Open Book: March 2024

Open book
In this issue

Letter from CELA’s Executive Director

As we welcome spring, we look forward to our partnerships with various literary programs and awards. One eRead Canada is one of these partners. Each year, One eRead Canada chooses a title and invites people from across Canada to read it and participate in local and national events. This year’s featured title, Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah, is available in our collection in both English and French. We hope you enjoy the book and the conversations it sparks.

This month we say goodbye to three of our team members whose contracts have concluded. We want to thank Tim Sullivan, Holly Pickering and Charmaine Co who have been instrumental in completing some important projects and who have provided excellent customer service to our member libraries and users. We wish them all well in their next endeavours.

Finally, 10 years ago, on April 1st 2014, CELA was launched as a new library to serve people with print disabilities across Canada. A lot has changed over the last 10 years, both for CELA and our users, and in the accessible reading landscape. Over the next few months, we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary by taking a look back at some of these changes and how they are shaping the future for people with print disabilities in Canada.

As we celebrate our anniversary, I wanted to offer heartfelt thanks to CELA’s Board (both past and present), our previous Executive Directors and all our team members over the years for their dedication, leadership and hard work over the past 10 years. Their contributions have been invaluable in guiding CELA to where it is today. And I want to thank our member libraries and our users for your ongoing support and feedback which has helped CELA grow and evolve to the service it is today. We are looking forward to the next 10 years!

Happy Reading!
Laurie Davidson, Executive Director

Awards updates

Cover of the book The Future by Catherine Leroux.Congratulations to Catherine Leroux whose book The Future won this year's Canada Reads. 

Holly Hogan won the 2023 BMO Winterset Award for her non-fiction book Message in a Bottle. The award celebrates excellence in writing in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

Canadian authors Suzette Mayr and Emma Donoghue have made the shortlist for the $147K Dublin Literary Award for their novels The Sleeping Car Porter and Haven.

The Writers Trust awards announced the shortlist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Awards. The winners will be announced on May 7, 2024.

Congratulations to Irish author Paul Murray who has won the inaugural £30,000 Nero Gold prize. Judges selected The Bee Sting as the entry they would "most want to recommend to others for their quality writing and readability”.

The Mystery Writers of America have announced the 2024 Edgar Allan Poe Award nominees. The award honours the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction, and television produced in 2023. Read some of the nominees in accessible formats in our collection.

And lastly, if you are an audiobook lover, check out the winners of this year's Audie Awards.

Kids reading programs

Cover of the book Forever Birchwood by Danielle Daniel.The spring is a busy time in the world of Canadian Kids Lit. Major award programs like the Forest of Reading, Hackmatack, the Manitoba Young Readers Choice Awards and BC's Red Cedar awards open their voting sessions so kids can choose their favourites. CELA has a wide selection of books from awards across the country.

Check our Kids and Teens Award page for more great reads.

One eRead Canada

Cover of the book Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah.One eRead Canada kicks off April 1st. Readers across the country are invited to take part in this national book club featuring Hotline by Lebanese Canadian author Dimitri Nasrallah as this year’s featured book. Available in our collection in both French and English, Hotline is a “vivid love letter to the 1980s and one woman’s struggle to overcome the challenges of immigration.” 

Join in on the national events organized by One eRead Canada. Dimitri Nasrallah will be at Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec in Montreal on Tuesday, April 23rd at 7 pm for an event in French with an interviewer from Radio-Canada. He will appear in Ottawa on Thursday, April 25th, at 7 pm. A CBC host will interview him for a program in partnership with Library and Archives Canada and Ottawa Public Library. Find out more at your local library, or visit the One eRead Canada website.

Webinars for you

We host a series of webinars to help users access CELA services, to stay up to date on new technologies and to learn more about accessible reading.

On the Webinars for you page, you will find upcoming webinars. On that same page you will find links to other CELA video resources available on our YouTube channel.

CELA at your fingertips: All about CELA’s braille collection

Have you ever wanted to learn more about CELA’s braille collection? Join us for this hour-long webinar about the braille reading delights that are at the fingertips of CELA users. This webinar is for anyone using braille or supporting new or experienced braille readers. By attending this webinar you will learn about:

  • The value of braille in developing literacy skills
  • CELA’s and Bookshare’s braille books, text magazines and specialized braille magazine collections
  • Braille formats, delivery options and compatible devices
  • Understanding human transcription and automatic transcription and how to choose which one you want to receive.

