Can We Talk about Race and Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation. Beverly Daniel Tatum, $16.00

Beverly Daniel Tatum emerged on the scene in 1997 with Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, a book that spoke to a wide audience about the psychological dynamics of race relations in America. Now, in Can We Talk about Race, Tatum starts with a warning call about the increasing but underreported re-segregation of America. Tatum sees our growing isolation from each other as deeply problematic, and she believes that schools can be key institutions for forging connections across the racial divide.

In this ambitious, accessible book, Tatum examines some of the most resonant issues in American education and race relations:

• The need of African-American students to see themselves reflected in curricula and institutions
• How unexamined racial attitudes can negatively affect minority-student achievement
• The possibilities—and complications—of intimate cross-racial friendships

Tatum approaches all these topics with the blend of analysis and storytelling that make her a most persuasive and engaging commentator on race.

Citizenship Series, by Cassie Mayer (Grades 1 – 2)

Books in this series introduce character values that are an important part of good citizenship. Each book uses playful, engaging illustrations to show situations that demonstrate positive behavior. The books end by asking students to wonder how they may behave to demonstrate each characteristic.

Being a Leader. Cassie Mayer, $6.95 (Gr. 1 – 2)

Being Helpful. Cassie Mayer, $6.95 (Gr. 1 – 2)

Being Fair. Cassie Mayer, $6.95 (Gr. 1 – 2)

Making Friends. Cassie Mayer, $6.95 (Gr. 1 – 2)

Following Rules. Cassie Mayer, $6.95 (Gr. 1 – 2)

Being Responsible. Cassie Mayer, $6.95 (Gr. 1 – 2)

Being Honest. Cassie Mayer, $6.95 (Gr. 1 – 2)

The Complete Guide to Service Learning, Grades K-12.  Cathryn Berger Kaye, $47.99

Proven, practical ways to engage students in civic responsibility, academic curriculum and social action.

Doing Good Together: 101 Easy, Meaningful Service Projects for Families, Schools and Communities. Jenny Friedman & Jolene Roehlkepartain, $29.99

What happens when families volunteer together with other families? Communities benefit, kids and families benefit and your organization benefits.

With activities focused on helping the environment, easing poverty, promoting literacy and more, the 101 ready-to-use projects in this book are a great way to reap the many benefits of family service.  These self-contained projects are easy to implement and include everything leaders need to plan, organize, conduct and help participants reflect on the experience.

The Enemy: a Book about Peace. Davide Cali, illustrated by Serge Bloch, $19.99

There is a battlefield. In the battlefield there are two holes. In each hole there is a soldier.

Simple, direct and powerful, this is a timeless story about the pointlessness of war.

Everyday Anti-Racism: Getting Real about Race in School. Edited by Mica Pollock, $27.50

In Everyday Anti-Racism leading educators deal with the most challenging questions about race in school, offering invaluable and effective advice. Topics range from using racial incidents as teachable moments to valuing students’ home worlds, dealing daily with achievement gaps, and helping parents fight ethnic and racial misconceptions about their children. Questions following each essay prompt readers to examine and discuss everyday issues of race and opportunity in their own classrooms and schools.

In this remarkable and timely book, bestselling author Barbara Coloroso turns her attention to genocide: what it means; where it begins; where it must end. Through an examination of three clearly defined genocides — of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire; the Jews, Roma, and Sinti in Europe; and the Tutsi in Rwanda — Coloroso deconstructs the causes of genocide and its consequences, both to the immediate victims and to the fabric of the world at large, and proposes the conditions that must exist in order to eradicate this evil from the world. Based on the author’s twenty years of research and extensive travel, Extraordinary Evil is an urgently needed work in an age when acts of genocide seem to occur more frequently and are in the public’s consciousness more than ever before.

Giant Steps to Change the World. Spike Lee & Tonya Lewis Lee, $19.99

Everyone has it in them to be a hero…

The Good Garden: How One Family Went from Hunger to Having Enough. Katie Smith Milway, illustrated by Sylvie Daigneault, $19.95

The Good Garden is a simple story about a big issue: food insecurity. This introduction to a global issue provides children with the tools and information to help them make a difference locally and globally.

Great Ideas: Using Service-Learning and Differentiated Instruction to Help Your Students Succeed. Pamela Gent, $41.95

Much more than "community service,” service-learning activities help improve outcomes for all students when they're carefully linked to the curriculum and IEP goals. This book shows K-12 educators and administrators exactly how this approach promotes inclusion and differentiated instruction for students with and without disabilities. A fresh, hands-on guide to inclusion that goes beyond co-teaching, collaboration, or accommodations, this highly practical book will help educators make the most of every student's unique abilities—and build better communities inside and outside the classroom.

