This fall, CBC Books asked Canadians for their suggestions of books to change perspectives, challenge stereotypes and illuminate issues. What is the one book to break barriers? That’s the question host Wab Kinew will be asking for the 14th edition of CBC’s battle of the books.

WCA is thrilled that Kamal Al-Solaylee, Kim Fu, Thomas King and Doug Saunders have all been longlisted for CBC’s Canada Reads 2015.

The final five books and their champions will be revealed on January 20, 2015.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.cbc.ca/books/2014/12/the-canada-reads-2015-longlist.html

The 2015 finalists for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction –  one of the largest non-fiction book prizes in the country – were announced, and WCA is thrilled that James Raffan’s Circling the Midnight Sun: Culture and Change in the Invisible Arctic has been shortlisted. The award carries a prize of $40,000. Raffan’s jury citation follows:

James Raffan’s Circling the Midnight Sun fully deserves recognition as a book that encourages important national conversations and expands our shared knowledge of the increasingly complex world we inhabit. Circling the Midnight Sun tells the compelling story of those who are most affected by climate change. Raffan takes us on a journey through some of the worlds’ northernmost communities, from Iceland to Russia to Canada, and places in between. The Globe and Mail cited Circling the Midnight Sun as “a valuable opportunity to hear from the most vulnerable, but also the most resilient, residents of our planet. Far from being a cry of anger from a remote land, their message speaks to all of us who live with a changing climate that could soon mean big changes in our culture, too.”

For more information on the award and this year’s finalists, please visit www.bcachievement.com.

Please join us in congratulating Ashley Little and Ailsa Kay, who were both longlisted for the 2015 International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award. The €100,000 award is the richest literary prize in the world. Administered by Dublin City Public Libraries, books are nominated by libraries from around the world.

For more information about the prize, please visit:

http://www.impacdublinaward.ie/

For more information about the nominated titles, please click below:

WCA is thrilled to announce that Thomas King’s The Back of the Turtle (HarperCollins Canada) has won the 2014 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.

The Back of the Turtle is King’s first literary novel in 15 years and follows on the success of the award-winning and bestselling The Inconvenient Indian and his beloved Green Grass, Running Water and Truth and Bright Water, both of which continue to be taught in Canadian schools and universities. Green Grass, Running Water is widely considered a contemporary Canadian classic.

The Governor General’s Literary Awards were first awarded in 1936, and are now one of Canada’s premier national literary awards. Winners will be celebrated at a public event in Ottawa on November 26.

http://ggbooks.ca/~/media/ggbooks/list%20of%20all%20winners%20english.pdf

Please join us in congratulating Paul Wells, the winner of the Ottawa Book Award in the English: Non-Fiction category for The Longer I’m Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada, 2006- (Penguin Random House of Canada).

Jury Statement:

This no-holds barred romp into the inner sanctum of the “Harper government” is sometimes hilariously irreverent, but always astute and based on meticulously accumulated details. Paul Wells provides disturbing insights into this government’s determination to stay in power, its good fortune in the face of possible adversity, its mistakes and its battle to control information. This is a well-written, important book published at a timely juncture in Canada’s political history.

http://ottawa.ca/en/liveculture/ottawa-book-awards-winners

The Massey Murder by Charlotte Gray has won the Heritage Toronto Award!

Congratulations, Charlotte!

http://heritagetoronto.org/programs/heritage-toronto-awards/

Please join us in congratulating Charlotte Gray. The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Country has continued its recent hot-streak, adding the Heritage Toronto Award to last week’s Toronto Book Award!

Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Heritage Toronto Awards is Canada’s longest-running heritage awards program.  Congratulations, Charlotte!

http://heritagetoronto.org/programs/heritage-toronto-awards/

WCA is pleased to announce that Jaspreet Singh has been longlisted for the 2015 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for his novel Helium (Bloomsbury, India).

http://dscprize.com/global/updates/dsc-prize-2015-longlist-announced.html

Please join WCA in congratulating Charlotte Gray, the winner of the 40th annual Toronto Book Awards for her non-fiction work, The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Country. The award recognizes exceptional literary works that are in some way evocative of the city.

The nominations for the Forest of Reading Awards have just been announced, and several WCA authors have been nominated.

Blue Spruce Award ~

The Highest Number In The World Roy Macgregor, Genevieve Despres Tundra Books
9-year-old Gabe (Gabriella) Murray lives and breathes hockey. She’s the youngest player on her new team, she has a nifty move that her teammates call “the Gabe,” and she shares a lucky number with her hero, Hayley Wickenheiser: number 22. But when her coach hands out the team jerseys, Gabe is stuck with number 9. Crushed, Gabe wants to give up hockey altogether. How can she play without her lucky number? Gabe’s grandmother soon sets her straight, though–from her own connection to the number 9 in her hockey-playing days to all the greats she cheered for who wore it, she soon convinces Gabe that this new number might not be so bad after all. A lovely intergenerational tale and a history of the storied number 9 in hockey, The Highest Number in the World is a must-have for any hockey fan.

