, Getting Us to Grandma’s is full of fun historic details — a world before Google Maps! — and authentic cultural moments shared by diasporic families, whose stories can be traced across continents. A fantastic representation of Black girls in STEM.
- Giveaway period ends
- Nov 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 75
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Adventures in Desolation Sound
A funny, adventure-packed picture book for children ages 4-7, inspired by radio personality Grant Lawrence’s bestselling memoir Adventures in Solitude.
The Lawrence family is on their way to a rustic cabin in BC’s remote Desolation Sound, but not everyone is excited. Young Grant and his little sister Heather would rather stay at home in the city and watch TV. The long drive has so many twists and turns that it makes them sick. When the family finally arrives, it’s too dark, the toilet is outside, and the neighbours are weird. But slowly, the kids discover the magic of the place and learn that there’s a lot more to life than television, gaining confidence through exciting and hilarious adventures with family and new friends. Now they can’t wait to come back next summer!
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 66
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The Rock and the Butterfly
The rock was always there...until, one day, it wasn't.
The rock and the butterfly are a perfect fit. The butterfly takes shelter on the steady rock after hours of flittering and fluttering, and the rock loves to hear of the butterfly's adventures after a long day of sitting in one spot. Then one day the rock isn't where it has always been—and the butterfly is alone. It can't find a comfortable place to rest, and it eventually collapses on the ground. When it wakes, the butterfly realizes that it is lying in the exact spot where the rock used to be, and it takes comfort in all that its beloved friend left behind.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 74
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The First Ones on the Ice
For fans of When the Moon Comes, a gentle winter story about a brother and sister and the simple beauty of their neighbourhood outdoor rink, inspired by the author's hometown of St. Stephen, New Brunswick.
My brother and I are the luckiest kids in town.
We start the path. We"ll get there first.
On a quiet winter morning, before the sun has fully risen, a brother and sister set out with their skates. They spend the day on the icy pond behind their house—clearing the snow, skating with the crowd of neighbourhood kids, and cheering on the local hockey team, who play until the sun begins to set. Finally, under the moon and stars, the siblings once again have the ice to themselves.
Inspired by the author's childhood memories of growing up in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, this nostalgic and beautifully illustrated picture book celebrates community, family, and the joy of playing outside.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 76
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A Different Track
Hospital Trains of the Second World War
This fascinating book looks at the largely unknown history of hospital trains, which wound their way across the scarred landscapes of war-weary Europe, and the doctors and nurses who risked their lives treating patients from all sides of the conflict.
Railroads played an integral role in the Second World War. Trains brought food, munitions, and essential supplies. They transported troops. They were a means of escape for those fleeing persecution. At the same, they were used to transport innocent people to their deaths. Yet there was one kind of train that improved the chances of survival every time they rolled through the battle-worn towns and cities of the European theatre of war.
Hospital trains were not a new concept in the Second World War, but their use was instrumental in this most deadly conflict of the twentieth century. Regular passenger trains were converted into mobile emergency wards tending to the critically wounded. It was an elegant solution, as train cars could be refitted with tier beds, and supplies could be easily transported along with medical staff.
A Different Track introduces readers to the world of hospital trains of the Second World War. From the nurses who ran them to the factories that manufactured them, this book looks at how these trains quietly altered the fortunes of the world. From Canada’s contributions to the role of women who both healed the sick and built the trains, this is a fascinating look at one of the hidden nuggets of history.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 96
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Frances Barkley
Eighteenth-century Seafarer
A rivetingly imagined re-telling of the voyages of Frances Barkley (1769–1845), who as a young woman travelled the world on a trading mission with her sea captain husband.
Over two hundred years ago, Frances Barkley, a seventeen-year-old girl fresh out of a convent school in France, met twenty-six-year-old sea captain, fell deeply in love, and married him after a six-week courtship. Five weeks later, she stepped aboard his ship, the Imperial Eagle, to set sail on an eight-year voyage that would take them around the world twice.
Frances Barkley’s story is a remarkable one. It is a story born of discovery, of firsts, of hardship, of disease, of illness, and of death. Relying on her strength of character and wit, this young woman survived fierce seas, shipwreck, and capture by pirates. When Frances was approaching her seventh decade, at the behest of her daughter, she put pen to paper and wrote down what she could remember of her life with her husband in the merchant sea trade. Frances Barkley: Eighteenth-century Seafarer is not simply a re-issue of Frances’s own reminiscences, but a work of creative non-fiction—an extensive reimagining of her time at sea, supplemented through extensive historical, geographic, and nautical research.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 82
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Genocide
Revised and Expanded Edition
What is genocide? Why does it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again?
At the end of the Second World War, with the establishment of the United Nations, the holding of the Nuremberg Trials and the adoption of the Genocide Convention, the international community assured itself that genocide would never happen again. But never again has become a meaningless phrase.
This book asks why. It also asks, what is genocide? Where has it happened in the past? Who is being threatened by genocide today? And what can we do to prevent this terrible crime from recurring?
Providing an overview of the history of genocide worldwide, this revised, expanded edition helps readers answer these questions. It brings them up to date with recent events—the killing of the Rohingya in Myanmar, the persecution of the Uyghurs in China, the broader recognition of the genocide of Indigenous Peoples, the resurgence of fighting in Darfur, and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. It examines and elucidates the debates and controversies surrounding the use of the term genocide as well as the reasons for the common response by individuals, governments and the United Nations — denial.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 76
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Mad Sisters
A poignant memoir of a caregiver's lifelong struggle to break through the barrier of her sibling's mental illness in search of sisterhood.
Through evocative personal stories, Susan Grundy compassionately explores the devastating consequences of her older sister's severe mental illness. Her diagnosis of schizophrenia at age thirteen eventually leads their disheartened parents to move away to start a new life and to the jarring progression of Susan from a free-spirited little sister into a trapped caregiver.
Susan, candidly and with brave honesty, describes the caregiver push-pull whirlpool where she alternates between fury at her sister's resentful and jealous moods and being flooded with sympathy and guilt - why her and not me? But still, Susan is unable to step away. This memoir, slipping back and forth in chronology, underlines how the past infuses the present. The sisters' journey is woven with resilience and humour and radiates with the potential for well-being and hope despite the collateral damage of a mental illness.
Mad Sisters passionately sounds the alarm about the ongoing lack of resources in the mental health care system. This memoir heartbreakingly sheds light on the burdened family caregiver - the "invisible healthcare partner." Susan spotlights the less common theme of the sibling caregiver and the resulting complexity of skewed family roles.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 75
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Uncut
A Cultural Analysis of the Foreskin
Uncut explores the significance of the foreskin in contemporary culture
The “uncut” penis is viewed by some as attractive or erotic, and by others as ugly or undesirable. Secular parents of male infants worry about whether or not the foreskin should be removed so their little boy can grow up to “look like dad” or to avoid imagined bullying in the locker room. Medical experts and public health organizations argue back and forth about whether circumcision is medically necessary, while “intactivists” advocate that removing an infant’s foreskin without their consent is mutilation.
Uncut: A Cultural Analysis of the Foreskin takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the foreskin and its contentious position in contemporary Anglo-American culture. From language to art, from religion to medicine and public health, Uncut is a provocative book that asks us to ask ourselves what we know and don’t know about this seemingly small piece of skin.
Drawing on all these threads, Jonathan A. Allan leads us through the history and cultural construction of the foreskin—from Michelangelo’s David to parenting manuals, from nineteenth-century panic over masturbation to foreskin restoration—to ultimately ask: what is the future of the foreskin?
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 48
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