An award does not necessarily make a good read. Tastes differ and every reader has different choices of ‘winning’ titles. This poting outlines some recent announcements of Canadian, American and book awards abroad. I’ve read each of these titles and, for what it’s worth, I would have given the majority of these titles a personal vote as a winning book.
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
MAD AT DAD by Janie Hao
> On Oct 4, this picture book was announced the winner of the CBC Children’s Kids Reads <
A young girl is MAD at her dad. She really is MAD. She then feels BAD. She feels SAD realizing she doesn’t really like being MAD and tries everything to help her be less MAD (counting, drawing, deep breathing). Eventually the DAD that she is MAD at helps her feel better. The words and pictures in this book explode off the page and , along with the lift-the-flap construct, seem to punctuate the angry feelings of this young girl. This is a great interactive picture book that beyond being entertaining, helps young readers think about their frustrating emotions and how to deal with them. I’m so glad, Janie Hao wrote Mad at Dad. Congratulations, Janie Hao on being voted a kids favourite.
THE TEACHER OF NOMAD LAND: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri
> NATIONAL BOOK AWARD, Young People’s Literature <
I was intrigued by three things on the cover of the book; The word ‘teacher’ is in the title and i like reading stories about teachers; the author Daniel Nayeri is an Iranian-American author who’s autobiographical novel Everything Sad is Untrue (A True Story) was a wonderful autobiographical story that i enjoyed a lot; the image of a child carrying a blackboard on his back reminded me of a wonderful Iranian film called Blackboards where a nomadic man wandered through the countryside seeking students to read and write. This book is set in 1941 and German Armies are storming across Europe and Iran, a neutral country is occupied by British anbd Soviet forces. Bahak and his Sana are orphans who made a vow to stick together, Babak, the older brother,devises a plan to carry a chalkboard strapped to his back to carry on his father’s job of being a teacher to the nomads as they make their annual trek across the mountains. Brother and sister find themselves on a treacherous journey struggling to survive through hunger and danger. Encounters with a British ally, a Nazi spy and a Jewish boy hiding from the spy, add to the two Iranian children’s race for survival. Daniel Nayeri has written a fine adventurous piece of historical fiction where languages, literacy, perseverance and resilience are central to a story set in World War II.
Excerpt (p.103)
“They are scorched by the sun. Afer long evening of hiking, when they’re sore and their tongues lol in their mouths desperate with thirst, as the sun gutters behind a hill they finally spot a spring-fed channel of cold, clear waer down ina narrow valley. And at the same time, they realize they are all alone in the wilderness – Baba help them – and they’re being followed.”
TIG by Heather Smith
> GOVERNOR GENERAL’S AWARD FOR YOUNG PEOPLE’S TEXT <
Bravo to Heather Smith for winning the Governor General’s award for young people’s text. Tig tells the story of a young girl struggling to find peace within herself after being abandoned by her addict mother and taken in by her uncle and his partner. This is a heartbreaking story about resilience, imagination and coping. Heather Smith’s writing is oh-so-glorious and this publication is so deserved of Governor General’s award recognition.
NOTE: This Land is A Lullaby writtern by Tonya Simpson and illustrated by Delree Dumont was the winner in the young people’s illustrated book category.
EVERYBELLY by Thao Lam
> KIRKUS PRIZE <
Everybody has a belly. Bellies may be small, big, flat, or shy. Some bellies grow, some bellies make great tables, some bellies feel like home. In this terrific picture book, artist Thao Lam uses coloured textured papers to illustrate a cast of characters each with a unique story, each with a unique belly (i.e., tattooed, stretch marks, six-pack, freckled, squishy, wobbly etc.). Readers view the world of bellies through the eyes of young girl, Maddie has a unique perspective on ‘everybelly’ that gathers together in the community pool. Why a wonderful story about self-acceptance by the author who shares her the pride she has for her own full belly! What a wonderful tribute to the diversity of the human body! What a wonderful wonderful picture book! Bravo to Thao! Bravo to Groundwood Books! Bravo to bellies.
SOS WATER by Yayo
> Marilyn Baillie Picture Prize, Canadian Children’s Book Centre <
Any book that can help young readers think about climate change and their part in taking care of the environment is worth sharing. This picture book tells the story of a sailor named Lalo and a goldfish named Rosa in search of a safe place in the world for Rosa to be safe. However, every place they visit from the North Pole to tropical jungles, from deserts to Paris is is strewn with plastic bottles. The cover illustration is spectacular (Lolo rowing is rowing a boat in a sea of thousands of plastic bottles. Simple text, humour, imagination and a thoughtful message about recycling and glorious illustrations (often comic like) help to make SOS Water is a treasure of a picture book. This book is a winner! Thank you, Yayo.
I dreamed I had magical powers to clean the world.
