Bestsellers at FriesenPress
Examining Room
within the walls of the opioid crisis by Dr. Lorinda Spooner
During 30 years in primary care and addiction medicine, the Vancouver-based Dr. Lorinda Spooner has found her examining room a place of suffering, of adversity, but also of hope. Yet, since 2016, when the opioid crisis was declared a public health emergency in British Columbia, more than 17,000 people have died from the toxic street supply of illicit fentanyl. Hope has been harder to find. So, Dr. Spooner began to write, “to try to find meaning out of all this suffering,” and to give readers...
Friday Memories
The Life and Times of June Friday MacInnis by June Friday MacInnis
Born in 1931, at a time of ongoing change for Indigenous people all over the continent, this Ojibway Elder from Bear Island, in northeastern Ontario, started writing her memories so that her grandchildren and their descendants would know about her life and that of her family. These engaging stories provide snapshots of a world in which hunting and fishing were still sustaining the Ojibway people. They are also a testimony to the hard work, resourcefulness and devotion of her parents and...
If My Life Were A Song
A Memoir by Isaac E. Jones III
From the Appalachian foothills of Chattanooga, Tennessee, to the turbulent streets of Watts, Los Angeles, If My Life Were A Song takes you on a gripping journey of survival, resilience, and redemption. This memoir delves into the life of a young boy growing up amidst the contradictions of Mimosa Park, a neighborhood where innocence collided with the shadows of crime. Follow his story as he navigates the devastating loss of his mother, the incarceration of his brother, and the challenges of...
Sprinkles of Speech
Stories for Children Aged 3-7 by Meagan Honigman and Cathy Krcevinac
This book is designed for parents, educators, and SLPs who want to support children’s speech and language development. Featuring engaging short stories filled with carefully selected speech sounds, this comprehensive resource can promote a range of speech and language goals. Early support can help children quickly improve their speech and language skills, fostering success socially and academically. Children will enjoy the colourful illustrations, while parents, educators, and SLPs will find...
All Eyes On Me
A True Story of Addiction, Recovery, and Hope by Kevin Zdrill
Drugs, gangs, crime, doing time. Vincent Lillie desperately wanted to escape the cycle that was slowly killing him, and the first step was leaving the very gang he had depended on for love and acceptance. The price for escape? A beating so brutal, many don’t survive. The story of Vincent’s life starts with the destruction of his family at the hands of his father’s sexual abuse, worsens with his school’s discriminatory segregation of him, and deteriorates further with every drug he does,...
To Be True
The First Caper by K.D. Straus
If you have to choose between going too far or being too late, always choose too far. Marion Pallas is the plain middle sister, the raven between two tropical birds, and that is how the ladies in 1920's London high society treat her with their malignant whispers and snide comments. When Marion exacts her revenge, her misdeed launches a plot to save her involving a motley crew of characters including a Canadian playwright and his theatre company, a notorious gang of female thieves, a...
Suzy and the Magic Turnip
by S. M. Dunning
Suzy is growing up fast in troubled times. Crops are failing, the world is starving, and a shadowy global elite appears to be behind it all. But when Suzy decides to spy on her peculiar next-door neighbour, she discovers a lot more than she bargained for. Is the turnip that lives in Mrs. Limpke’s secret backyard chamber just another cruciferous vegetable, or is it something else entirely? Perhaps even the key to unlocking mysteries of time and space that can save the world? These questions...
My Mennonite Oma's People
A Story of Love and Loss by Ernie G Dyck
If we had the ability to speak with our ancestors, what kinds of stories would they share? Would we get a glimpse into the lives and people the history books miss? A better understanding of the events that shaped our families and, ultimately, our identities? In My Mennonite Oma’s People: A Story of Love and Loss author Ernie G. Dyck reimagines the life of Maria Epp (née Neufeld)—his maternal grandmother—and the lives of her ancestors. Part historical fiction, part narrative non-fiction,...
The Recovering Farmer
A Journey through the Labyrinth of Anxiety and Depression by Gerry Friesen
Gerry Friesen, AKA The Recovering Farmer, chronicles his journey through anxiety, depression, and addiction to a place of improved mental health—and even, sometimes, happiness. Mental health, or lack thereof, has become a major topic in agricultural communities around the world. There is still a strong stigma attached to conversations around mental health, and an attitude that to admit you need help is a shameful thing. This book aims to challenge those attitudes. It explores the aspects of...
Provoked by Pain
The Poems of a Broken Woman by Marilyn Nilsson Grabinsky
What do you do when, in a moment, the future you had imagined for yourself comes crashing down? After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts, Grabinsky was intent on beginning a new life as a professional artist when she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic and crippling disease. Living and working in extraordinary pain, every day became a struggle to accomplish the simplest of tasks. It’s no surprise then, that her dream of earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and...