Growing Up Global: Raising Children to be at Home in the World.  Homa Sabet Tavangar, $19.95

In today’s increasingly interconnected world, how do we prepare our children to succeed and to become happy, informed global citizens? In Growing Up Global, Tavangar shares with all of us her “parenting toolbox” to help give our children a vital global perspective.

Whether you’re mastering a greeting in ten different languages, throwing an internationally themed birthday party, or celebrating a newfound holiday, Growing Up Global provides parents and children with a rich, exciting background for exploring and connecting with far-flung nations they may have only heard about on television. Inside you’ll discover

• fun activities, games, and suggestions for movies, music, books, magazines, service activities, and websites for expanding your family’s worldview
• simple explanations that will help your children grasp the diversity of world faiths
• creative ways to gain geography literacy
• handy lists of celebrations and customs that offer a fascinating look at how people from different cultures around the world live everyday life

Growing Up Global is a book that parents, grandparents, and teachers can turn to again and again for inspiration and motivation as they strive to open the minds of children everywhere.

Helping Teens Stop Violence, Build Community and Stand for Social Justice. Allan Creighton & Paul Kivel, $23.50

Allan Creighton and Paul Kivel, veteran youth educators and community activists, use their decades of experience with teens to offer:

• a framework and vocabulary for teaching violence prevention and social justice
• road-tested exercises for adult, staff and youth training and development
• guidelines for facilitating discussions on sensitive contemporary issues

These tools have been used successfully in schools, residential programs, after-school and recreation programs, youth detention facilities, and colleges and universities. Any adult determined to help young people become active, critically thinking community members will find a strong ally in this empowering resource.

A Hen for Izzy Pippik. Aubrey Davis & Marie LaFrance, $18.95 (ages 4-8)

When Shaina finds a magnificent hen, she knows that Izzy Pippik, the hen's owner, is sure to return for her. In the meantime, Shaina decides she will care for the animal. But when dozens of eggs hatch and rowdy chickens scatter throughout the village, Shaina must fight the entire town if she has any hope of protecting the birds. Inspired by Jewish and Islamic traditional texts, this is a beautiful tale about doing the right thing, even in the face of adversity. 

If the World Were a Village: a Book about the World’s People, 2nd Edition. David Smith, illustrated by Shelagh Armstrong, $19.95 (ages 8-12)

This eye-opening book promotes "world-mindedness" by imagining the world's population — all 6.8 billion of us — as a village of just 100 people. If the World Were a Village looks at the languages, wealth, food security, energy and health of the citizens in the village. By exploring the lives of the 100 villagers, children will discover that life in other nations is often very different from their own.

Includes extensive resources and access to an online teaching guide.

It Takes a Child. Craig Kielburger, $10.95

IT TAKES A CHILD is a fun, vibrant look back at Craig's adventures in taking global action. The book takes readers along on Craig's eye-opening journey throughout the developing world, learning about child labour, making new friends, and the origins of Free the Children.

Just Because It Isn’t Wrong Doesn’t Make It Right: Teaching Kids To Think and Act Ethically. Barbara Coloroso, $22.00

In her now-classic ‘kids are worth it!’ Barbara Coloroso’s underlying parenting vision ascribed to parents the responsibility to teach the next generation how to think, not just what to think, so that they may grow into the best people they can be.

Now, in this groundbreaking new book—a natural extension and a profound deepening of her original vision—Coloroso shows parents how to nurture their children’s ethical lives, from preschool through adolescence.

There can be no more necessary book for our times.We live in a world where children are so often given the message that the ends justify the means; where harmful, even violent behavior—in families, in communities, and around the world—goes unnoticed, unmitigated, and often unrepented; where children’s ethical education can come from a T-shirt slogan or bumper sticker, an Internet site, or the evening news; where rigid moral absolutism or moral relativism has replaced true ethical thinking. In a world such as ours, Just Because It’s Not Wrong Doesn’t Make It Right is an essential tool.

Rich in advice and anecdotes, Barbara Coloroso offers no less than an ethical vision, one rooted in deep caring, by which we and succeeding generations may not only live, but thrive.

The Kid’s Guide to Service Projects: Over 500 Service Ideas for Young People Who Want to Make a Difference, 2nd Edition. Barbara Lewis, $19.99

Are you looking for ways to connect kids with inspiring, high-quality community service projects? Do you want fresh ideas and suggestions for how to get kids involved in service learning? Then this new edition of Barbara Lewis’s classic youth service guide is for you.

