New Releases by Beth Goobie

"My writing is a search for meaning, beauty, love, an integration of my lost parts." From the widely praised writer comes her fourth collection of startlingly original poetry. With a singular range that inspires, this collection energizes her earlier lyrical narrative with the sass and verve of spoken word, and the slap of slam.

Autobiographical in nature, breathing at dusk follows the journey of one girl as she escapes her childhood home and all of the painful memories that home elicits – her memories largely centered around the physical and sexual abuse she experienced as a child at the hands of her father and the untimely death of her brother. Years removed from these experiences now, Goobie is able to cast an unblinking eye on her relationship with her father, and looks back at her emotional journey with fiercely striking language. Often with a focus on classical music and the beauty in nature, this collection, while painful, is a moving and elegant testament to Goobie’s strength and resolve as she heals and grows and finally chooses joy.

She hadn''t told anyone. Not a single soul. Not one word about that night and what had been done to her had ever passed Maddy Malone''s lips. She''d thought about it at first - had been desperate, even frantic, to tell. But then had come the shame, and the intimidation from the boys who raped her - and the one who held her down. Now it''s the beginning of a new school year and Maddy is hoping that she can continue to hide, making herself as quiet and small as possible. She is consumed with keeping the memories at bay, forcing them down through small cuts and the burn from the end of a cigarette. But when her English class is given the assignment of writing a collaborative novel about a fifteen-year-old girl, The Pain Eater, fact and fiction begin to meet up. When the boys spread rumors about Maddy, she realizes that continuing to hide the truth will only give them more control, and she slowly gains the courage to confront them.

It''s 1977, and Mary-Eve Hamilton (Mary for the Mother of God, Eve for the mother of mankind) is plodding through her final year at Eleusis High School. Mary-Eve''s mother, famed prophetess at the Waiting for the Rapture End Times Tabernacle, regularly has visions, foams at the mouth, and falls down rigid. Her father, a popular deacon, hides his abuse behind a Sunday morning facade. Mary-Eve herself appears to be a dutiful teenager, her entire life regulated by the prescriptive rules of their church. Inside, she''s biding her time and waiting for emancipation from her family''s strictures and secrets. That day comes when Mary-Eve befriends Dee Eccles, an eighteen-year-old pagan goddess from the other side of everything. Dee instantly re-christens Mary-Eve with the name Jezebel, Jez for short, and begins her initiation into the women''s mysteries of makeup, tight jeans, and otherworldly glory. But Jez quickly learns that Dee has her own secrets, and that demons are not confined to the Waiting for the Rapture End Times Tabernacle.

"Meredith is determined to make her mark as she starts Grade 10-- and claiming the ''cool'' seat in home room is her first step. But that decision brings her unwanted attention from the school''s ''kingpin of the underworld,'' and her new enemy is smart, determined, and capable of holding a long-term grudge"--Page 4 of cove

A nin-year-old boy sent to a group home by his mother, who can''t handle him any longer, learns to trust the people around him, and to talk about his fears despite his concern that his mother might not take him back.

A young girl struggles with her negative self-image and feelings of being a victim, as she learns to assert herself for the first time in her life.

When Dylan Kowolski agrees to create a display for her high school library, she has no idea of the trouble it''s going to cause—for the school principal, her family, her boyfriend Cam and his jock friends, her best friend Jocelyn and for Dylan herself. If only her English class had been studying a normal, run-of-the-mill, mundane book like Lord of the Flies instead of Foxfire things wouldn''t have gotten so twisted. Then the world wouldn''t have gone into such a massive funk. And then Dylan wouldn''t have had to face her deepest fear and the way she was letting it run her life. Hello, Groin presents a compelling, realistic and refreshing look at teen sexuality and one girl''s struggle to make the difficult choices that face her.

No one knows why she hurt herself, least of all Skey. After five long months in treatment for self-destructive behavior, Skey continues to dream of dark tunnels with mysterious designs carved into their stone walls, a place where she is safe and alone. Then she encounters another dreamer, a boy her own age, dreaming the same dream, wandering the same tunnels. A boy with secrets much like her own. While trying desperately to remember what happened that sent her away and who the boy is that she met in the dream tunnels, Skey''s life plummets farther out of control. When she realizes her friends do not have her best interests at heart and they may be the reason she is lost, Skey must face her fears and the truth of the dream tunnels, and find her way back to solid reality.

Trying to escape the horror that forced her to attempt suicide, Skey dreams of a dark tunnel, a place where she is safe and alone.

Will Sophie speak up about the abuse at home?