To register for this webinar select the link below:

Wednesday, April 17 2:00-3:00pm EDT

Cover of the book The heart of a super fan by Nav Bhatia.The Raptors' story is an underdog story—and the same is true for their greatest superfan. This instant #1 bestselling memoir offers a courtside view into the extraordinary life of Nav Bhatia. You know him as the Raptors Superfan, but Nav Bhatia's story is bigger than basketball. Nav immigrated to Canada from India after experiencing many hardships—only to face a host of new challenges. Life as an immigrant was gruelling and grey... and then, a new basketball team came to town. As Nav cheered on the Toronto Raptors at game after game, as they lost, as they won, on the good days and the bad, he discovered inspiration and community in the greatest game on Earth, formed life-long bonds with many of the best players the sport has ever known, and solidified his own place in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

In this memoir, Nav shares his incredible personal story of triumphing over adversity, as well as the lessons that propelled him to success in all facets of life: as an entrepreneur, movie producer, humanitarian, son, father and husband, and the Raptors' most dedicated supporter. And woven throughout the book are intimate, colourful behind-the-scenes stories about the Raptors—from their very first game in 1995 to their 2019 Championship win, and beyond—that only the Superfan could know. This is a book about loyalty, perseverance and the power of sports to unite us across differences—and, most of all, about how following your passions can lead you to the most extraordinary places.

Read The Heart of a Superfan by Nav Bhatia.

Top five books

Cover of the book The Fury by Alex Michaelides.Most popular with our readers this month:

  1. The Fury by Alex Michaelides, Suspense and thrillers
  2. The Whispers: A Novel by Ashley Audrain, Suspense and thrillers
  3. Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page, Biography
  4. The Bee Sting: A novel by Paul Murray, Serious and literary fiction
  5. Denison Avenue by Christina Wong, Multi-cultural fiction

Cover of the book Mission to Mars by Eric Walters.Houston Williams was thrilled to win a scholarship to attend a space program at NASA. What he didn’t realize was that organizers were recruiting people for a top-secret research project aimed at studying how space travel affects people of different ages. After months spent on the International Space Station conducting a variety of experiments, Houston is surprised to learn that he and his two friends Ashley and Teal have been chosen to join a highly political mission to Mars.

But after tragedy strikes, the teens are forced to continue the mission on their own.

Read Mission to Mars (Teen Astronauts #3) by Eric Walters. 

This is the third book in the Teen Astronauts series, following Houston, Is There A Problem? and Boldly Go.

Top five for kids

Cover of the book Boonoonoonous Hair by Olive Senior.Most popular with kids this month:

  1. Boonoonoonous Hair, by Olive Senior, Laura James Multi-cultural fiction
  2. Stargazing by Jen Wang, General fiction
  3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Fantasy
  4. Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made (Timmy Failure #1) by Stephan Pastis, Mysteries and crime stories
  5. Flat Stanley: His Original Adventure! (Flat Stanley #1) by Jeff Brown, Macky Pamintua, Humourous fiction

Top five for teens

Cover of the book One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus.Most popular with teens this month:

  1. One of Us is Lying by Karen M McManus, Mysteries and crime stories
  2. Hatchet: Hatchet series, book 1 by Gary Paulsen, Adventure stories
  3. Fictional Father by Joe Ollmann, General fiction
  4. The Giver (The Giver Quartet #1) by Lois Lowry, Science fiction
  5. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, Ghost and horror stories

Come see CELA at the IDA Conference!

IDA Ontario conference logo.Are you attending the International Dyslexia Association's Literacy & Learning Conference in Ontario this year? Please stop by our booth and say hello! 

We'd love to meet you and chat about how accessible books available through CELA can help students with dyslexia. 

The conference takes place April 26 and 27 at the Delta Hotels Toronto Airport & Conference Centre.

Service Tip: How to contact us

Do you need to get in touch with us? We would love to have you reach out by email to help@celalibrary.ca or phone us at 1-855-655-2273.

Please do not add notes inside CDs or your Envoy Connect when you return it for reloading. Those notes may not make it to us and we want to hear from you!

Holiday hours

A white rabbit sits in the grass behinds a selection of coloured eggs.CELA and our Contact Centre will be closed on Friday, March 29 and Monday, April 1 to observe Good Friday and Easter Monday. We will reopen with our regular hours on Tuesday, April 2. 

Enjoy your holiday!

New videos for you!

Fingers type on a laptop keyboard with the CELA logo displayed on the screen.We have recently added some new videos to our YouTube channel including:

If you have missed recent webinars or just want to learn more about CELA services, our recordings on YouTube are a great place to start!

Stay connected!

Facebook and twitter logos.Visit CELA's social media, including Twitter, Facebook and our blog, for more news about what's happening in the world of accessible literature.