Open Book for Libraries: June 2024

Open book for libraries

In this issue:

Letter from CELA’s Executive Director

As we head into summer reading season, I am delighted to see the new titles available in our collection. Along with our usual additions, we’ve added more than 1100 French braille titles and have plans to add another 300 more in the coming weeks. We’ve also put together some reading lists of recently added titles for National Indigenous People’s Day, which is available on our blog, and for Pride Month, which you will find in our newsletter. You can also check out our Recommended and Awards pages for more great books to add to your summer reads list.

We often hear from our users how important it is to have choices in their reading. Check out one of our recent blog posts for an interview with Theresa Power, our Content and Access Librarian, about how our collection has grown over the last decade and all the things she considers as she selects titles for our users.

One of Theresa’s jobs is to ensure we have books in our collection to support Summer reading clubs, including the TD Summer Reading Club, the BC Summer Reading Club and the New Brunswick Summer Reading Club. When promoting summer reading clubs with your participating families, don’t forget to include information about accessible books. You can find booklists and resources to help you integrate accessibility into your programs on our website. Make sure your community knows you’ve got books for everyone, no matter how they read. Because summer is a great time for reading.

Open Book will be taking a break in July and will return with lots of news and reading suggestions in August.

Happy reading and have a fantastic summer.

Laurie Davidson, Executive Director

Awards update!

Cover of the book Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan.Canadian writer Naomi Klein and American author V. V. Ganeshananthan have won the 2024 Women's Prizes.
Klein won the inaugural nonfiction award for her book Doppelganger, while Ganeshananthan received the fiction award for her novel Brotherless Night, which also recently won the Carol Shields Prize.  

Congratulations to Patrick DeWitt  who won the 2024 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for his book The Librarianist.

Winners from the Indigenous Voices Awards include: 

For more information about literary awards visit our Awards page. 

On our blog

Cover of the book The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters.In June, we featured books to read to honour National Indigenous Heritage Month. Recommendations include new titles and some older favourites. 

We've also announced our Accessible Commercial Audiobooks Project, funded by Accessibility Standards Canada, which is designed to help create accessibility guidelines and resources for publishers, audiobook producers and others in the audiobook industry.

Books to promote at your library

Megaphone on a blue background.Are you looking to promote some new accessible titles in your newsletters, social media feeds, or as part of an in-branch display?

Download our printable book list or forward the link to your colleagues.

Find the new list, updated monthly and featuring links to new books in our collection, on our For Libraries page.

Accessibility resources for your summer reading club

A young boy curls up on a chair while reading a book on a tablet.Summertime is here and so are summer reading clubs! We’ve got some resources to help libraries support children with print disabilities and make them feel welcome and included. 

Has a parent or caregiver ever asked you for suggestions for their child who is struggling to read and you wondered how best to help? CELA’s new How to talk about accessible literacy document provides detailed information about the different types of reading formats, and what makes each format accessible. You’ll also find reading suggestions that aren’t novels, as well as tips on what to look for when assessing the accessibility of the layout and design of books. Pass it on to all your frontline staff!

You can also display CELA’s new Child Services poster in your library to let parents and caregivers know that there are resources available for children with print disabilities. The poster makes a great addition to summer reading club promotions.

If your library participates in the TD Summer Reading Club, children with print disabilities can access the notebooks in accessible formats. They are available in electronic braille, audio, large print, and OpenDsylexic font. Consult TDSRC’s Plan for Accessibility page for more tips and resources. Parents can find the accessible format notebooks on the club’s Accessibility page.

Whether your library participates in NB SRC, BC SRC, or TDSRC, we have recommended books in accessible formats for your patrons. CELA supports readers with print disabilities all across the country.

Celebrating Pride Month

Cover of the book Family Meal by Bryan Washington.Earlier this month, the winners of the Lambda Literary Prizes were announced. Winners included Family meal: A novel ​by Bryan Washington and Hi Honey, I’m Homo! by Matt Baume, among many others. 

The Lambdas are an excellent place to start if you are looking for books by and about the 2SLGBTQ+ community. 

We also have lots of other titles to check out. 

Changes to the Holds feature in My account

A bookshelf full of books.Do you ever wish you could change the order in which your CELA items on Holds are being sent to you? Good news! We have just launched some new features on our website that will help you do just that.

Here is a short description of this new functionality:

  • Make sure you are logged in and go to your CELA My account page. From there, activate the Holds link.
  • Each title is a heading at level two, followed by information, including the current priority queue number.
  • Below each title in your Holds list is a link called “Prioritize this hold”. If you activate it, the corresponding item will be moved to the top of the priority queue and will be the first in line to be sent to you.
  • You can also suspend a hold by activating its corresponding link, titled “Suspend this hold”. This will remove it from your priority queue, and it will not be sent out to you, unless you reactivate it.
  • You can reactivate a suspended item by selecting its corresponding link titled “Return item to queue”. It will be placed back at the bottom of your Holds priority queue.

