by Helen Kubiw
Teacher-librarians are always looking for great reads for their students to enjoy and for teachers to use in supporting curriculum. But finding great Canadian books for young readers may often seem like an onerous endeavour. It’s not because there aren’t great books written by Canadians available. There are hundreds of books published every season for early readers, middle graders and young adults. There are picture books, fiction and non-fiction, series and stand-alones, of all genres: fantasy, romance, humour, mystery, horror, historical, and more. The books are there. But, because the media hype often focuses on those titles with big budget promotions behind them, much of the print, digital and social media attention goes to those books published in the U.S.
But, there is an answer to seeing beyond those big-budget marketing campaigns: book awards programs. Though many nations celebrate great books with literary awards, Canada is a nation of book award programs. We take every opportunity to recognize, debate, and honour CanLit through dozens and dozens of book award programs, both regional and national. Readers eagerly await news of longlists, shortlists and winning titles, as do writers, illustrators and publishers who know that the designation as a nominee and perhaps winner can make a publishing career. Check out the Twitterverse on the day the Governor General Literary Awards’ nominees are announced or when CBC Books’ Canada Reads literary debate is set to launch. Or attend a Festival of Trees celebration for the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading to witness thousands of young readers championing their favourite books and screaming and cheering like at a rock concert. This is our way of celebrating books.
But more than just celebrating amazing books with awards, teachers and librarians, both school and public, know that award programs are valuable sources of ideas for readers’ advisory. If titles have been vetted by selection committees or juries, we know that we’ll be directing young readers to great books that will continue to foster a love of reading.
Book award programs are as varied in their processes, mandates, and scope as they are in their selections. Some nominees and winners of awards such as for the CCBC Children’s Book Awards and the Governor General’s Literary Awards are selected by juries of 3 to 20 members. Others are termed readers’ choice awards, such as the Forest of Reading and the Hackmatack Book Award, as readers in these programs select their favourites from titles nominated by selection committees.
Some award programs give out multiple awards, like the Arthur Ellis Awards for crime fiction or the Sunburst Awards for fantasy, under whose umbrella at least one award is presented for books for young readers. Other awards like the Willow Awards which includes the Shining Willow, Snow Willow and Diamond Willow Awards, are exclusively for youth. Regardless of the format or the mandate, whether at a school in Nunavut, BC, Quebec or Newfoundland, you can access incredible titles by local and out-of province writers of CanLit through lists of nominated titles (often called shortlists or finalists) and winners through the years.
While the list of book award programs in Canada is extensive and ever-changing, with new awards presented regularly and some withdrawn for lack of funding or support or transformed into new awards (the former Canada Council Book Awards become the Governor General’s Literary Awards in 1986), I’ve endeavoured to summarize many of the key ones currently presented. Many are the creations of library associations and other cultural organizations, some private, others civic, that support literature and writing. Unless otherwise specified, authors and illustrators nominated for these awards must be Canadian residents. Details regarding the type of awards as well as specifics about its awarding can be accessed at the websites provided.
Some Canadian Award Programs Relevant to School Libraries
| Award Program | Type of Award | Individual Awards |
|---|---|---|
| BC Book Prizes | Juried | Multiple awards for BC writers, with two given to those writing for young readers: • Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize • Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize |
| Chocolate Lily Young Readers’ Choice Award | Readers’ Choice (BC) | Award for children’s fiction in 3 categories: • Picture book • Early chapter book (Gr. 2-4) • Novels (Gr. 4-7) |
| Red Cedar Book Award | Readers’ Choice (BC) | For books for readers of Gr. 4-7 in two categories: • Fiction • Information Books |
| Alberta Literary Awards | Juried | Multiple awards for Alberta writers with only one for books for young readers: • R. Ross Annett Award for Children’s Literature (Chapter Books) |
| Rocky Mountain Book Awards | Readers’ Choice (AB) | One award (Gr. 4-7), a combined list of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. |
| Saskatchewan Book Awards | Juried | Multiple awards with two for books for youth: • Children’s Literature Award • Young Adult Literature Award |
| Willow Awards (Saskatchewan Young Readers’ Choice Awards) | Readers’ Choice (SK) | • Shining Willow (K- Gr. 3) • Diamond Willow (Gr. 4-6) • Snow Willow (Gr. 7-9) |
| Manitoba Book Award | Juried | Multiple awards with three categories for youth: • Children’s Books/Graphic Novels Category • McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award: Younger Category • McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award: Older Category |
| Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award (MB) | Readers’ Choice (MB) | Previously one award (Gr. 4-8) Starting in 2018, two awards: • Middle grade (gr. 4-6) • Young adult (Gr. 7-8) |
| Forest of Reading (Ontario Library Association) | Readers’ Choice (ON) | • Blue Spruce (picture books for JK-Gr.2) • Silver Birch (fiction and non-fiction for Gr. 3-6) • Red Maple (fiction and non-fiction for Gr. 7-8) • White Pine (fiction for high school) • Le Prix Peuplier (French-language picture books) • Le Prix Tamarac (French-language fiction) |
| Violet Downey Children’s Book Award (IODE Canada) | Juried | Award for best English language book, preferably with Canadian content, for children 13 and under. |
| IODE Jean Throop Book Award (IODE Toronto/Ontario) | Juried | Award for Toronto area writer and/or illustrator of children’s book. |
| QWF Awards (Quebec Writers’ Federation) | Juried | Multiple awards to Quebec English-language writers: • QWF Prize for Children's and Young Adult Literature (one award with two sub-categories presented in alternate years: picture books and early readers, or middle grade and YA) |
| Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award | Readers’ Choice (NB, NS, NL, PEI) | Four awards are presented, including both English and French for fiction and non-fiction: • English Fiction • English Non-fiction • French Fiction • French Non-fiction |
