Recommendations for people of all ages (but particularly children) to expand their reading diversity, promote black authors, and educate on the topic of discrimination.

Find them in our Children's DVD collection or place a hold!

"Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms." - freedomtoread.ca. In recognition of Freedom to Read Week, we've compiled a list of children's books that have been challenged or banned across North America.

This list features main characters who are not quite human- warrior cats, talking owls, rats with swords, etc.

Books, eBooks, eAudio, and streaming resources recommended by staff during our weekly Book Talks! Check our catalogue for more editions.

Fiction and Nonfiction books and more to help celebrate and understand Indigenous culture.

Check the catalogue for more formats! eBook and graphic novel versions are also available on Cloud Library, ComicsPlus, and Hoopla!

As in film westerns, the western novel has been revived in newer and unconventional ways in recent years. There has been the rise in popularity of the “weird western”: a hybrid genre which blends elements of the traditional western (a lawless frontier, a hero pit against all odds) with those of other types of fiction such as noir, mystery, horror and science-fiction (namely, the alternate Victorian universe known as steampunk).

Films within the noir genre are quite diverse, but have a few things in common: a dark and brooding atmosphere, a cynical protagonist with a complicated past, and plotlines that are fatalistic. Noir fiction has developed alongside these films since the 1930s and 1940s and has the same characteristics. Although classic noir novels by such authors as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett are detective stories, others are written in the form of psychological thrillers, and horror, western and science-fiction novels.