Two sisters from the Philippines, abandoned by their father and living in impoverished circumstances in Louisiana, fight to make their lives better. Soledad has always been able to escape into the stories she creates. Just like her mother always could. And Soledad has needed that escape more than ever in the five years since her mother and sister died and her father moved Sol and her youngest sister from the Philippines to Louisiana. Then he left, and all Sol and Ming have now is their evil stepmother, Vea. Sol has protected Ming all this time, but then Ming begins to believe that Auntie Jove—their mythical, world-traveling aunt—is really going to come rescue them. Have Sol’s stories done more harm than good? Can she protect Ming from this impossible hope?

To the expanding literature on lesbian and gay rights in Canada, Miriam Smith contributes this fascinating analysis of trends in the movement toward equality for sexual minorities in the last quarter of a century. Using archival material that has largely been ignored, as well as interviews with Canadian activists, Smith investigates the ways in which the lesbian and gay movement has changed in response to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Smith demonstrates that equality-seeking was well entrenched as a strategy and ideology in lesbian and gay rights networks prior to the existence of the Charter. However, in the wake of the Charter, the movement has shifted from a strategy primarily based on building a social movement to one is based on achieving concrete legal and policy victories. Rather than focusing on win/loss ratios before the courts under the Charter or on the analysis of legal cases, the work centres on the impact of the Charter from the perspective of the experience of those within the movement itself. Unlike the existing literature on the lesbian and gay rights movement in Canada, Smith's study presents an analysis of the evolution of federal-level social organizing based on primary sources. Into the discussion Smith also introduces Quebec politics as a unique cultural entity and one that is often overlooked in the context of lesbian and gay activism in Canada. Lesbian and Gay Rights in Canada is an excellent analysis of an important and rising social movement in Canadian politics.

"Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada" is the first comprehensive history of its kind. Drawing on over one hundred interviews with leading gay and lesbian activists across the country and a rich array of archival material, Tom Warner chronicles and analyzes the multiple - and often conflicting - objectives of a tumultuous grassroots struggle for sexual liberation, legislated equality, and fundamental social change. Warner presents the history of lesbian and gay liberation in a Canadian context, telling in the process the story of a remarkable movement and the people who made it happen. His history encompasses efforts to attain legislated human rights for gays and lesbians, significant regional histories, autonomous lesbian organizing, and the histories of lesbians and gays of colour, two-spirited people, and those living outside the urban mainstream of lesbian and gay life. It also recalls the crises confronting the movement: the backlash against queer activism from social conservative 'family values' campaigns, state and police harassment, and the exigencies of responding to AIDS. Moving beyond the discussions of equality-rights campaigns, "Never Going Back" delves inside the movement to look at dissent and debates over liberation and assimilation, sexual expression, race, the age of consent, pornography, censorship, community standards, and an identity forged from a common sexual orientation.

From the 1950s to the late 1990s, agents of the state spied on, interrogated, and harassed gays and lesbians in Canada, employing social ideologies and other practices to construct their targets as threats to society and enemies of the state.Based on official security documents and interviews with gays, lesbians, civil servants, and high-ranking officials, The Canadian War on Queers offers a passionate, personalized account of a national security campaign that violated people's civil rights and freedoms in an attempt to regulate their sexual practices. Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile disclose not only the acts of state repression that accompanied the Canadian war on queers but also forms of resistance that raise questions about just whose security was being protected and about national security as an ideological practice. his path-breaking account of how the state used national security to wage war on its own people offers ways of understanding, and resisting, contemporary ideological conflicts such as the "war on terror." It is required reading for students, scholars, and social activists in lesbian, gay, and queer studies or anyone interested in the issues of national security, state repression, and human rights.Gary Kinsman is the author of The Regulation of Desire and an editor of Sociology for Changing the World. He is a professor in the Sociology Department at Laurentian University, Sudbury. Patrizia Gentile is assistant professor in the Pauline Jewett Institute of Women's and Gender Studies at Carleton University.

Under the Rainbow is a primer on the social and political history and the everyday practices and processes of living queer lives in Canada. Framed through a life-course perspective, this book provides an overview of the historical and contemporary issues in the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and/or queer folk. The chapters in this text highlight the contributions of academics and community groups as well as individuals working on queer issues in Canada and focus primarily on contemporary Canadian material, introducing readers to topics such as law, history, health, education, youth, older persons, end of life decisions, social constructions of sexual identities, sports, transgender issues and issues experienced by lesbians and gay men living in Quebec.

Come along, Toto, she said. We will go to the Emerald City and ask the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again. Swept away from her home in Kansas by a tornado, Dorothy and her dog Toto find themselves stranded in the fantastical Land of Oz. As instructed by the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins, Dorothy sets off on the yellow brick road to try and find her way to the Emerald City and the Wizard of Oz, who can help her get home. With her companions the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy experiences an adventure full of friendship, magic and danger. A much-loved children's classic, The Wizard of Oz continues to delight readers young and old with its enchanting tale of witches, flying monkeys and silver shoes.

First published in 1865, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland began as a story told to Alice Liddell and her two sisters on a boating trip in July 1862. The novel follows Alice down a rabbit-hole and into a world of strange and wonderful characters who constantly turn everything upside down with their mind-boggling logic, word play, and fantastic parodies.Like the first, this second edition includes Carroll's earlier story Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which allows readers to trace the revisions and to compare Carroll's own illustrations in the original with the famous John Tenniel illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This edition also includes new appendix material: George MacDonald writing on the fantastic, the eighteenth-century children's story Goody Two-Shoes, a section on film and television adaptations of Alice, and new illustrations.

"Sunshine and Rainbows" is a history of the development of homosexuality as an Australian subculture. Proceeding chronologically from the 1820s through to the vibrant alternative culture that exists in 2000, "Sunshine and Rainbows" argues that the manner in which gay and lesbian identity has been constructed in Queensland is typical of Australia generally. Beginning with isolated acts suppressed by criminal law and medical opinion, a homosexual identity developed, which by the mid-nineteenth century was based on male appropriation of public space.A clandestine social subculture was in place during the first half of the twentieth century. Despite continued relgious, social, legal and medical repression, it became an obvious part of Australian sexuality, expressed through Beats and early gathering places such as coffee shops, hotels, and theatres. Well developed in urban areas by the 1930s and 1940s, the subculture strengthened in the 1970s and 1980s, when clubs, gay commercial venues and political organisations emerged. The fight for gay law reform, recognition of the rights of same-sex partners, and of individuals affected by HIV/AIDS, continues today. "Sunshine and Rainbows" discusses the different roles of gay men and lesbians in the subculture, arguing that by the end of the twentieth century a transition had occurred to a fully-developed alternative culture.

Under the Rainbow is a primer on the social and political history and the everyday practices and processes of living queer lives in Canada. Framed through a life-course perspective, this book provides an overview of the historical and contemporary issues in the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and/or queer folk. The chapters in this text highlight the contributions of academics and community groups as well as individuals working on queer issues in Canada and focus primarily on contemporary Canadian material, introducing readers to topics such as law, history, health, education, youth, older persons, end of life decisions, social constructions of sexual identities, sports, transgender issues and issues experienced by lesbians and gay men living in Quebec.