In this issue:
- Letter from CELA’s Executive Director
- Mail service resumes
- Ducks wins Jan Michalski Prize for Literature
- 2024 CELA favourites
- Accessible versions of the best of 2024
- Reading for Truth and Reconciliation
- Returning materials to CELA
- Books to promote at your library
- World Braille Day books
- Books in the news
- Webinars
- New on YouTube
- Featured title for adults: Cher: The Memoir, Part One
- Top five books
- Featured title for kids: Rolling On (Roll with It #3)
- Top five for kids
- Top five for teens
- Service tip: Year end statistics
- Holiday hours
- Stay connected!
Letter from CELA’s Executive Director
Happy Holidays to all who celebrate this time of year.
Even with the holidays approaching, our team is busy behind the scenes.
This month, we are pleased to welcome two new libraries to CELA. Bowen Island and Prince Rupert Public Libraries, both located in BC, are in the process of getting set up and ready to offer CELA services to their users with print disabilities. It’s always exciting for us to be able to support new communities.
Our Audiobook Project participants have finished up with their surveys and the focus groups will be completed before the end of the month. We are grateful for the participation and insights shared by all the participants and look forward to in-depth analysis and sharing results, etc. We will keep you up to date as the project proceeds. You can learn more on our blog.
We’ve also recently added approximately 400 new books to our collection, just in time for cosy winter reading. You can find them by limiting your searches with our date added feature. A few are highlighted below in our newsletter.
And we are working with our colleagues for the World Braille Month celebrations. Louis Braille was born on Jan 4, 1809, and it’s the 200th anniversary of the introduction of his code, which changed the world for people with sight loss. Please join us on Friday, January 17 for a braille discussion about how braille continues to evolve. Learn more and register for the event in our story below.
Now that postal service has resumed, we have begun producing and mailing physical materials. We know our readers will be excited to receive them. While delivery may take a few extra days, we're pleased to let you know they are on their way!
Happy Reading!
Laurie Davidson, Executive Director
Mail service resumes
Canada Post is set to resume deliveries this week. CELA has restarted production and will be mailing CDs, embossed braille, Envoy Connects and printbraille this week to our users. Canada Post has stated that customers should expect delays in processing and delivery.
If users request your assistance, they can prioritize holds on their account using the instructions available on the My Account help pages. By default, holds will be sent in the order they are added to the holds list.
Deposit collections will be produced and mailed as soon as possible, and all deposit collections will be produced beginning with those which were expected after the strike began. Please be patient as we work through our production. If you have questions, please reach out to Member Services.
Ducks wins Jan Michalski Prize for Literature
Ducks, the graphic novel by Cape Breton cartoonist Kate Beaton has won the 2024 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. The prize includes approximately $80,000 Canadian.
Released in 2022, Ducks has won numerous awards, including 2023 Doug Wright Award for best book and two Eisner Awards, the Harvey Award and the Evergreen Award. In 2023, it became the first graphic memoir to win Canada Reads.
Ducks details Beaton's experiences working in the oil fields in Alberta, where she faced sexual harassment. Throughout the book she grapples with everything from homesickness and loneliness to the impacts of the oil fields on the environment and local Indigenous communities.
CELA is grateful for the involvement of the author and illustrator in the production of the accessible version through eBOUND's Literary Description Project. Kate Beaton wrote or consulted on the image descriptions which are included in the body and narration of the text.
Read Ducks in accessible formats.
2024 CELA favourites
Each December, we like to look back to see what books were most popular with our readers. These titles topped our most borrowed books this year.
- The Whispers: A Novel by Ashley Audrain, Serious and literary fiction
- Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton, General fiction
- Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page, Biography
- Tom Lake: A Novel by Ann Patchett, Family stories
- The Fury by Alex Michaelides, Suspense and thrillers
You can also check out our top 5 books of 2024 for kids and our top 5 books of 2024 for teens.
Accessible versions of the best of 2024
If you are promoting the Best of Year booklists to your community, please include accessible versions where available.