Silver Birch Award ~

The Creature Department Robert Paul Weston Penguin Books
It’s a tentacled, inventive, gooey, world in there. . . . Elliot Von Doppler and his friend Leslie think nothing ever happens in Bickleburgh, except inside the gleaming headquarters of DENKi-3000—the world’s eighth-largest electronics factory. Beneath the glass towers and glittering skywalks, there’s a rambling old mansion from which all the company’s amazing inventions spring forth. And no one except Uncle Archie knows what’s behind the second-to-last door at the end of the hall. Until Elliot and Leslie are invited to take a glimpse inside. They find stooped, troll-like creatures with jutting jaws and broken teeth. Tiny winged things that sparkle as they fly. And huge, hulking, hairy nonhumans (with horns). It is unlike anything they’ve ever seen. But when Chuck Brickweather threatens to shut down the DENKi-3000 factory if a new product isn’t presented soon, the creatures know they are in danger. And when Uncle Archie vanishes, it’s up to Elliot, Leslie, and every one of the unusual, er, “employees” to create an invention so astonishing it will save the Creature Department.

From There To Here Laurel Croza, Matt James Groundwood Books
A little girl and her family have just moved across the country by train. Their new neighborhood in the city of Toronto is very different from their home in the Saskatchewan bush, and at first everything about “there” seems better than “here.” The little girl’s dad has just finished building a dam across the Saskatchewan River, and his new project is to build a highway through Toronto. In Saskatchewan, he would come home for lunch every day, but now he doesn’t come until supper. The family used to love to look at the stars, and the northern lights dancing in the night sky. But in the city, all they can see is the glare from the streetlights. All the kids used to run and play together, but now older brother Doug has his own friends. Then one day there is a knock on the door. It is Anne, who lives kitty-corner and is also eight, going on nine, and suddenly living in Toronto takes on a whole new light. Laurel Croza and Matt James have beautifully captured the voice and intense feelings of a young child who, in the midst of upheaval, finds hope in her new surroundings.

Red Maple Award ~

Zomboy Richard Scrimger Harper Collins Canada

From the imagination of one of Canada’s funniest writers for young readers comes the story of a creepy young zombie named Imre Lazar, who, in spite of a few special challenges, is integrated into a regular classroom at Dresden Public School in Ontario. No one is less sure about the school board’s decision than narrator Bob, but his fearless best friend, Evil-O, is Imre’s greatest defender. Clashes and heroics ensue as the community’s tolerance for difference—and Bob’s tolerance for an undead rival—are pushed to the limit in this hilarious, exciting and surprisingly touching novel.

White Pine Award ~

Apparition Gail Gallant Random House
Being able to see ghosts and teaming up with a local historian and his son, allows Amelia to piece together what really happened the night her best friend apparently committed suicide. The last time Amelia Mackenzie saw her best friend Matthew alive, he broke her heart. When he is found the next day an apparent suicide, Amelia’s world comes crashing down.  And then she sees him again. Because Amelia has a secret: sometimes, she sees ghosts. A local history columnist named Morris Dyson contacts Amelia after the funeral and tells her that he thinks the barn Matthew died in is haunted. With Amelia’s gift for seeing ghosts, Morris’s radical theories on the supernatural, and a bit of help from Morris’s son Kip a mystery unfolds. Apparition is a fast-paced supernatural mystery about memory and obsession, love and loss.

Creeps Darren Hynes Penguin Books

Wayne Pumphrey is routinely the object of bullying until one day an unlikely source comes to his rescue and a friendship is born. Will Wayne’s new friendship survive the bully’s new plans? Fifteen-year old Wayne Pumphrey wishes he had the courage to actually send the letters he writes to friends and family. He also wishes his father would stop drinking, his mother would stop packing her bags to leave, and that his sister would stop listening to Nickleback. But what Wayne wishes for most, is that Pete “The Meat” would let him walk to school in peace. Then one morning, faced with Pete, his posse, and the inevitable eating of yellow snow, Marjorie rescues Wayne and an unlikely friendship is born. If only Pete didn’t have plans for them both…

Winners will be announced at the Festival of Trees next May.  You can find the complete shortlists at: https://www.accessola.org/web/OLAWEB/Forest_of_Reading/Current_Program_Year.aspx