Addy has never been good at sports. She's so clumsy, she's earned the name Hurricane Addy, but this year, all of that is going to change. Addy wants to join the swim team at the Club. She's surprised to learn how much exercise and training it takes to become a strong swimmer. Does Addy have what it takes to be the athlete she always dreamed of becoming?

Noah is an artist. Ever since he learned to draw, people have been impressed by his remarkable skills. When there's an art contest at The Club, Noah is certain that he'll win the big prize, until he sees Milo's painting. Noah is scared. Everyone expects Noah to win the contest. If he loses, he believes he'll lose the one skill he's most proud of. Noah is determined to beat Milo, but at what cost? Is winning worth compromising his values?

Zoe is the most popular girl at school and at The Club. She gets a lot of attention from boys and she is always asked to dances. Now, she has her eye on an older boy, Steve, the basketball coach at The Club, but it seems like no matter how hard she tries, Zoe can't get Steve to ask her out. When The Club throws a big dance, Zoe knows that it's her last chance. But can she learn to value herself beyond what boys think of her?

Milo doesn't need friends. He's got his journal, which he fills with sketches of plants and animals. When Milo's mom makes him go to the Club, he keeps his distance from the others. That is, until the annual go-kart rally. Milo has used crutches to walk his whole life, but could he be the fastest for once? Milo wants to find out.

Javi is painfully shy. English is his second language and he struggles with his speech. Rather than communicating in broken English, Javi prefers not to speak at all. That is, until the Club holds auditions for Javi's favorite musical. Can Javi overcome his fear of speaking in front of people to audition for the part?

Lori Lansens became one of Canada’s most sought after writers more than a year before her internationally heralded first book, Rush Home Road, would see publication in April 2002. So immediately and passionately was her novel embraced that it was already front-page arts news back in April 2001. Knopf Canada was the first publisher to buy this extraordinary debut novel, but just before the 2001 London Book Fair, Little, Brown US bought the rest of the world rights for a major six-figure sum (for Rush Home Road and the author's yet-to-be-written second novel), and rights have now been sold in numerous countries. The Globe and Mail reported the record-breaking news with full, front-page coverage, and Little, Brown International Rights Director Linda Biagi found herself talking of nothing else in London; she sold Rush Home Road to a further 9 territories with the manuscript still unedited. Biagi likened the book to some of the most important literary achievements of our time, saying, “It’s as if John Irving had written The Color Purple.” Louise Dennys, the Executive Publisher of Knopf Canada, describes it as “a novel of startling beauty and great heart that will immediately find a place within that small, special tribe of books beloved by readers the world over.” The untold story of the descendants of the Underground Railroad Heartbreaking and wise, Rush Home Road tells the life story of Adelaide Shadd, who finds redemption in old age, and Sharla, a five-year-old mixed race girl abandoned to Addy’s care by her white mother. Born in the first decade of the 20th century in Rusholme (inspired by the real town of Buxton), in southwestern Ontario, an all-black community settled by fugitive slaves, Addy Shadd is raped as a teenager and forced to flee the family home. She makes her way on foot to Detroit, where she becomes the housekeeper for an elderly man and his grown son, both of whom develop a crush on her. When misfortune strikes again, she sets off to make a new life for herself in Canada. Thrown off the train at Keating, not far from her birthplace, she meets and eventually marries the train porter, the wonderful Mose, with whom she has a daughter. But when tragedy strikes, Addy is left alone. Now an old woman, she lives a quiet existence in a trailer park near Chatham. Her whole world changes when a young mother asks her to babysit her daughter, as it soon becomes clear that the mother is never coming back. Addy is glad of the company, but not sure if she’s up to the job of mothering this sweet, awkward five-year-old. Nor is she sure how much longer she’ll be around to do so. How she manages is part of the story of this brilliantly captivating novel. Written with verve, grace and unflinching emotional acuity, Rush Home Road is an epic story that explodes our notions of identity, justice, and heroism, penetrating one of our darkest periods with profound insight and humanity. Addy Shadd is a protagonist like no other -- full of quiet, steely bravery and tenderness of heart. This spellbinding novel will leave no reader untouched.

Too little money, a good-for-nothing ex-husband, a rebellious teenaged daughter and mother languishing in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's.Clea already has a lot on her plate when a mystery drops in her lap. To satisfy her curiosity about an unexplained photograph, she enlists the aid of Ren, an out-of-favor FBI agent. With him comes a new complication--an on-again, off-again romance. Together, or in spite of each other, they enter an increasingly dangerous but revealing web of secrets and lies. The underlying trials associated with Alzheimer's convey a subtle message to readers of Secrets--that is, talk to elderly and not-so-elderly relatives, ask about their lives, and learn the family stories which can and should be passed to younger generations. Waiting too long risks losing forever the personal histories that enrich memories and relationships.