It’s a great time of year – at least for literary addicts like me. It’s the time of year for CBC’s annual battle of the books, titled Canada Reads.
Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, Canada Reads is an annual event that pits five books against each other. Five Canadian personalities are selected, and each will defend one book in a good-natured competition to determine the must-read of the year.
Back in 2016, St. Albert Public Library adopted its own grassroots version of Canada Reads. This year it runs online Friday, March 5, with our own local celebrities debating and defending their choice.
“From the community point of view, it gives people a chance to get together and see community members talk about what they’re passionate about. Books give us a different perspective and they give us hope. This is a chance to get to know some great Canadian writers. If it wasn’t for Canada Reads, we may not have found them,” said Michelle Steinhusen, adult program librarian.
Who will be the local 2021 Canada Reads defending grand champion? Will it be bulldog reporter Scott Hayes, singer-songwriter Celine Caruso Dixon, award-winning playwright Vern Thiessen, horror-fiction writer Susie Maloney or returning champ Celina Loyer?
Steinhusen, who will be the host and moderator, is excited to find out.
“It’s always a lot of fun. Panelists are playful. There’s lots of banter and there’s some trash talk, but in a playful way. It also gives people who had not thought about reading the books, a chance to pick them up.”
Scott Hayes, the Gazette’s dogged arts and culture reporter, has perused Francesca Ekwuyasi's Butter Honey Pig Bread. Ekwuyasi’s debut novel is an intergenerational saga of three Nigerian women – a mother and her twin daughters. When one of the daughters experiences a trauma, it fractures the family almost beyond repair. At one point, all three women live on different continents. It is only when the two daughters return to Lagos to see their mother that healing can begin.
“What intrigued me the most about Francesca Ekwuyasi's Butter Honey Pig Bread was that it seemed so far away from my own life and experiences. That's part of the magic of literature, and also why this novel should be considered a champion under this year's theme of finding the one book to transport us. I definitely felt transported while reading it,” Hayes said.
Celine Caruso Dixon, vice-president of events for the University of Alberta’s Black Student Association, has selected Natalia Zina Walschots Hench, a superhero spoof. The protagonist, Anna, is a temp that works for criminals that do terrible things to people. They need someone to do the mundane stuff. She needs a job.
Anna is just a chess piece on a board to shuffle around. But when she accepts a favourable assignment, everything goes wrong. An encounter with a superhero leaves her badly injured, but compared to the other bodies scattered about, she’s lucky.
"I've always preferred the villains over the heroes in movies and comics; I found myself relating to them more than I did the heroes. My favourite villains are Penguin and Poison Ivy! Hench dives deep into the theory of villains actually being the good guys and heroes being the bad guys.
It's a beautiful and captivating story following a Hench, someone who does the smaller tasks for villains, and her perspective of what a hero actually is. I won't give any spoilers but, if you ever question whether the "good guys" are actually good or if you have a massive crush on Loki then this is the perfect book for you."
On the other hand, Vern Thiessen selected Jessica J. Lee’s Two Trees Make a Forest, the only non-fiction book in this grouping where the writer embarks on a journey of self-discovery. After her grandfather’s death, Lee finds letters he once wrote to her grandmother.
She travels to Taiwan, the tiny island her ancestors once called home. Taiwan is an island of extremes: towering mountains, lush forests and barren land. As Lee travels to different parts, she tries to put together fragments of her family’s history as they journeyed from China to Taiwan to Canada.
“It’s a memoir, but there’s also this idea of a connection to nature as far as finding her family’s history,” noted Steinhusen.
In a complete shift from reality to fantasy, Susie Maloney chooses to defend C. L. Polk’s The Midnight Bargain, a mashup of magic, romance, dreams, secrets and sacrifice. Beatrice is sorceress who practices in secret. She dreams of becoming a Magus and dabbling in magic as men do.
She is terrified of one day being locked into a marital collar that will cut off her powers and protect her unborn children. Beatrice’s family is in debt and they’ve staked everything on Bargaining Season, a time when young men and women descend upon the city to negotiate a marriage.
Of her choice, Maloney said, “The theme this year is One Book to Transport Us. I took that literally – and The Midnight Bargain literally transports us to a re-imagined London, in a re-imagined world, from the 1800s. It's fantasy and by nature, fantasy takes us out of the now and into the what the hell?!"
"I do like a book with a good WTH in it! And there's a lot of WTH in Midnight Bargain. Brace yourselves fellow competitors."
And last year’s champion, Celina Loyer stands up for Joshua Whitehead’s Jonny Appleseed calling it “escapist literature at its finest.”
Jonny is a Two-Spirit Indigiqueer young man who must deal with his past when he returns to the reserve for his stepfather's funeral. Off the reserve he makes his way as a cybersex worker to make a living. He has one week before returning to the “rez” and those seven days are like a fevered dream as he recalls stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition and his much-loved kokum (grandmother).
Loyer said, “I chose Jonny Appleseed for two main reasons. First, I like to read and follow Indigenous artists, authors, and personalities. Secondly, I wanted to challenge myself a bit, and as a non-queer person, this novel offered me that. Joshua Whitehead is an Indigenous academic from Peguis First Nation. He has written two poetry books, and Jonny Appleseed is his first novel.
The characters are sharply defined and Jonny is self-proclaimed Indigiqueer NDN glitter princess. His story is full of light and dark, love and pain, and sex and acceptance. It feels almost like you are transported into his life while reading this book. For me, it was like entering an alternate reality. It was a complete getaway from my day-to-day while living, loving, suffering, and ultimately understanding Jonny as a person.”
Steinhusen added that many books printed this year have themes of family, conflicts and making peace with those around us.
“On the surface, these books don’t seem to have much in common. But what unites them is the human experience, and underneath it all, we are not so different.”
Canada Reads is Friday, March 5 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The event is free, however organizers request viewers register in advance at www.sapl.ca. A link to the program will be provided.
