CBC Canada Reads have announced their short list, and this year, the great Canadian book debate is looking for one book to carry us forward. This years books show us all have the power to change how we see, share and experience the world around us. View the final nominees, as well as some of the long-listed books, here in our collection! Can't find a format you need? Login to request this title.
Follow host Ali Hassan and guests as they debate the books; the debates will be broadcast on CBC Radio One, CBC TV, CBC Gem and on CBC Books.
The debates will take place March 17-20.
Watch Out for Her by Samantha Bailey
Watch Out for Her is about a young mother named Sarah who thinks her problems are solved when she hires a young babysitter, Holly, for her six-year-old son. Her son adores Holly and Holly adores Sarah, who is like the mother she never had. But when Sarah sees something that she can't unsee, she uproots her family to start over. Her past follows her to this new life, raising paranoid questions of who is watching her now? And what do they want?
A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder by Ma-Nee Chacaby
In A Two-Spirit Journey, Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Objibwe-Cree lesbian who grew up in a remote northern Ontario community, tells the story of how she overcame experiences with abuse and alcohol addiction to become a counsellor and lead Thunder Bay's first gay pride parade. Can't find a format you need? Login to request this title.
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
In the novel Etta and Otto and Russell and James, 82-year-old Etta decides to walk 3,232 kilometres to Halifax from her farm in Saskatchewan with little more than a rusty rifle and a talking coyote named James for company. Her early life with her husband Otto and their friend Russell are revealed in flashbacks to the Great Depression and the Second World War. Can't find a format you need? Login to request this title.
Jennie’s Boy by Wayne Johnston
Jennie's Boy is a memoir that recounts a six-month period in Wayne Johnston's chaotic childhood, much of which was spent as a frail and sickly boy with a fiercely protective mother. While too sick to attend school, he spent his time with his funny and eccentric grandmother Lucy and picked up some important life lessons along the way.
Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew
Dandelion is a novel about family secrets, migration, isolation, motherhood and mental illness. When Lily was a child, her mother, Swee Hua, walked away from the family and was never heard from again. After becoming a new mother herself, Lily is obsessed with discovering what happened to Swee Hua.