Books published by publisher Thistledown Press

"This novel is every high school boy's wet dream: drummer Dak Sifter's adventures forming the rock and roll band Featherless Bipeds, touring, drinking beer, being discovered by the Big Plastic Record Co. and Billy VandenHammer, cutting an album and becoming famous, not to mention dealing with groupies and girlfriends. Did I mention drinking beer? Dak's decision to take a year off from university to play in a band with friends Akim and Tristan leads to new associations with serious feminist and singer, Lola, and the wealthy, annoying, incompetent Jimmy T. whose connections create the band's first gigs. Zoe, the love of Dak's life, wants time away from him to date others, but she always returns to help Dak and the band when they need it most, eventually becoming their lead singer. One year later, in a wrap-it-all-up finale, the now famous band plays once more at the bar where they debuted. Zoe and Dak become engaged, Lola is now gainfully employed with a national feminist organization, the band members' parents are present and proud (in spite of initial doubt and downright opposition to their children's choice of career), and Jimmy T and Billy VandenHammer are exposed for the crooks they are. Bernice (saved by Dak from neo-Nazi skinheads) is now the head of Artist Relations for an up and coming recording studio willing to sign the band. Dak's witty, self-deprecating style is what saves this novel from complete schlock. He tells his own story, exposing his own stupid actions with Zoe, his own cloying lyrics and his own adolescent passion for music above all else. Scarsbrook hits the nail on the head as Dak composes the simple repetitive lyrics that complement typical rock and roll. His descriptions of small, soul-destroying bars will attract those boys who think their future is there. The facts that no young people in Canada today get engaged at 19, that today's band circuit is dominated by drugs (not alcohol), that Dak's father's novel is unlikely to have come to fruition in only one year, and that band celebrity usually takes place over a matter of years (not months) will go right over the heads of the intended audience who will devour Featherless Bipeds in spite of (or because of?) its dream fulfillment. Not only does the hero do what he wants to do, he has a rocking good time doing it, becomes famous overnight (even in music terms), gets the girl and gains even his parents' approval. In between, he catches a rapist, deals with difficult (to say the least) bar audiences, jots down new songs on paper bags whenever inspiration hits, and encourages his parents to return to their creative roots to paint and write." — Joan Marshall CM

At last Jordan Elliott has a gift. He can disappear, but at what price? The Beggar King never gives without taking. Jordan is about to discover that everything has an underside: even magic, even him.A political coup on Jordan's fifteenth birthday brings the disappearance of many Cirrans, including his mother. Brinnian guards have imprisoned them at an unknown location. The time is also coming for Jordan to choose a vocation and take his robes, and not a single talent has revealed itself besides a gift for mischief. On his sixteenth birthday he risks everything in a defiant act punishable by hanging. The guards spot him; he is doomed. When the Beggar King offers him the gift of disappearing, he has no choice but to accept. Who is this man, anyway? No one believes there's such a thing as a Beggar King. But there is, and he means to bring back the undermagic, a dangerous dark power from long ago. Jordan needs this power to save his mother, so he agrees to help the sorcerer. But he discovers that the undermagic is difficult to give up once you've tried it. And there is always a price, a terrible price, which the Beggar King does not name in advance.

You are invited underneath the great greenwood tree to hear how a young man became a hero, and a hero became a legend. When Robin takes a shortcut through Sherwood Forest, the path he chooses leads not to Nottingham’s archery contest, but to a life on the run from the law. Unable now to become a knight, and joined by his childhood friends, Robin Hood leads the most infamous outlaw band ever to evade the king and his sheriff. Blending true history with new stories, popular inaccuracies, and some almost forgotten medieval legends, The Scarlet Forest brings a new life to the greenwood, which here feels as fresh as it does traditional. With an academic background in medieval English studies, A. E. Chandler captivates with this unique and nuanced reinterpretation of Robin Hood’s struggles and adventures. The forest is waiting.

Runaway teen Annabel, nicknamed Ghost, doesn’t speak. Her interaction with her world is limited to how well she can convey her wants and feelings to others, and how intuitive others are in interpreting her expressions and gestures. Confused by her mother’s addictions, and the loss of the guidance of her grandmother, Ghost is driven to the road by a search for love. When she mistakenly thinks she must leave the shelter and safety of a good foster home, where horses and a “family” of foster kids keep her grounded, she slowly learns that danger wears many disguises and has no remorse. On the run with a tough and messed-up boy named Graydon, she makes her way to Ottawa with the help of Graydon’s drug-dealing friend, Cooper. As the physical danger in her new life intensifies, Ghost realizes the mistake she has made and, after a series of frightening events, knows she must escape the doomed life that Graydon and Cooper represent in order to save herself from a fate that has befallen many other young girls. She realizes that what she needs and the love she seeks were there all along. Has she left it too late? Can she survive on her own without a voice and make the return journey to where she belongs, or will life on the street and predators like Cooper claim her for their own?

Breathing Soccer is the realistic account of Lisa who is forbidden to play soccer because of her asthma. At its core the novel reveals the plight of asthmatics who desire the challenge and thrill of sports, but who must weigh that desire against some very real health issues. Dr. Emerson, her family doctor, has warned Lisa that her asthma must be taken seriously, and that the aggressive demands that soccer places on her breathing could be lethal. Her parents believe the doctor and as a result become overly protective. Right down the line people stand in her way, even her soccer coach, Wilcox, who decides not to play her in the games because he does not want to take a chance on her getting sick and weakening the team's chance to win. But just when it seems that the world has conspired against her, while watching the Olympic Games, Lisa discovers a new source of strength in the example of Olympic Rower Silken Laumann. Lisa is inspired by Silken who, after a terrible accident, was told by doctors that her career was over, but who rose above their verdict to overcome her own barriers in order to win the Bronze medal for Canada.With the encouragement of camp counsellor, Giant, and her new asthma doctor, Lisa finds the inner strength necessary to rise above her own obstacles and become the soccer player she always knew she could be.

