Touching Grass

“A story readers are going to love. What a fun read.” —Richard Van Camp, author of The Lesser Blessed and Beast Finalist for the 2026 Governor General’s Literary Awards | Winner of Middle Grade Book of the Year at the 2025 Northern Lights Book Awards | Winner of the 2026 Saskatchewan Book Awards Book of the Year | A Calgary Public Library Best Book of the Year | An Indigo Top Ten Kids’ Book of 2025 | Nominated for the 2027 Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Awards | Shortlisted for the 2026 IODE Violet Downey Book Award | Shortlisted for the 2026-27 Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award | Shortlisted for the 2026 High Plains International Book Awards | Nominated for the 2027 Forest of Reading | Nominated for the 2026-2027 Red Cedar Book Award for Fiction From the author of the Governor General’s Award–shortlisted, Silver Birch Award finalist Mortified, a funny, heartfelt middle-grade novel about a young gamer who is sent to “touch grass” at a Dene First Nation culture camp Tristen would do anything to avoid going outside. The bugs sting, the snakes are poisonous, the heat will kill you if the cold doesn’t, and bodies of water? Forget it. Tristen likes it best indoors, deep in his online world where it’s safe, with his online friends. Something he has a hard time with IRL. But Tristen is in trouble at school again, and the principal is threatening to kick him out of this third school in two years. His mom believes the answer is to get Tristen off the games and in touch with nature and his Dene roots. This means Tristen has to spend a week at a culture camp in the wilderness. It’s his worst nightmare! And at first it is a nightmare—no internet, no phone reception, no Bepsi!—and Tristen has no idea how to do any of the skills the other kids seem to do easily. But soon, with some surprising new friends, a few patient teachers and a little help from technology, Tristen begins to think he might be able to hack this nature stuff after all.