| Atlantic Book Awards | Juried | Multiple awards for Atlantic Canadian writers, with two for books for youth: • Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature • Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration |
| Arthur Ellis Awards for Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing (Crime Writers of Canada) | Juried | Multiple awards for Canadian crime writing with one for books for youth: • Best Juvenile or YA Crime Book (Fiction and Nonfiction) |
| CCBC Book Awards (Canadian Children’s Book Centre) | Juried | • Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young • John Spray Mystery Award • Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy • Amy Mathers Teen Book Award • Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award • Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction • TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award • Prix TD de littérature canadienne pour l’enfance et la jeunesse • Prix Harry Black de l’album jeunesse |
| CODE Burt Award for First Nations, Inuit and Métis Young Adult Literature | Juried | Awards for young adult books written, illustrated, and/or translated by First Nations, Inuit, and Métis creators. |
| Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Book Award (IBBY Canada) | Juried | Award for Canadian picture book. |
| First Nations Communities Read | Juried | Awards for books by First Nation, Métis, or Inuit creators and containing First Nations, Métis or Inuit content are presented in 2 categories: • Children’s Category • YA/Adult category |
| Governor General’s Literary Awards | Juried | English and French books in 7 categories, including: • Young People’s Literature – Text • Young People’s Literature – Illustrated Book |
| Information Book Award | Juried | Children’s nonfiction. |
| Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards | Juried | Numerous awards of which one is for comics and graphic novels for youth (14 and under): • The Dragon Award – Comics for Kids |
| Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award (Ontario Arts Council) | Juried (by young readers) | Two awards: • Children’s Picture book • Young Adult/Middle Grade Reader |
| Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic | Juried | Three categories of fantasy writing including: • Young Adult Award |
| SWCC Book Awards (Science Writers and Communicators of Canada) | Juried | Two awards for science writing, including: • Youth category (for children/middle grades ages 8-12 years) |
Though the hype over literary awards may seem fleeting, lasting only from the announcement of shortlists, and sometimes longlists, to that of winners and possibly honour books, the legacy of a book award can be enduring. Of course, authors, illustrators and publishers are always delighted to continue to have their books honoured. Reprints and new editions bring well-earned recognition and dollars to their creators. But the archiving of those titles as finalists and winners brings even more value to school libraries and classrooms.
Almost all award programs archive lists of their winners and often their nominees and honour books (which are essentially runners-up). The Forest of Reading, for example, provides detailed downloadable pdfs of all nominees and winners for each of its awards. If you can’t find them on the website links provided, do check out Wikipedia which curates lists for just about everything. (In fact, sometimes Wikipedia is more up-to-date than the awards’ websites!)
It is also important to note that there are worthwhile lists of nominees and winners of awards no longer presented. The awards may be gone and the honourees published many years ago, even decades, but their value in fostering a love of reading or for use in the classroom remains. This includes the Mr. Christie Book Awards (1990-2004) which honoured English- and French-language classics like The Sky is Falling (Kit Pearson, 1989) and François Gravel’s Zamboni (1990) and the Stellar Award, BC’s Teen Readers’ Choice Award, which has been on hiatus for a number of years. Perhaps most significant of these are the awards of the former Canadian Library Association (1946-2016) which bestowed for decades three major awards: for picture, children’s and young adult books. With nominees and winners like Sheila Burnford’s The Incredible Journey (1961), William Kurelek’s A Prairie Boy’s Winter (1973) and Margaret Buffie’s Who is Frances Rain? (1987), these archived book award lists are compelling sources of titles for readers’ advisory and not to be disregarded.
Additionally, beyond its readers’ choice award programs, the Forest of Reading assembles great summer reading lists curated by young readers of Silver Birch (Gr. 3-6), Red Maple (Gr. 7-8) and White Pine (Gr. 9-12). Youth selected to be on the Forest Kid and Teen Committees meet to compile extraordinary lists of titles to recommend to their peers who enjoyed reading that year’s nominated books.
Having chaired the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading program and its Silver Birch Committee as well as having participated on a number of award juries including the Canadian Library Association’s Book of the Year for Children, the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction and the John Spray Mystery Award, I am fully aware of the breadth and limitations of nominated titles to encompass the reading needs of all readers. While the criteria for awards are usually very specific, the overriding premise is to select titles of the highest literary quality and ensure a diverse list that covers a variety of themes and content, and characters and situations, as well as appealing to different readers. Even though limited by personal experiences and preferences that might bias committee members for or against certain attributes of a text (e.g., romance, violence, novel-in-verse format), they endeavour to fulfill their reading obligations and judge each book by that which it provides young readers.
As teachers and teacher-librarians, we are always looking for those titles that will grab our students’ reading interests and make them into enthusiastic and life-long readers. We can’t always predict which book will capture a particular reader or become a scaffold for our teaching. However, given the scope and variety of titles already vetted by professional readers and nominated for book awards, we can be sure to unearth more than a few gems hiding in plain sight in the myriad of award programs.
Helen Kubiw is the blogger behind CanLit for LittleCanadians, a blog promoting literature for children and young adults by Canadian authors and illustrators. She is also a teacher-librarian, the former chair of the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading, a book reviewer for Quill & Quire and the current YA Authors’ Co-ordinator for the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival. She lives in Eden Mills, Ontario.