The Fruitful City: The Enduring Power of the Urban Food Forest
Heritage Toronto Book Award winner
Examining the roots and fruits of the urban foodscape
Helena Moncrieff, 2018
Our cities are places of food polarities — food deserts and farmers’ markets, hunger and food waste, fast food delivery and urban gardening. While locavores and preserving pros abound, many of us can’t identify the fruit trees in our yards or declare a berry safe to eat. Those plants — and the people who planted them — are often forgotten.
In The Fruitful City, Helena Moncrieff examines our relationship with food through the fruit trees that dot city streets and yards. She tracks the origins of these living heirlooms and questions how they went from being subsistence staples to raccoon fodder. But in some cities, previously forgotten fruit is now in high demand, and Moncrieff investigates the surge of non-profit urban harvest organizations that try to prevent that food from rotting on concrete and meets the people putting rescued fruit to good use.
As she travels across Canada, slipping into backyards, visiting community orchards, and taking in canning competitions, Moncrieff discovers that attitudinal changes are more important than agricultural ones. While the bounty of apples is great, reconnecting with nature and our community is the real prize.
The Fruitful City is a Heritage Toronto Book Award recipient and was short-listed for a Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.
Available for purchase here:
The Insurance Book
What Canadians Really Need to Know Before Buying Insurance
Helena Moncrieff, Sally Praskey; Pearson Education Canada, 1999
As more and more Canadian consumers take an active role in their personal financial planning, they are looking at insurance as a key component of their overall strategy. But in order to get the right coverage at the right price, consumers need straightforward answers to their insurance questions. The Insurance Book gives Canadians just that—honest, objective information in an easy-to-understand question-and-answer format, with plenty of tips and checklists throughout.
Whether you want the low-down on life, health, travel, automobile, or property insurance, you will find it here. What’s inside:
- when to make a claim—and when NOT to
- how to save money on insurance
- how to be sure you have the right coverage at any stage of life
- the difference between various types of policies
- what ISN’T covered in typical insurance policies
The Insurance Book will appeal to a wide range of consumers. It addresses insurance needs at various stages of life, and will help you make informed decisions, whatever your circumstances. The Insurance Book is the only one-stop source for reliable information on all kinds of insurance for Canadian consumers.