Canada Reads 2009
I guess I can’t resist throwing in a little bit about Canada now and then. And this is book-related, so all the better, eh?
The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) just finished up their Canada Reads program for this year. They choose five Canadian personalities to select and defend a book they think all Canadians should read. These people debate their choices on the radio/online, and one book gets eliminated each week. This makes for some very lively, entertaining and educational listening.
The winning book for this year was Someone Knows My Name (originally titled The Book of Negroes in Canada), by Lawrence Hill. (Curious about the name change? Read Hill’s thoughts on the matter.) It won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best book, and was a best-seller in Canada – named one of the top 100 books of 2007 by the Globe and Mail.
Someone Knows My Name is about a slave named Aminata Diallo, who is able to escape in the chaos of the Revolutionary War. She ends up traveling in Canada, Sierra Leone and England, and helps write The Book of Negroes, a list of Black Loyalists rewarded by the King of England with safe passage to Nova Scotia.
Once I finish reading the book, I’ll be listening to the defenses and debates of Canada Reads. I’ll probably read some of books that didn’t make the cut as well. They were:
- The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, Michel Tremblay – “an entire Montreal neighbourhood full of joie de vivre“
- Fruit, Brian Francis – “a tubby teenager trying to get a life in Sarnia [suburban Ontario]“
- Mercy Among the Children, David Adams Richards – “a family trying to stay afloat in rural New Brunswick“
- The Outlander, Gil Adamson – “a young widow on the lam heading for Canada’s western wilderness“
Happy Canadian reading! If you read any of the books, share your thoughts in the comments if you like.
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