Robert Wiersema

1 month ago | 49thshelf.com | Trevor Corkum |Gabrielle Drolet |Robert Wiersema |Tahmina Afshar

Our Children's Librarian columnist, Julie Booker, brings us a new view from the stacks every month. **** If You Give a Girl a Bike, by Hayley Diep, illustrated by Canadian Braden Hallett, is reminiscent of Laura Numeroff’s classic If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. It follows a daring female protagonist riding her bike, shredding down hills and mountains. When she falls, she doesn’t stay down for long. A skateboarder comes along and off she goes on four wheels, tackling tricks.

1 month ago | 49thshelf.com | Trevor Corkum |Julie Booker |Tahmina Afshar |Robert Wiersema

Like most authors, I’ve spent most of my life dreaming about my first book. It was going to be a novel; I was going to write it in my master’s program; it would be published by the time I was 25. Now, finally, my first book is out—and it’s far from the one I intended to write. At 23, as I was working on that novel I’d always planned, I developed a chronic and disabling nerve condition that spread pain throughout my upper body.

1 month ago | 49thshelf.com | Trevor Corkum |Julie Booker |Gabrielle Drolet |Robert Wiersema

This month, we’re featuring Broadview Press, an independent publisher known for its expertly edited classics and commitment to accessible, thoughtful scholarship—especially in the humanities, with a specifically Canadian emphasis. Tell me the story of your publisher and when you arrived on the scene. Broadview Press was founded by Don LePan in 1985.

Mar 6, 2025 | 49thshelf.com | Su Min Chang |Robert Wiersema |Spencer Miller

Amber Dawn's latest poetry collection, Buzzkill Clamshell (March), flaunts the chronically pained body as a source of lewd feminine power. Python Love (February), by Shannon Arntfield, weaves together experiences of childhood abuse, birth trauma, and recovery from the perspective of a medical doctor who is also a mother.

Mar 6, 2025 | 49thshelf.com | Su Min Chang |Robert Wiersema |Spencer Miller

An excerpt from new book Women Who Woke up the Law: Inside the Cases That Changed Women's Rights in Canada. Women Who Woke Up the Law is up for giveaway until the end of March! Head over to our giveaways page for your chance to win, and to check out all the other terrific titles up for offer. *****As Bertha Wilson, the first woman appointed to Canada’s Supreme Court, said: “Change in the law comes slowly and incrementally; that is its nature.