“What can I do? ” I asked the sea.
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ADULT BOOKS
THE TRUE TRUE StORY OF RAJA THE GULLIBLE (and his mother) by Rabih Alameddine
> NATIONAL BOOK AWARD, FICTION <
I was motivated to read this book after hearing about it’s award recognition. I hadn’t any novels by Rabih Alameddine. The brief synopsis of this National Book Award winner intrigued and I was glad I bought and read this book. The setting is Lebanon and the narrative takes place over several decades (1960 – 2023). Raja and his mother, Zalfa have an extraordinary love-hate relationship and are not afraid to call each other ‘stupid’. Raja is a high school philosophy teacher and the fact that he is a homosexual is not hidden from his family or community. Zalfa, in her 80’s is a fearless dynamo who wants to know every detail of her sons work life and love life. We learn of different episodes in Raja, The Gullible’s life: Living through the pandemic, a journey to America to attend an all-expenses paid writing residency, and a large section that recounts a perilous adventure as a teenager of being kidnapped in a garage and having sexual adventures with his kidnapper who demands that Raja teach him to Cha, Cha, Cha. Alameddine is a great storyteller, a wickedly witty narrator, a wonderful inventor of memories, who presents unforgettable characters with the background setting of Civil War in Lebanon adding danger for those who experienced trauma of war. I was pleased to read that this novel won an award and quite pleased to meet the unique style of a unique author.
Excerpts
“My memory is a god, and I, its servant.” (p. 97)
“I know you think I’m being childish because I always mention I want to kill my mother, but that’s metaphorical. I mean I want to kil my mother but I don’t want to hurt her. That’s just silly. My mother is my muse of matricide.” (p. 233)
ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS, Omar El Akkad
National Book Award, Nonfiction
The New York Times Critics suggested that this current events titl is one of 100 notable book for 2025. Their annotation of this book reads: “This agonized book about he devastation of Gaza asks American readers to think of Palesinain victims not as ‘them’ but as ‘us’. Part memoir and part pelemic, it offers an eloquent cry against our tolerance for calamity.” (06/ 11/ 22025, p. 33). The following words have been used in reviewing this book: ‘a howl’; a cry from the heart’; ‘rallying cry’ ‘fury’; ‘lionhearted’; ‘ferocious’ To be sure, Akkad’s book is a raw and honest spewing of views and questions from a political journalist who was born in Egypt, lived in Qatar, Canada and the United States. From the book jacket: This is El Akkads nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West.” El Akkad has reported on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives matter protests and he is angry / furious about the fact that much of what the West promises is a lie. The war on Gaza raises the author’s temperature in believing that privilege takes over the pretence that Westerners have treating others with full humanity.
This is not the type of book that I usually read and I found myself revisiting sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph in the ten essays that comprise this book trying to grasp El Akkad’s views of unspeakable violence, complicity in genocide believing that one day, everyone will always have been against this. I did in fact turn down the corners of several pages when reading some of the author’s striking insights and queries.The book is filtered with chilling stark images of brutality (“The cartoon character on her shirt is still visible. He face is not. She’d hurt no one.” / “A soldier shoots a teenage girl and is found not guilty. Life goes on for some but not others.” Within each essay, questions that storm inside El Akkad;s head are raised with the goal of instigating questions about a readers’s moral and ethical beliefs. In addition to carrying the fury of the writer, the book is autobiographical as they immigrant author reports on his journey as a reporter and the speaking engagements and book conferences he attended. To be sure this is a book for our time’ The writing is strong and brilliant and is sure to make divide readers. Will Western politicians read the book? Will politicians ever work towards making a difference to reach a day against inhumanity in all its forms?
Excerpts
“They say what you’re supposed to do in this line of work is comfort the afrlicted and afflict the comfortable. I heard that saying a lot as a young journalist.” (p. 40)
“What power assumes, ultimately, is that all those who weren’t directly affected by this, who only had to bear the minor inconvenience of hearing about the deaths from afar, will move on, will forget.” (p. 55)
“In reality, it doesn’t much matter what or how vigorously I condemn. I am of an ethnicity and a religion and a place in the caste ordering of eh Western world for which there exists no such thing as enough condemnation.” (p. 149(
“How does one finish the sentence: “It is unfortunate that tens of thousands of children are dead but…”
THE ELEMENTS by John Boyne / Irish
THE PRIZ DU ROMAN Fnac NOVEL PRIZE (France) <
I am a huge fan of John Boyne’s work. The Elements was originally published as a collection of four separate novellas: Water, Earth, Fire and Air. Although character’s from one book appear in other titles in the series, the stories are more or less stand alone reads. Each narrative represents different perspectives on a criminal act told from the points of view of the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator and the victim. We meet a mother escaping her past (Water) , a gay soccer star on trial (Earth), a surgeon dealing with childhood trauma (Fire), a father on a journey with his son (Air). As with any book by this brilliant author, I found the stories to be compelling and often gasp-worthy shattering. Moreover, each story invites readers to consider the complexity of guilt or innocence. I’d give any one of these stories an award and it’s thrilling to have the four elements collected together.
