Humour is a great way to deal with conflict, but it can lead to conflict, too. Whether intentional or not, teasing can cause offense, hurt feelings, and create misunderstandings. This book offers young people help in dealing with problems that stem from teasing and other kinds of humour....

As boys become men, pressure to fit into set images of masculinity can be overwhelming. And stereotypes about what makes a man a man can make the early stages of puberty -- the beginning of physical, emotional, and sexual maturity -- all the more confusing. This volume looks at issues relating to gender identity and how boys can deal with the conflicts that arise when boys fit -- or do not fit -- the masculinity mould....

It is 1900, and 14-year-old Bertie McCross is a newspaper boy in downtown Toronto. Bertie’s family has fallen on hard times and can use every penny he brings home from hawking newspapers on the frigid streets. However, in order to do that Bertie has to keep out of the clutches of the Kelly Gang, a family of slightly older Cabbagetown toughs who are shaking down "newsies."

On Christmas Eve, Bertie is almost cornered by the Kellys but is saved by Tommy Fry and Milwaukee Ed, who introduce Bertie to the thrills of iceboat racing on Lake Ontario. Soon Bertie is swept up in the fast and dangerous sport and meets a whole crew of new friends, including Isobel, a girl from a wealthy family with a mansion on Jarvis Street. The continued pursuit by the Kelly Gang, a plunge into freezing harbour water, and the clash of classes all lead up to a spine-tingling race to end all races.

...

Canadian World War II pilot Charley Fox, now in his late eighties, has had a thrilling life, especially on the day in July 1944 in France when he spotted a black staff car, the kind usually employed to drive high-ranking Third Reich dignitaries. Already noted for his skill in dive-bombing and strafing the enemy, Fox went in to attack the automobile. As it turned out, the car contained famed German General Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, and Charley succeeded in wounding him.

Rommel, who at the time was the Germans' supreme military commander in France orchestrating the Nazis' resistance to the D-day invasion, was never the same after that. Author Steve Pitt focuses on this seminal event in Charley Fox's life and in the war, but he also provides fascinating aspects of the period, including profiles of noted ace pilots Buzz Beurling and Billy Bishop, Jr., and Great Escape architect Walter Floody, as well as sidebars about Hurricanes, Spitfires, and Messerschmitts.

...

Humour is a great way to deal with conflict, but it can lead to conflict, too. Whether intentional or not, teasing can cause offense, hurt feelings, and create misunderstandings. This book offers young people help in dealing with problems that stem from teasing and other kinds of humour....