In this issue:
- Letter from CELA’s Executive Director
- Awards update
- Plan for your accessible summer reading club!
- Accessible Audiobooks Project Report now available
- Books in the news
- Libraries and democracy: A CBC special
- Reading for Truth and Reconciliation
- Books to promote at your library
- Come see us at the conference!
- Webinars
- Featured title for adults: The Blanket Cats
- Top five books
- Featured title for kids: Escargot and the Search for Spring
- Top five for kids
- Top five for teens
- Possible Canada Post service disruption
- Service tip: DAISY players and Wi-Fi
- Stay connected!
Letter from CELA’s Executive Director
Spring in the library world is the time for preparing for summer reading programs, meeting with colleagues at conferences, and adding books which are perfect for summer reading.
At CELA we’ve been doing all of this and more. We are attending and presenting at library conferences across the country including BCLA, Manitoba and APLA as well as the Ontario Library Association Technicians Conference. If you are attending any of these, please come find us and say hello. We were delighted to meet the folks at the International Dyslexia Association conference in Toronto at the end of April.
And later this spring, Lindsay Tyler will be traveling to Dublin to present the findings from the project to the EDR Lab Digital Publishing Summit 2025. Our Accessible Commercial Audiobook Project concluded at the end of March and our most recent blog highlights the project and links to the executive summary. We hope these recommendations will help publishers in their work to create accessible books.
We’ve been developing some new resources for summer reading clubs for kids. Learn more about them below and watch for announcements about accessible books available from CELA for summer reading clubs across the country.
Lastly, I want to keep you up to date on our communications with CD users. A CD has been mailed to all CD users who don’t receive communication from us in other ways. This CD explains the changes and answers anticipated questions. You can read the use message in full on our CD Transition Resources page. The users receiving this message will be the most affected by this change in services and we anticipate you may begin receiving more questions. Please reach out if there is any information or support you need which is not available on our CD Transitions Resource page. We are here to help.
Laurie Davidson, Executive Director
Awards update
Congratulations to the authors nominated to the shortlist for the 2025 Crime Writers of Canada Awards. Winners will be announced on Friday, May 30, 2025.
The annual award highlights the best in mystery, crime, suspense fiction and crime nonfiction by Canadian authors. Nominated authors include Conor Kerr, Louise Penny and Tanya Talaga among many others.
The BC and Yukon Book Prizes will also present their awards in May. Check out the varied books nominated for these awards.
The Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour Writing has released its shortlist. Nominated authors include Drew Hayden Taylor and Emily Austin. Read some of our favourites in our collection.
Plan for your accessible summer reading club!
Summer reading clubs are an excellent opportunity to help kids fall in love with the library. Make sure that your club is welcoming and accessible for all by including accessibility in your plans, right from the start. Kids with disabilities, and their families, will appreciate programs built with inclusivity in mind. We can help!
Invite all club staff and volunteers to get involved in accessibility planning, and help support them with relevant training. Creating an inclusive environment is an important shared responsibility, so take some time to get everyone’s ideas and commitment upfront.
CELA offers many resources to help summer reading staff and volunteers prepare for a fun and accessible summer reading club. Our Accessible literacy resource guide offers an introduction to different reading formats and tips on the types of reading needs that each format can support. The Accessible crafts and activities guide is full of program suggestions and adaptations.
The TDSRC Plan for Accessibility page is also newly updated this year. There are lots of practical tips on everything from programming and promotions to accessible reading formats and best practises for welcoming and supporting people with disabilities. Plus, there are details on all the ways that TDSRC is accessible.
Want even more ideas? Join the Child and Teen Library Accessibility Interest Group for more accessibility tips throughout the summer.
Accessible Audiobooks Project Report now available
CELA has recently concluded our Accessible Commercial Audiobooks Project, which was funded by Accessibility Standards Canada. Launched in April 2024, the goal for the project was to help the industry both understand the reading needs of people with print disabilities and find best practices that meet their commercial and accessibility goals.