The Kid’s Guide to Service Projects contains hundreds of up-to-date service projects and ideas presented in an engaging, kid-friendly format. This guide has something for everyone who wants to make a difference. Features and benefits include over 500 service project ideas, from simple to large scale and step-by-step instructions for creating flyers, petitions, press releases, and more.

The book’s 14 thematic chapters cover topics commonly selected for community service projects. Each chapter includes important facts and statistics related to each topic, a host of diverse service project ideas, and listings of service organization contact information.

Animals • Community Development  • Crime Fighting  • The Environment  • Health & Wellness  • Homelessness  • Hunger  • Literacy  • People with Special Needs  • Seniors  • Politics & Government  • Safety  • Transportation  • Friendship

With the current increased focus on community service, this book is sure to motivate an audience of eager young change-makers. National award-winning author Barbara Lewis provides the ideas, tips, resources, and information kids need to get out there and make a difference today!

Lacey and the African Grandmothers. Sue Farrell Holler, $14.95 (ages 10-14)

Can a sewing project make a difference half-way across the world?

Lacey Little Bird loves spending time with Kahasi, an elder on her reserve who is like a grandmother to her. Then Lacey hears about a project to help grandmothers in Africa who are raising their grandchildren because their parents have died from AIDS. Even though Africa is far, far away, Lacey wants to help and emails the grandmothers with a plan to raise money by selling beaded purses.

What difference can a young Blackfoot girl from North America make in the lives of grandmothers in Africa? A lot, as Lacey discovers. Her decision to help will bring about amazing changes in her life and her community.

Lacey and the African Grandmothers is based on true events, real people, and the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign.

Lessons from a Street Kid. Craig Kielburger, illustrated by Marisa Antonello & Victoria Laidley, $19.95

Join a young Craig Kielburger as he learns about the heights of generosity on the streets of Brazil.

The Little Book of Conflict Transformation. John Paul Lederach, $4.95

Conflict transformation offers a hopeful and workable approach to conflict on all levels. This simple yet profound book is a clear articulation of the guiding principles developed by a pioneer in the field.

Living Me to We: the Guide for Socially Conscious Canadians. Craig Kielburger & Marc Kielburger, $19.95

With this uniquely Canadian guide to socially conscious living, activists Craig and Marc Kielburger give you the tools for LIVING ME TO WE. After 15 years travelling the country and advocating for social justice, Craig and Marc became inspired to compile their practical tips for change in one handy guide. The result is a beautifully designed, extensively researched and engaging book—just for Canadians.

Through original illustrations and photography, you’ll learn how seek out ethical investments and carbon-friendly vacations. With dozens of interviews conducted with scores of Canadians across the country, you’ll meet the people in your community who are taking small steps to a better world. You’ll also get to know a new side of some famous Canadians as they recount their personal tales of lighter living. Finally, turn to the end of the book where you can find an extensively researched resource guide, chalk full of websites, books, magazines and city-specific stores and organizations, to start your own movement.

Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World. Craig Kielburger & Marc Kielburger, $22.99

For everyone who has ever yearned for a better life and a better world, Craig and Marc Kielburger share a blueprint for personal and social change that has the power to transform lives, one act at a time. Me to We is an approach to life that leads us to recognize what is truly valuable, make new decisions about the way we want to live, and re-define the goals we set for ourselves and the legacy we want to leave. Above all, it creates new ways of measuring happiness, meaning, and success in our lives, and makes sure these elusive goals are attainable at last.

MIGRANT. Maxine Trottier, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault, $18.95

Each spring Anna leaves her home in Mexico and travels north with her family where they will work on farms harvesting fruits and vegetables. Sometimes she feels like a bird, flying north in the spring and south in the fall. Sometimes she feels like a jack rabbit living in an abandoned burrow, as her family moves into an empty house near the fields. But most of all she wonders what it would be like to stay in one place.

The Low German-speaking Mennonites from Mexico are a unique group of migrants who moved from Canada to Mexico in the 1920s and became an important part of the farming community there. But it has become increasingly difficult for them to earn a livelihood, and so they come back to Canada each year as migrant workers in order to survive.

Beautifully written by Maxine Trottier and imaginatively illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault, this book describes what it is like to be a child in a migrant family.

One Peace: True Stories of Young Activists. Janet Wilson, $19.95

One Peace celebrates the accomplishments of children and youth from around the globe who have worked to promote world peace.

Our Stories, Our Songs: African Children Talk about AIDS. Deborah Ellis, $17.95

In Sub-Saharan Africa, there are more than 11.5 million orphans. The AIDS pandemic has claimed their parents, their aunts, and their uncles. What is life like for these children? Who do they care for, and who cares for them? Come and meet them. They might surprise you.

