A Walk in the Park. Grace Casselman

In a new town, in a new school, fourteen-year-old Terra is experiencing many of the trials and tribulations that face her peers. She isn’t finding it easy to make new friends, nor leave behind her old ones. And while some of the new Inglewood girls seem kind of exciting, is that the crowd she really wants to hang out with? And what about that cute guy Glenn from the new school? Could he possibly want to be friends with Terra – or more? Terra has many, ultimately crucial, choices to make. All of these are normal stresses for a teenaged girl. But on top of all of these, Terra, who has always known she was adopted, is panicked at the thought of meeting her birthmother for the first time. Why didn’t this woman want to keep her baby fourteen years ago, and why has she decided she wants to meet Terra now? This is the follow-up to A Hole in the Hedge, which was shortlisted for the Canadian Library Association Children’s Book of the Year and brings to the page another moving story about the angst of being a teen.