Part comedy, part mystery, part allegory, On Fire is narrated alternately by two characters: Matti Iverly, a fourteen-year-old girl with Tourette Syndrome. In Matti’s case, her tics are primarily vocal. As she confides early in the book, “At school they called me Tourette’s Girl, like I came out of a phone booth wearing a costume and made funny noises for people’s entertainment. But I was a serious person, waiting for a serious purpose.” When a young man with amnesia wonders out of the heart of wildfire country, Matti finds that purpose and fulfills it with courage, humour and dignity. Within the scope of the story, it’s clear that Matti rules despite the isolation of her village, and the ominous care-taking to which she commits herself in trying to right the life of Dan, the strange seventeen-year-old teen with amnesia who mysteriously appears out of the smoke and fire and then disappears again. When Dan first takes up the narration, he’s hiding out in a ghost town across the lake from Matti’s village. It’s clear he’s far more troubled than she realized. He’s haunted by ghosts and demons and vague memories of something that happened to him in the mountains. As Dan appears almost mythically out of a forest fire area and collapses at Matti’s feet, he reverses the journey countless adolescent males make every year into the wildfire we call mental illness. Dan is lucky. He finds Matti Iverly. Because of her stubborn persistence, he connects with an odd assortment of people who as much as any help he gets from doctors, assist him in reassembling his life. They become his community of concern, his family. Through a series of synchronous events, Matti finds Dan again in a mental hospital. She becomes very much a part of his path back to reality, at least his version of it. As a result we see her grow into a person who believes in her own strength, and Dan morph into a young man who feels he has a future.

Offside is a novel for young adults that deftly blends Canada’s love affair with hockey and the gritty realities of teen addiction. Based on real events that took place in Calgary, Offside is the fictional story of a fifteen-year-old boy who inadvertently creates a dependency amongst his teammates on a cold remedy which they think is a performance enhancer.

Chan is back with a sequel to his award-winning juvenile romp The Mystery Of the Frozen Brains. This time Marty and his buddy Remi are in deep cover as they solve the mystery of the Graffiti Ghoul. Nine-year-old Marty and his francophone buddy, Remi Boudreau, stumble upon graffiti on the school’s equipment shack and begin the adventure of tracking down the culprit. Marty spies on his classmates, wears his mom’s dress to go undercover, and risks losing his best friend as the mystery of the graffiti ghoul leads him to the graveyard. With continued insight into a Chinese boy’s life in a Francophone town in rural Alberta, Chan sensitively portrays the differences of both the real and perceived fears of “the outsider”: someone who knows the injustice of bigotry and the unfairness of poverty. Chan’s humour balances the serious themes of bullying and racism that are revealed in the attitudes and actions of elementary school kids. Recognized as contemporary versions of the Hardy Boys detective novels, the books in Chan’s Mystery Series are first-rate entertainment and highly recommended for kids.

Fifteen-year-old Andrew has cool parents: his mother_s job is to discover and test electronic surveillance gear and covert law enforcement equipment; while his father is an environmental biologist and cook. What vaults Andrew and his family into action is a new guy, Brian Fiske; he shows up in their small village of Aylesworth with a very dark secret. Brian and his family are in the witness-protection program and are now in relocation. However, when the mobsters that Brian_s family have put into prison come looking for revenge and kidnap them, the adventure is on. Armed only with their intelligence and high-tech gadgetry, Brian and Andrew must find a way to foil the kidnapers and find safety. Andrew_s instincts - along with his mother_s electronic skills and his father_s biological savvy - lead him on a suspenseful rescue mission that could end up in success or disaster. The measure of success will be in their ability to take responsibility for others and act quickly.

Part comedy, part mystery, part allegory, On Fire is narrated alternately by two characters: Matti Iverly, a fourteen-year-old girl with Tourette Syndrome. In Matti’s case, her tics are primarily vocal. As she confides early in the book, “At school they called me Tourette’s Girl, like I came out of a phone booth wearing a costume and made funny noises for people’s entertainment. But I was a serious person, waiting for a serious purpose.” When a young man with amnesia wonders out of the heart of wildfire country, Matti finds that purpose and fulfills it with courage, humour and dignity. Within the scope of the story, it’s clear that Matti rules despite the isolation of her village, and the ominous care-taking to which she commits herself in trying to right the life of Dan, the strange seventeen-year-old teen with amnesia who mysteriously appears out of the smoke and fire and then disappears again. When Dan first takes up the narration, he? hiding out in a ghost town across the lake from Matti? village. It? clear he? far more troubled than she realized. He? haunted by ghosts and demons and vague memories of something that happened to him in the mountains. As Dan appears almost mythically out of a forest fire area and collapses at Matti? feet, he reverses the journey countless adolescent males make every year into the wildfire we call mental illness. Dan is lucky. He finds Matti Iverly. Because of her stubborn persistence, he connects with an odd assortment of people who as much as any help he gets from doctors, assist him in reassembling his life. They become his community of concern, his family. Through a series of synchronous events, Matti finds Dan again in a mental hospital. She becomes very much a part of his path back to reality, at least his version of it. As a result we see her grow into a person who believes in her own strength, and Dan morph into a young man who feels he has a future.

The Mystery of the Frozen Brains is adapted from Marty Chan’s successful radio series The Dim Sum Diaries. Set in a French Canadian town in rural Alberta, the novel develops the coming to awareness of a Chinese boy in a community under the myriad of ethnic influences including French, English and Ukrainian. As serious as the novel’s thematic dispatch is, Chan’s buoyant, gifted humour overrides the tone.