Nellie Joanne Kinnan is an Advanced Cadet in the Black Core Program at the Detta training center. Weapons and violence are second nature to this twelve-year-old, but she is never exactly sure what it is she is being trained for. Nellie is a dedicated and skilled cadet. She knows she wants to serve the Goddess and the Empire. But there is so much that she doesn''t understand. When a weapons training session brings her face-to-face with her twin, Nellie''s world is thrown into turmoil. Suddenly she questions her commitment to the violence that has dominated her young life. As she slowly learns to trust her rebellious twin, she comes to realize that much of what she has been taught about life in both the Interior and the Outbacks is not true. Faced with this reality, Nellie must find new weapons and new strength in her struggle to continue to serve the Goddess.

This Teaching Guide provides age-appropriate discussion questions and lessons about literary devices, relevant vocabulary, grammar points and more.

Several years earlier Nellie and her mother fled the Interior and its hated security police for the Outbacks, a loose-knit resistance of small cities, towns and rural areas. Since then her mother has disappeared and twelve-year-old Nellie is on her own, scrounging a living where she can find it. When loneliness opens her mind to flux, the ability to alter her vibratory state in the molecular field, she learns to travel to other levels of reality. When a prank by the Skulls, an unruly gang of boys, reveals several large scars on her scalp, Nellie is forced to confront the terrifying truth that her vague memories of experiments that took place while she lived in the Interior are real. Befriended by fourteen-year-old Deller, leader of the Skulls, Nellie learns of the disappearance of his younger brother Fen. Using her ability to travel the levels, she eventually finds Fen trapped in an experimental laboratory deep in another reality. Although Nellie is unable to free him, her discovery precipitates a series of events that lead her and Deller back to the Interior, and straight into the memories she has been trying so hard to forget.

After attempting suicide, Kelly Paddik is sent to a "secure facility". As she tried to find a way out she has to come to terms with her memories of abuse.

This Teaching Guide provides age-appropriate discussion questions and lessons about literary devices, relevant vocabulary, grammar points and more.

Every year the Shadow Council chooses one student to be their messenger. This year’s victim is Sally.

Dime is trying to outrun the horror of her brother''s accident.

In this high-interest accessible novel for teen readers, Jujube takes on her tormentors and helps a group of girls win back their self-esteem.

This Teaching Guide provides age-appropriate discussion questions and lessons about literary devices, relevant vocabulary, grammar points and more.

"Two years after a near death experience, fifteen-year-old Adrien is sent to work at a summer camp, where she is caught between the land of the living and the spirit world"--Résumé de l''éditeur.

The culture shock of a Latino refugee confronted by the North American school in Carmen Aguirre''s Chile Con Carne; a young man''s brutal experience of homophobia when he is "outed" by classmates in Edward Roy''s The Other Side of the Closet; the vicious gang violence waiting in the girls'' washroom in Beth Goobie''s The Face is the Place. These plays provide an unflinching look into the parallel universe of teenagers, where making the grade has very little to do with the rigors of the classroom.

"In this unusual story Carol can see other dimensions, read people''s thoughts and influence their energy. She struggles between good and evil, and learns to claim her personal identity" Cf. Our choice, 1999-2000.

"When the town council imposes a curfew to straighten out everyone under 18, they didn''t anticipate that Dariel would mobilize an opposition that would reveal the adults'' hypocrisies" Cf. Our choice, 1998-1999.

YA. Sharon has no self-confidence. After moving to a new school she finds safety in friendship and for the first time ever she is free to examine the truth behind the names her family has called her for as long as she can remember. 11 yrs+

Nominee, Governor General''s Literary Award for Children''s Literature - Text Jill Gilbert doesn''t like the high school Lovely Legs Contest. For one thing, it''s sponsored by the football team headed by her brother. For another, the school newspaper she writes for came up with the idea. But more important, it boils her blood that guys like her brother make so many assumptions about what girls like. So why does she end up entering the competition? Maybe for the same reason she tried out for the football team. Maybe for the same reason she''s obsessed with the movie The Mission. Jill is nobody''s pushover. Mission Impossible is a tough sensitive teen novel. Jill, the narrator, is wickedly funny and heartbreakingly honest as she wrestles with sexism in her school and demons in her head. She comes close to going over the edge in more ways than one but triumphs in a way she could never have predicted. Right now, though, she''s stuck in a jungle of tangled thoughts and leg hairs on what seems like an impossible mission.

A collection of narrative poems tracing the surface memory of an abused child, and unearthing the terror found in ordinary places such as parks and playgrounds and piano lessons in the front room.