CLEAR by Carys Davies / Welsh
> ONDATTJE PRIZE (for books that evoke ‘a spirit of place’) <
The setting is a remote Scottish island in 1843. John Ferguson, a church minister is sent to evict Ivar, the soul inhabitant on the island in order to turn the island into grazing land for sheep. John’s mission, known as The Clearances’ whereby hundreds of ministries rebelled against the system of patronage, allowing Scottish landowners to forcibly remove the rural poor from their homes. John, desperate for money makes the choice to travel to the remote island in Northern Scotland to inform the lonely Ivar of his future awaits. When Ivar finds John laying unconscious on the beach, he takes him into his home. Even though the two men do not have a common language (John speaks English, Ivor’s only means of communication is Norn a Norwegian dialect). the two men come to form a bond during Ferguson’s month-long visit, The short book (146 pages) unfolds in 52 short chapters that dig into the minds and hearts of Ivar and John and John’s wife Mary who longs for her husband’s return ‘The Royal Society Ondaatje Prize’ is an award given to a book that evokes the ‘spirit of place’. Clear was an absorbing, poignant read. It is a hear squeezing story of loneliness and connection and longing.I loved it so.
Excerpts
“He stood for a long time in the softly falling rain and eventually he spoke to himself silently in his own head: “I have the cliffs and the skerries and the birds. I have he white hill and the round hill and the peaked hill. I have the clear spring water and the rich good pasture that covers the tilted top of the island like a blanket. I have the old black cow and the sweet grass that grows between the rocks. I have my great chair and my sturdy house. I have my spinning wheel and I have the teapot and I have Pegi, and now, amazingly, I have John Ferguson too.” (p, 66)
“He went down to the inlet. The surface of the sea had a scraped, scrubbed look. Long, skittish shadows, hurrying in front of the wind, raced across it. Cormorants glinted, gulls hung in the air with their mouths open. Dark, heavy clouds rested on the horizon and he found himself wondering what Ivar would call them 0 would he say they were homers or bunker? Elias or glodreks? (p. 126)
THE ARTIST by Lucy Steeds
> Waterstones Book of the Year / Waterstone’s debut fiction prize <
The Setting: Province, France, Summer, 1920 .. An artist’s residence
The Characters: Joseph: a journalist from Britain who has come to write a profile about the artist,
Edouard Tartuffe: a reclusive artist of renowned, known for being the ‘master of light’
Ette: The artist’s niece who has been living with him, after her mother abandoned her
The Story: Joseph is eager to prepare an article(s) for an arts publication but is up against a cantankerous, sometimes volatile artist who is reluctant to reveal any secrets. Joseph ends up sitting as a model for Tata’s painting ‘ Young Man with Orange’. When the painting is finished, Joseph is pleased to be given permission to stay on where he ends up falling in love with Ette. Ette is totally obedient to her uncle, cooking, cleaning and preparing all his artist tools. Ette has dreams of her own about becoming an artist but feels obligated to stay with the demanding, domineering Tats. And besides, being an artist is not part of a woman’s world. When a romance with Joseph unfolds, Ette wonders if she is forever trapped to serve her uncle. Her secrets and mysterious behaviours add tension and intrigue to Ette’s life and her future.
Style: This was a compelling read. Lucy Steeds knows the French rural countryside well. She expertly paints a picture of an artist’s painting pictures. The book is presented in alternative voices of Joseph and Ette. Steeds vividly portrays the lives and secrets and passions of each of her characters along with digging into the pasts that haunts them. I was transported into the the sun-drenched atmosphere, the dedicated creative process, the intriguing mystery , and the yearning love found within The Artist.
Excerpts
“Voices, voices, voices. And Tata, he is laughing. He is growling. One eye is mirthful, he other angry. He is the god of light and shade and at this moment he is everything wrapped up in one., Fury. Passiob. Madness. Ecstasy.” (p, 186)
>>>>>
“Why did you come? she whispers, and she is so close he can feel her breath on hgis skin.
Joseph finds the answer on the tip of his tongue without even realizing ir was there. “To feel alive,” he says. (p. 197-198)
FLESH by David Szalay
> BOOKER PRIZE <
This novel follows a man from adolescence to old age. Istvan is the hero of the story and we first meet him as a fifteen year old Hungarian teenager and as the years pass, sexual encounters, life in a detention centre, army experiences, working as a security guard and a chauffeur, encounters with the super-rich, a strange marriage, a troubled fatherhood, make Istvan the rather detached man he is. This book raises questions about how fate control can control us as well as the importance of taking action to try and live a life of worth.