You can read more about this project on our blog where you will find links to our findings and recommendations as well as the Executive Summary.
Books in the news
Literary readings conjure up images of an earnest author on stage, reading excerpts of their book and perhaps discussing their writing with a host or the audience. In the UK, reading parties are taking that model and shaking it up.
This recent article in The Guardian outlines how the Soho Reading Series is making literary reading more fun.
‘Funny, sexy and a bit weird’: inside the new wave of literary parties
Libraries and democracy: A CBC special
The CBC program Ideas recently explored the topic of libraries and their role in supporting democracy and intellectual freedom.
"Libraries exist to give everyone access to a wide variety of content, even when books may offend others. Librarians are increasingly having to persuade skeptics that all ideas belong on their shelves."
Libraries are fighting for their freedom — and our democracy
Reading for Truth and Reconciliation
Coexistence by Billy-Ray Belcourt is a collection of intersecting stories about Indigenous love and loneliness from one of contemporary literature’s most boundless minds. Across the prairies and Canada’s west coast, on reserves and university campuses, at literary festivals and existential crossroads, the characters in Coexistence are searching for connection.
They’re learning to live with and understand one another, to see beauty and terror side by side, and to accept that the past, present, and future can inhabit a single moment.
An aging mother confides in her son about an intimate friendship from her distant girlhood. A middling poet is haunted by the cliché his life has become. A chorus of anonymous gay men dispense unvarnished truths about their sex lives. A man freshly released from prison finds that life on the outside has sinister strictures of its own. A PhD student dog-sits for his parents at what was once a lodging for nuns operating a residential school—a house where the spectre of Catholicism comes to feel eerily literal.
Bearing the compression, crystalline sentences, and emotional potency that have characterized his earlier books, Coexistence is a testament to Belcourt’s mastery of and playfulness in any literary form. A vital addition to an already rich catalogue, this is a must-read collection and the work of an author at the height of his powers.
Books to promote at your library
Are you looking to promote some new accessible titles in your newsletters, social media feeds, or as part of an in-branch display?
Download the list of promotable titles and share it with your communications team!
Find the new list, updated monthly and featuring links to new books in our collection, on our For Libraries page.
Come see us at the conference!
CELA is attending a number of conferences over the coming weeks. If you are attending please come and say hello!
Lindsay Tyler our Senior Manager is presenting Your accessible reading toolbox: options for patrons with print disabilities at the OLAT Conference on May 1 from 3:00 to 4:00 PM.
Jessica Desormeaux from CELA and Tara Glaspey from South Interlake Regional Libraries will be presenting Empowering Access: Supporting Patrons with Print Disabilities Through Accessible Reading Technologies on Monday May 6 1:00 to 1:50 in Room 2 at Manitoba Library Assocation Conference
Laurie Davidson, CELA's Executive Director and Simon Jaeger, Accessibility Expert, from National Network for Equitable Library Service (NNELS) will present Navigating toward better accessibility in audiobooks at the BCLA Conference. Attend their presentation on May 8, 1:45 PM to 2:30 PM.
Also presenting at BCLA is Rachel Breau, CELA's Manager of Member Services. Her presentation I belong at my library too! Creating accessible library services for children with disabilities takes place May 9, 9:45 AM - 10:30 AM
Webinars
Are there topics related to accessibility that you would like to see included in our webinars? We regularly update our content and always appreciate hearing ideas from library staff. Send your suggestions to members@celalibrary.ca.
How to support library patrons to read CELA’s audiobooks and magazines: Transitioning from reading on CDs to other devices
In this 60 minute webinar, library staff will discover how to transition patrons with print disabilities from reading CELA’s audiobooks and magazines on CD to a variety of players and apps. We will guide you through this change so you can continue to offer accessible reading materials through your library’s CELA account. You will learn:
- Which audiobook players and apps work with CELA audiobooks and magazines
- How to access CELA books and magazines onto library-owned devices
- How CELA can support book clubs and reading programs
- Where to find help, training and tutorials
Select the session of your choice to register:
Tues. June 17: 1:00-2:00pm EDT
Featured title for adults: The Blanket Cats
"Utterly charming . . . I would read a hundred of these stories." —Shelby Van Pelt, New York Times bestselling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures.