The Globe and Mail Best Books of 2024 accessible versions
The New York Times 10 Best Books in accessible formats
Reading for Truth and Reconciliation
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.
As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy.
How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry's relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, "Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency."
Read this book in our collection in braille and audio narrated by the author.
Returning materials to CELA
Canada Post offers a free service to deliver literature to people who are blind or have low vision. CELA uses this service to send physical materials to patrons. Libraries can also use the service to return CDs to us.
Simply indicate on the address label or package "Literature for the Blind Post Free" and send to:
Centre for Equitable Library Access
1929 Bayview Ave
Toronto, ON
M4G 3E8
You can learn more about this service on the Canada Post website. This is also a handy link to have if you need to discuss the program with any Canada Post employees who may not be familiar with the program.
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 our printable book list or forward the link to your colleagues. We also have a holiday reading list for patrons.
Find the new list, updated monthly and featuring links to new books in our collection, on our For Libraries page.
World Braille Day books
In honour of World Braille Day, which takes place on Braille’s birthday, January 4, we want to recommend a few books on Louis Braille and the code he developed. We've suggested a few for younger readers and some for adults.
- Out of darkness: the story of Louis Braille by Russell Freedman
- Who Was Louis Braille? by Margaret Frith, Scott Anderson, Robert Squier
- Now We Are Citizens: The Blind in French Society from the Middle Ages to the Century of Louis Braille by Zina Weygand, Emily-Jane Cohen.
- There Plant Eyes By M. Leona Godin
- Braille into the Next Millennium By Judith M Dixon
Read more books about Louis Braille in our collection.
We also invite you to save the date for the World Braille Month event happening Friday, January 17. Learn more about all the celebrations for World Braille Month or register today!
Thanks to the organizations involved in coordinating these events.
Books in the news
After Chrystia Freeland's recent resignation from her position as Finance Minister, House of Anansi Press, publisher of an upcoming biography of Ms. Freeland, scrambled to move the publication date ahead by two months. The book is now due to be released on December 20, 2024.
An article in the Globe and Mail captures "the logistically complicated ballet required to release a book more than six weeks early in the middle of the highly competitive holiday-shopping season."
CELA has reached out to the publisher about the possibility of receiving an accessible copy, and we expect one soon. Check our collection next week to see if it has arrived.
Webinars
Orientation webinar
This webinar will provide a comprehensive overview of CELA services for library staff who work in, or are responsible for, accessible services.
Audience: Staff who act as the primary CELA contact at your library, as well as other public library staff with an interest in the full services CELA provides to patrons through their public library.
Learning goals:
- What is CELA and why accessible library services are important
- What flexible options are available for libraries: direct registration of patrons with print disabilities; interlibrary loans to libraries, deposit collections of DAISY CDs
- What alternate format materials are available: books and magazines in audio, e-text and braille
- How library staff can connect patrons with CELA
- What support is available from CELA
Length: 60 minutes
Educator Access Program webinar
This webinar will introduce library staff and educators to the CELA Educator Access program. This program is offered through public libraries and gives teachers and other educators access to CELA’s collection to support their students with print disabilities at the elementary, secondary and post-secondary levels.
Audience: Public library staff and educators. Educators can include teachers, teacher librarians, educational assistants, and special education teachers – anyone who supports students with print disabilities in a formal educational setting.
Learning goals:
- How to register with the Educator Access program
- What alternate formats and reading technologies are available for students at all levels in the CELA collection
- What is Bookshare and how can educators get access
- How to find, access and read our books, magazines and newspapers in audio, e-text and braille
Length: 60 minutes
New on YouTube
CELA's webinars are recorded and made available on our YouTube channel. We have recently added Accessing CELA Using a Victor Reader Stream DAISY Player. Watch this webinar to learn about how this versatile device lets you read CELA’s books and magazines in audio and e-text formats. This webinar is for new Victor Stream users or those interested in learning new tips.
You can find this video and others on our YouTube channel.
Featured title for adults: Cher: The Memoir, Part One
Cher: The Memoir, Part One promises to be an engaging and exciting audiobook experience, befitting this incredible book. Read in part by Cher herself, the book is introduced, and each chapter launched, by the author. Rounding out each chapter as she continues the narrative is celebrated stage actor Stephanie J. Block.