The book was on 16 top ten lists of best books of 2025. There will be many readers who won’t like Flesh, as much as I did. And I don’t think I liked Flesh as much as the Booker jurors did. But I was engaged reading about the ups and downs of Istvan’s life. The book is framed in ten chapters, much like a ten part television streaming series – (just sayin’) . Each chapter is like a short story in which Szalay captures different stages of his protagonists life. In much of the book, the author writes with simple sentences, If chapter appear on the page, they are rather short and unfussy. There are many gaps in the narrative leaving the reader to fill in what may seem like important events, especially as each chapter ends. The dialogue is rather clipped and we have to be satisfied with such answers as ‘Yeah’, ‘Okay’ and “I don’t know’. I liked that staccato rhythm of conversation which brings an authenticity to Istvan’s often laid back approach to life. I like your style, Mr Szalay. I liked Flesh a lot.
Excerpt
‘How are you?’ he asks.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What d’you mean what do I mean?’
‘It’s a weird question,’ she says.
‘Is it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why is it a weird question?’
‘I don’t know. it’s the kind of think grown-ups ask each other.’
PICK A COLOUR by Souvankham Thammavonsa / Canadian
> GILLER PRIZE <
This story takes place during a single summer day in a nail salon named Susan. Anyone who has gotten a mani-pedi at any salon anywhere will know the atmosphere, the customers, the manicurists, the procedures, the conversations (in English or otherwise) described in this novel. Each of the employees (each with the name tag, ‘Susan’) buff and clip and polish and tweeze as they listen to stories and complaints about husbands having affairs, online dating, taking care of children. Ning runs Susans with precision and acute observation (“I want to know, then realize there are some things I don’t need to know. I was there. I saw it all” (p. 165). As a retired boxer, Ning brings stamina and resilience to the workplace. Gossip abounds throughout the day, much of which is in a language that customers don’t know. A short novel (180 pages) Pick a Colour brings strong insight into the life of an immigrant and the complexity of power dynamics.
MY FRIENDS by Fredrik Bachman
> GOODREADS: Choice Award , Fiction <
Add my one vote to the `167, 509 people who voted this their favorite fictional read in 2025.
One day, this summer, my good friend, Adrienne, told me that I ‘must read’ MyFriends. That night I turned on TV to watch The Tonight Show and Jimmy Fallon declared My Friends to be his summer book club read. The book had been on my ‘to-read’ pile( I loved Backman’s A Man Called Ove) and so decided to finish off my summertime reading by picking up this Swedish writer’s newest publication. I loved loved loved this book. A lot. I’ve read some great books in the last few months but My Friends is at the top of the list and will likely be so by year’s end. I’d make this a desert island choice, a book that I want to read again. And again. I loved this book.
The narrative unfolds in two time frames. We learn about the life of four teenagers about twenty-five years earlier and the deep loyal friendship that helped them to cope from their bruised lives at homes. In the present a senior citizen, Ted, encounters a bold, feisty, troubled and loveable character, Louisa , who just inherited a famous painting (but that’s another story). Much of the book unfolds on a train ride with Louisa hounding Ted to tell her the story of the infamous painting and she listens to the special time where Joar, Kimkim, Ali and Ted played together and kept each other together. My Friends is a story of profound friendship. of dreams, of fate, of spousal abuse, of taking dares of being an artist, of fitting in and not fitting in of how the past informs our present and future lives. That is just an encapsulation of this brilliant book. It is Backman’s great humour, description of wild and brave mischievous s adventures, philosophical statements (hundreds), a microscopic look at everyday events, a microscopic look at what fills our hearts, unparalleled depiction of a special adolescent friendships, and critical insights about the meaning of art that made this a very special read. I shall soon be gifting book to my friends and I thank my friend Adrienne (and Jimmy Fallon) for their high praise of this novel.
I found myself folding down page after page with brilliant, moving storytelling and precepts. I will re-read this book, perhaps with a highlighter marker in my hand to help shine a light on Backman’s wordsmithing. I will need n bucket of markers. I laughed. I wept. I loved this book. JUST READ IT!!!
Some excerpts from so many turned-down corners of the pages of this book. So many gems!
“Art isn’t chronological, Everything the artist drew from a place in his head that could only get to if he wasn’t looking for it.” (77)
“A lack of self-confidence is a devastating virus. There’s no cure.” (p. 77)
“You can’t love someone out of addiction, all the oceans are the tears of those who tried. We’re not allowed to die for our children, the universe won’t let us, because then there wouldn’t be any mothers left.” (p. 215)
“Human beings are capable of such unbelievable stupidity. We speak of the birth of a child as a miracle, but really the miracle is everything that comes after.” (p. 275)