You can also select multiple holds and delete them completely from your Holds list, filter the list by various criteria, and search the list for a title or author. For more information, please visit the Holds tutorial on our website.

Webinars

Don't keep CELA a secretA person's mid-section visible behind a desk on which they are writing in a notebook. Also on the desk is an open laptop and two stacked books., our newest webinar for libraries, is now available on our YouTube channel. Check it out for tips and resources to help you and your communications specialists promote CELA to your patrons with print disabilities. 

Our live webinars for library staff are on hiatus for the summer. But please check back in the August edition of Open Book for Libraries to find out what we will be offering this fall! Also, be sure to go to our Training videos and recorded webinars page to check out our previously offered webinars.

Featured title for adults: James: A Novel

Cover of the book James by Percival Everett.When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a “literary icon” (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

Read James: A Novel by Percival Everett.

Top five books

Cover of the book Ducks by Kate Beaton.Most popular with our readers this month:

  1. The Whispers: A Novel by Ashley Audrain, Suspense and thrillers
  2. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton, Biography
  3. Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page, Biography
  4. Chasing Endless Summer by V. C. Andrews, Suspense and thrillers
  5. This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune, Romance

Featured title for kids: Dear Mothman

Cover of the book Dear Mothman by Robin Gow."A ­triumphant coming-of-age story about gender identity, strength, and friendship, as well as the different ways that people ­discover who they are," -School Library Journal, starred review.

A moving middle-grade novel in verse, about a young trans boy dealing with the loss of his friend by writing to his favorite cryptid, Mothman Halfway through sixth grade, Noah's best friend and the only other trans boy in his school, Lewis, passed away in a car accident.

Lewis was adventurous and curious, always bringing a new paranormal story to share with Noah. Together they daydreamed about cryptids and shared discovering their genders and names. After his death, lonely and yearning for someone who could understand him like Lewis once did, Noah starts writing letters to Mothman, wondering if he would understand how Noah feels and also looking for evidence of Mothman's existence in the vast woods surrounding his small Poconos town. Noah becomes determined to make his science fair project about Mothman, despite his teachers and parents urging him to make a project about something "real."

Meanwhile, as Noah tries to find Mothman, Noah also starts to make friends with a group of girls in his grade, Hanna, Molly, and Alice, with whom he'd been friendly, but never close to. Now, they welcome him, and he starts to open up to each of them, especially Hanna, who Noah has a crush on. But as strange things start to happen and Noah becomes sure of Mothman's existence, his parents and teachers don't believe him. Noah decides it's up to him to risk everything, trek into the woods, and find Mothman himself.

Read Dear Mothman by Robin Gow.

Top five for kids

Cover of the book Kunoichi Bunny by Sara Cassidy.Most popular with kids this month:

  1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Fantasy
  2. The Complete Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, Fantasy
  3. Harry Potter: Cinematic Guide by Felicity Baker, General non-fiction
  4. Rescue Pup by Jean Little, Animal stories
  5. Kunoichi Bunny by Sara Cassidy, General fiction

Top five for teens

Cover of the book Breakdown by David A. Robertson.Most popular with teens this month:

  1. The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the first part of Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings #1) by J. R. R. Tolkien, Fantasy
  2. Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J. Maas, Adventure stories
  3. Breakdown (The Reckoner Rises #1) by David A. Robertson, Disabilities fiction
  4. A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks, Bestsellers (fiction)
  5. 1984: A Novel by George Orwell, Classic fiction

CELA is heading to IFLA

Library of Congress James Madison Building appears against a blue sky with clouds.This August, Lindsay Tyler, CELA's Senior Manager will present a session at the IFLA Libraries Serving Persons with Print Disabilities Seminar in Washington D.C.

Lindsay will talk about CELA's work supporting and advocating for accessibility within the mainstream public library services, while also offering specialised formats, collections and services that meet the specific needs of people with print disabilities.

Service Tip: Bookshare registrations

Bookshare is an optional collection of books in accessible formats available through CELA's catalogue. In order to access this collection, patrons must file a Proof of Disability form signed by a certifying professional. 

When registering patrons at the library, please mention Bookshare's collection and let them know they can download the Proof of Disability form on their own once they receive their CELA username by email. You could also offer to print out a copy for them to bring to a professional who can certify their print disability. Once signed, the patron can upload the form on their own to their CELA account. Please note that registering for CELA requires only that the patron confirm they have a print disability (self-declaration), which means they are eligible to use CELA. They only need to complete the proof of disability form for access to Bookshare titles.

Holiday hours

red maple leavesCELA and its Contact Centre will be closed on Monday, July 1 for Canada Day. We will resume usual hours on Tuesday, July 2.

Enjoy your holiday!

Stay connected!

Logos of X, Facebook, and YouTube.Visit CELA's social media, including X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, YouTube and our blog, for more news about what's happening in the world of accessible literature.