Stephanie starred on Broadway in The Cher Show for which she won a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award. Together, Cher and Stephanie share the storytelling duties, alternating within the chapters to create a unique audiobook treatment that will bring listeners fully into this period of Cher's life—from her earliest childhood memories, to her meeting Sonny and their ascent into superstardom, her painful divorce from Bono, her relationship with Gregg Allman and her reach for independence. It is a story of creativity, individuality, motherhood, love, and loss, as only Cher could recount.
"Lending my voice to help deliver Cher's memoir has been an honor and a thrill. Her life is fascinating, glamorous, surprising, exciting... and at times, completely heartbreaking. Her story is a beautiful balance of ULTIMATE stardom and accessibility. She is CHER for a reason and this book helps the reader get behind 'the reason,'" says Block.
"When it came to completing the audiobook, I knew I wouldn't be able to do it all myself due to my dyslexia. But then I thought of Stephanie, who won the Tony for playing me on Broadway in The Cher Show. I knew she would be the perfect choice to get across to the reader the essence of me. I called her and within hours she re-arranged her schedule to start the recording. I felt so safe having her help share my story, and she did a beautiful job," says Cher.
Read Cher: The Memoir, Part One by Cher.
Top five books
Most popular with our readers this month:
- The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #19) by Louise Penny, Mysteries and crime stories
- The War We Won Apart: The Untold Story of Two Elite Agents Who Became One of the Most Decorated Couples of WWII by Nahlah Ayed, Women biography
- Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect: A Novel (Ernest Cunningham #2) by Benjamin Stevenson, Mysteries and crime stories
- Tom Lake: A Novel by Ann Patchett, Family stories
- Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton, General fiction
Featured title for kids: Rolling On (Roll with It #3)
In this heartfelt companion to Jamie Sumner's acclaimed and beloved novels Roll with It and Time to Roll, Ellie finds herself faced with first love and learning to let go. It's the very end of eighth grade and all everyone can talk about is high school—everyone except Ellie Cowan. Ellie wants to freeze time. Middle school was epic. She moved to Oklahoma, made her best friends, won a baking championship, quit a beauty pageant, and dominated Putt-Putt golf in her wheelchair.
But now her feelings for her best friend Bert are starting to change. When did Bert get so cute? And why are all the other girls suddenly noticing, too? As if that isn't enough to deal with, Grandpa's health takes a turn for the worse. So what do you do when you don't know how to hold on and when to let go?
Read Rolling On (Roll with It #3) by Jamie Sumner.
Top five for kids
Most popular with kids this month:
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Fantasy
- Karen's Birthday: A Graphic Novel (Baby-Sitters Little Sister Graphix) by Ann M. Martin, General fiction
- A History of US, Volume A, Prehistory to 1800 by Joy Hakim, History
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 by Marvel, Movie and television tie-ins
- The Explorer by Katherine Rundell, Adventure stories
Top five for teens
Most popular with teens this month:
- Dancing with Werewolves: Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator by Carole Nelson Douglas, Ghost and horror stories
- A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks, Bestsellers (fiction)
- The Fall of Five (Lorien Legacies #4) by Pittacus Lore, Adventure stories
- After the Shot Drops by Randy Ribay, Multi-cultural fiction
- Exo: A Novel by Fonda Lee, Adventure stories
Service tip: Year end statistics
Just a friendly reminder to libraries to run your end-of-year statistics as close as possible to the period for which you will need them. For example, if you need January 1 – December 31, 2024 data, please run your reports as early as possible in January. If you encounter any issues, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us!
Holiday hours
For the holiday season, our Contact Centre will be available from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern Time on December 24. It will be closed on December 25, 26 and January 1 for the holidays. On December 27, 30, and 31, our Contact Centre will be available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time. We will return to normal opening hours on January 2, 2025.
Our Member Services will be available for regular business hours with the exception of December 25, 26 and January 1, 2025. Happy holidays!
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.