Seven struggling customers are given the unique opportunity to take home a "blanket cat" . . . but only for three days, the time it’ll take to change their lives. A peculiar pet shop in Tokyo has been known to offer customers the unique opportunity to take home one of seven special cats, whose "magic" is never promised, but always received.
But there are rules: these cats must be returned after three days. They must eat only the food supplied by the owner, and they must travel to their new homes with a distinctive blanket. In The Blanket Cats, we meet seven customers, each of whom is hoping a temporary feline companion will help them escape a certain reality, including a couple struggling with infertility, a middle-aged woman on the run from the police, and two families in very different circumstances simply seeking joy. But like all their kind, the "blanket cats" are mysterious creatures with unknowable agendas, who delight in confounding expectations. And perhaps what their hosts are looking for isn't really what they need. Three days may not be enough to change a life. But it might just change how you see it.
Read The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu.
If you liked this, you can read more healing fiction in the CELA collection.
Top five books
Most popular with our readers last month:
- Death at the Sanatorium: A Mystery by Ragnar Jónasson, Police procedural fiction
- Blood Ties by Jo Nesbo, Mysteries and crime stories
- Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves, Mysteries and crime stories
- Jennie's Boy: A Newfoundland Childhood by Wayne Johnston, Journals and memoirs
- The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #19) by Louise Penny, Mysteries and crime stories
Featured title for kids: Escargot and the Search for Spring
Escargot and the Search for Spring features music and special effects. Listen along and enjoy the fun! A cute French snail sets off on a springtime adventure with an adorable bunny in this laugh-out-loud fourth audiobook in the bestselling Escargot series—the perfect gift for Easter or all year round.
Bonjour! After a long winter spent indoors, Escargot can't wait to look outside for the first signs of Spring. Will he find a new friend in the fluffy white bunny he meets along the way? From New York Times bestselling author Dashka Slater and former Pixar animator Sydney Hanson, Escargot and the Search for Spring is an irresistibly sweet and charming story about unlikely friendship, changing seasons, and springtime fun
Read Escargot and the Search for Spring by Dashka Slater.
Top five for kids
Most popular with kids last month:
- Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, War stories
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Fantasy
- The Barren Grounds (The Misewa Saga #1) by David A. Robertson, Fantasy
- Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett, Science fiction
- Joy the Summer Vacation Fairy (Rainbow Magic) by Daisy Meadows, Fables and fairy tales
Top five for teens
Most popular with teens last month:
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins, Adventure stories
- The Originals by Cat Patrick, Romance
- Love Me or Miss Me by Dream Jordan, Family stories
- The Lost and the Found by Cat Clarke, Family stories
- Nigeria (The Evolution of Africa's Major Nations) by Ida Walker, History
Possible Canada Post service disruption
As of April 3, 2025 Canada Post has issued an update on negotiations with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). The current agreement between the two parties ends May 22. At this time, we do not have any additional information about the possibility of a service disruption. If there is an impending service interruption based on the decision of either Canada Post or the Union, CELA will update our users by email, through our website and social media.
For ongoing information about the situation please follow the Canada Post website.
Service tip: DAISY players and Wi-Fi
Did you know that your patrons don’t need a computer to use CELA’s Direct to Player service?
All they need is Wi-Fi and an internet-enabled DAISY player. If theyhave Wi-Fi available in their home, they can set up Direct to Player service simply by contacting techsupport@celalibrary.ca
When you turn on your DAISY machine, it automatically connects to Wi-Fi and updates their player with any new books available on their CELA bookshelf.
Using the Direct to Player service is fast and easy, and they will be able to get more books more quickly. Patrons can contact us to learn more.
Stay connected!
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.