One Well. Rochelle Strauss, illustrated by Rosemary Woods, $19.95 (Grades 3 and up)

Almost 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered with water. And all that water is connected — every raindrop, lake, underground river and glacier is part of a single global well. A single splash can sprout a seed, quench a thirst, provide a habitat, generate energy and sustain life. How we treat the water in the well will affect every species on the planet, now and for years to come. One Well shows how every one of us has the power to conserve and protect our global well — and why we need to pay attention.

Owning Up! Curriculum: Empowering Adolescents to Confront Social Cruelty, Bullying, and Injustice. Rosalind Wiseman, $74.95 (Grades 6-12)

The Owning Up Curriculum presents a unique and comprehensive approach to preventing youth violence by providing a structured program for teaching students to own up and take responsibility — as perpetrators, bystanders, and targets — for unethical behavior. Students learn to recognize that they have a responsibility to treat themselves and others with dignity and to speak out against injustice.

By targeting the root causes of bullying and other forms of social cruelty, Wiseman exposes the cultural expectations that teach young people to humiliate and dehumanize others as the way to achieve power and respect, then challenges them to transform this dynamic. The program also addresses the nuanced ways in which racism, classism, and homophobia are expressed in our culture and affect social cruelty and violence.

A CD-ROM of reproducible program forms and student handouts is included with the curriculum.

Parenting for Peace: Raising the Next Generation of Peacemakers. Marcy Axness, $19.95

If we really want to change the world, let's raise a generation hardwired for peace and innovation from the very beginning. A child whose brain develops its capacity for self-regulation, self-reflection, trust, and empathy is a joy to parent. As an adult, this individual will have the heart to embrace and exemplify peace, the mind to innovate solutions to social and ecological challenges, and the will to enact them.

In the midst of our global human, economic and environmental crises, we have overlooked a profound means of cultivating a sustainable, peaceful future: the choices and attitudes with which we bring our children to life and shepherd them into adulthood. With compassion, good humor and engaging examples, PARENTING FOR PEACE is an essential guide for raising a generation of peacemakers.

Parenting for a Peaceful World. Robin Grille, $29.95

In Parenting for a Peaceful World, learn about nurturing your child’s emotional intelligence, and understand how your own childhood experiences have influenced your emotional make-up as an adult and the choices you make as a parent.

Positive Parenting for a Peaceful World emphasizes the vital connection between how we bring up our children and the kind of people they become … Using tried-and-tested conflict resolution skills, which really do work, this ground-breaking and vitally important book teaches parents how to bring up peaceable children and create a peaceable family life.

The Power of Half: One Family’s Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back.  Kevin Salwen & Hannah Salwen, $18.95

The Power of Half is the fascinating story of how one family set out to make small difference in the world and ended up transforming themselves.

Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 2nd Edition. Maurianne Adams, et al, $51.95

For over ten years, Readings for Diversity and Social Justice has been the go-to anthology for the broadest possible coverage of issues related to identity and oppression from a social justice perspective. This highly-anticipated second edition breaks even further ground, boasting over 40 more readings than previously available, updated and original section introductions, and three entirely new chapter sections on Religious Oppression, Transgender Oppression, and Ageism/Adultism. As with the first edition, each chapter section is divided into Contexts, Personal Voices, and Next Steps. The first two parts provide vivid portraits of the meaning of diversity and the realities of oppression. The third part challenges the reader to take action to end oppressive behavior and affirm diversity and social justice.

Shannen and the Dream for a School. Janet Wilson, $14.95

This is the true story of Shannen Koostachin and the people of Attawapiskat, a Cree community in Northern Ontario, who have been fighting for a new school since 1979, when a fuel spill contaminated their original school building.

It is 2008, and thirteen-year-old Shannen and the other students at J.R. Nakogee Elementary are tired of attending class in portables that smell and don't keep out the freezing cold winter air. They make a YouTube video describing the poor conditions, and their plea for a decent school gains them attention and support from community leaders and children across the country. Inspired, the students decide to turn their grade-eight class trip into a visit to Ottawa, to speak to the Canadian government. Once there, Shannen speaks passionately to the politicians about the need to give Native children the opportunity to succeed. The following summer, Shannen is nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize. Her passion and that of the other students makes politicians stand up and take notice, and becomes a rallying point for the community and for the country.

Shannen will never see her dream fulfilled. Tragically, she was killed in a car crash in 2010. Her family, friends, and supporters are continuing to fight and to honor her memory as they work for equality for children in communities everywhere.

