Shortlist 2023!

We are excited to announce our 2023 Shortlist!

Tickets for our Oct 11th Gala are available now.

• Union by Sara Cassidy (Orca Book Publishers) – Teen Fiction

  • Abuse at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend has left fifteen-year-old Tuck broken and untrusting. But then he falls hard for his childhood friend Grace and starts to imagine a life where he is happy. At the fast-food restaurant where he works, Tuck is asked to explore starting up a union. His new sense of purpose, combined with his growing love for Grace, helps Tuck come to terms with his pain and find the strength to begin the healing process.
  • Sara Cassidy is a writer and editor. Her children’s books have been shortlisted for many awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Bolen Books Children’s Book Prize, the Silver Birch Express Award, the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award, the Rocky Mountain Book Award and the Chocolate Lily Award.

• I Hope/nipakosêyimon by Monique Gray Smith, illustrations by Gabrielle Grimard (Orca Book Publishers) – Picturebook

  • The hopes we have for the children in our lives are endless. We want our young people to thrive and experience all that life has to offer, but we also feel protective of them. Using simple but powerful statements, Monique Gray Smith delivers a touching message about loving, nurturing and wishing the best for our children.
  • Monique Gray Smith is an award-winning, bestselling author and public speaker. Her books cover a broad spectrum of ages, topics and emotions. Woven into all of Monique’s writing and her speaking engagements is the teaching that Love is Medicine. Her books include Speaking Our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation, My Heart Fills With Happiness, You Hold Me Up, Lucy and Lola, Tilly: A Story of Hope and Resilience, Tilly and the Crazy Eights, When We Are Kind and I Hope. She has also created the young adult adaptation of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Monique is Cree and Scottish. She lives with her family on the Traditional Territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples.

• Little Pine Cone: Wildfires and the Natural World by Johanna Wagstaffe, illustrations by Julie McLaughlin (Orca Book Publishers)– Picturebook

  • Little Jacky is a Jack pine cone who loves living in the woods with all of her animal friends. When a fire breaks out in her forest, all her friends run to safety and the firefighters battle the flames. The fire threatens to get too close to a neighboring village and Jacky watches as the people who live there, and the fire crew, take measures to make sure everyone is safe. While the village is protected from the fire, Little Jacky is scorched by the flames and finds out that the heat is important for her to continue her life cycle.
  • Julie McLaughlin is an award-winning illustrator whose work includes commissions for editorial, advertising and publishing clients from around the world. Her previous books have been nominated for several awards, and she won the 2015 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction for Why We Live Where We Live.