Sixteen-year-old Melissa's most recent troubles stem from a secret: her twenty-eight-year-old boyfriend, Michael, has just broken up with her. Even though the relationship is clearly over, Melissa clings to the past, riding a never-ending wave of hope and disappointment. Meaningless sexual escapades, drunken nights, and drug-induced blackouts help her deal with heartbreak, but her pain goes much deeper than her failed relationship. Along with a broken heart, Melissa has to cope with the memories of her younger brother's death; the non-existent parenting of her insecure, flighty mother; being juggled between social workers and psychologists; and getting kicked out of school and sent to a special program for at-risk youth. So when the cracks in her life threaten to tear her apart, Melissa has to decide whether to keep fighting--or to let go.
At the age of 15, Snow is forced to leave her grandmother's apartment and move into a group home. As Snow is forced to strip illusion from reality, she is no longer able to avoid the difficult truths that lie at the core of her being. Strong language and descriptions of sex. For senior high readers. 2003.
In 1998 Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital celebrates its seventy-fifth anniversary. A fine and innovative proponent of patient care and a leader in the field of medical research, it marks this milestone secure in the knowledge that it is undisputedly one of the jewels of the Canadian health-care system. However, writes Lesley Marrus Barsky, Mount Sinai's rise from its humble beginnings in a small house on Yorkville Avenue to its present pre-eminence is a story as rare as it is astonishing - and as much the story of a community as of an institution. In the early decades of this century, a massive exodus of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe, fleeing persecution in their homelands, changed the face of Toronto's Jewish community forever. From 1900 to 1921, the Jewish population from 3,000 to almost 35,000, and many of these newcomers were destitute. Struggling to survive, often unable to communicate in English, and crowded into city-centre slums, they suffered on many fronts, and not the least of these was the lack of adequate health care that respected and took into account their specialized needs. At the same time, Jewish doctors, sidelined by antisemitism, were prevented from interning or attending patients in Toronto hospitals. Clearly, what was needed was a Jewish hospital, and in May 1922, a charitable women's group, the "Ezras Noshem, purchased a building at 100 Yorkville Avenue. Concerned about the scope of treatment expected of a general hospital, the group named the new institution the Toronto Jewish Maternity and Convalescent Hospital, but support from the community was forthcoming, and less than a year later the hospital took on broader duties and was renamed MountSinai. At first crowded and often makeshift, the hospital was nonetheless blessed with loyal doctors, nurses, volunteers, and community supporters, who laboured tirelessly to raise money, improvise equipment, and meet an ever-shifting variety of needs. This dedication often became literally a family concern. To this day there are families in which service to Mount Sinai has been a tradition from generation to generation. Lesley Marrus Barsky has done justice to this human history, recording the rise of a state-of-the-art hospital (now on university Avenue) that meets the needs of patients with foresight and ingenuity while maintaining an outstanding reputation in the international field of medical research. Friends of Mount Sinai, as well as anyone interested in health care, medical research, or Toronto history, are sure to enjoy this affectionate and informed look at a great institution as it celebrates its seventy-fifth year of service.
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