Find out about the Shannen's Dream Campaign. Read the Canadian Geographic story on the children of Attawapiskat and their wait for a new school, "Still Waiting in Attawapiskat".

The Teen Guide to Global Action: How to Connect with Others (Near and Far) to Create Social Change. Barbara Lewis, $16.50

Kids everywhere are deciding they can’t wait to become adults to change the world. They’re acting right now to fight hunger and poverty, promote health and human rights, save the environment, and work for peace. Their stories prove that young people can make a difference on a global scale. This book includes real-life stories to inspire young readers, plus a rich and varied menu of opportunities for service, fast facts, hands-on activities, user-friendly tools, and up-to-date resources kids can use to put their own volunteer spirit into practice. It also spotlights young people from the past whose efforts led to significant positive change. Upbeat, practical, and highly motivating, this book has the power to rouse young readers everywhere.

This Child, Every Child: a Book about the World’s Children. David Smith, illustrated by Shelagh Armstrong, $19.95 (ages 8-12)

Every second of every day, four more children are added to the world's population of over 2.2 billion children. Some of these 2.2 billion children will be cared for and have enough to eat and a place to call home. Many others will not be so fortunate. This Child, Every Child uses statistics and stories to draw kids into the world beyond their own borders and provide a window into the lives of their fellow children.

As young readers will discover, there are striking disparities in the way children live. Some children lack opportunities that others take for granted. What is it like to be a girl in Niger? How are some children forced into war? How do children around the world differ in their home and school lives? This Child, Every Child answers such questions and sets children's lives against the rights they are guaranteed under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Includes extensive resources and access to an online teaching guide.

Undoing Homophobia in Primary Schools. The No Outsiders Project Team, $29.95

This book is a celebration of recognition, affirmation and inclusion. Primary teachers tell the story of how they have challenged the taken-for-granted norms and silences in primary schools around sexual orientation and gender expression. These norms and silences have left lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their families marginalized, unrepresented and subject to multiple discrimination, and have allowed embedded homophobia and transphobia to go largely unchallenged. Through their accounts of practice, reflections and interpretations, vignettes and images, the teachers describe how they have challenged this unaddressed area of inclusion across sites across England ranging from a tiny village church school to urban and suburban settings. Working within and beyond the curriculum, teachers have broken boundaries in primary practice for sexualities and gender equality.

This book shows it is not only through planned innovations and policy developments that change happens but also, and crucially, in the day-to-day moments where new thinking leads to new action for equality and social justice.

Watch Me Grow! A Down-to-Earth Look at Growing Food in the City. Debroah Hodge, photographs by Brian Harris, $16.95

A city is a great place to grow food. Front years, backyards, balconies, rooftops, windowsills, parks — people are planting gardens and growing delicious, healthy food for themselves and others to eat; and making the city a better place to live!

We Are All Born Free: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pictures. $22.95

This unique picture book is published in association with Amnesty International to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Human Rights, with introductions by David Tennant and John Boyne. Each of the thirty articles has been illustrated by a major children’s artist. All royalties from the sale of this book are donated to Amnesty International.

We Generation: Raising Socially Responsible Kids. Michael Ungar, $19.99

Engaging and timely, this book is an invaluable resource for parents who want their children to become socially responsible and globally aware adults.

We Want You to Know: Kids Talk About Bullying. Deborah Ellis, $14.95

Through her association with a community anti-bullying campaign launched in Haldimand, Norfolk, and neighboring communities in Southern Ontario, children’s author Deborah Ellis asked students from the ages of nine to nineteen to talk about their experiences with bullying. The results are thoughtful, candid, and often harrowing accounts of “business as usual” in and around today’s schools. The kids in this book raise questions about the way parents, teachers, and school administrators cope with bullies. They talk about which methods have helped and which ones, with the best of intentions, have failed to protect them. And some kids reveal how they have been able to overcome their fear and anger to become strong advocates for the rights of others.

This is a book for reading and sharing. Each interview is followed by questions that will encourage open discussion about the nature of bullying and the ways in which individuals and schools could deal more effectively with bullies and their victims. And additional comments from international students reveal how much kids the world over have in common in the way they experience and deal with bullies. 

These kids have something to say. It’s time we listened.

The World Needs Your Kid: How to Raise Children Who Care and Contribute.  Craig Kielburger & Marc Kielburger, with Shelley Page, $19.95

Everything you need to know about raising kids, lending a hand and changing the world. Inside this guide is a profound philosophy that encourages children and their parents to become global citizens. Drawing on life lessons and success stories, Marc and Craig Kielburger demonstrate how small actions make a difference in the life of a child and ultimately change the world.