In this issue:
- Letter from CELA’s Executive Director
- Update on CELA services
- Festival of Literary Diversity!
- Awards update
- Reading for Truth and Reconciliation
- Books to promote at your library
- The Globe and Mail returns
- Webinars
- Featured title for adults: All the Little Monsters: How I Learned to Live with Anxiety
- Top five books
- Top five for kids
- Featured title for young adults: The Dark Becomes Her
- Top five for teens
- Elections Canada accessible resources
- Service tip: Accessible book clubs
- Stay connected!
Letter from CELA’s Executive Director
March has been an unusually busy month here at CELA. We have welcomed back The Globe and Mail to our newspaper offerings, and we’ve had excellent feedback from users who are delighted to have access again to this newspaper.
We have also celebrated Canada Reads and its winner A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder by Ma-Nee Chacaby, with Mary Louisa Plummer. Our team has worked with author Amanda Leduc and her publisher to make Amanda’s third book WILDLIFE available in both commercial and accessible formats. Amanda started this tradition with her first book, and we are grateful for her support and advocacy.
We are wrapping up our Accessible Audiobooks project and turning our attention towards our smart speaker project. We are excited about the opportunities that will come with another way to read audiobooks. Watch upcoming newsletters for more information on that project.
CELA has also recently hired a new Metadata Coordinator who, among many other things, will help us get books into our collection with the correct information so that they are easy to find. Please help us welcome Paul King to that role.
We have also had to send out news about our CD services, which we know will be difficult for some of our users. Recent shifts in technology, the marketplace and in our federal funding have required us to make the decision to cease distribution of CDs for audiobooks and magazines to all CELA users and CELA member libraries effective July 31, 2025.
We want to assure you that we will do everything we can to support you and your users through this transition. Our CD Transition Resource page includes FAQs for libraries and patrons, lots of information about training sessions for libraries and users, and support and resource guides to help users choose a new way to read audiobooks.
If there is more support you need, please reach out to our Member Services team and plan to come to our Library Information session on April 29 at 1 pm EDT. Libraries are a crucial part of the team that makes accessible reading materials available to those who need it and we are grateful for your support through this transition.
Laurie Davidson, Executive Director
Update on CELA services
We recently sent out communications to all our users outlining some upcoming changes to CELA’s services. Effective July 31, 2025, CELA will no longer send CDs to our users. While we know this may be difficult for those who rely on CDs, we are committed to supporting our users. Visit our CD Transition Resources page to read our frequently asked questions, find tutorials and quick guides or to register for our training sessions.
As you learn more about this shift, we want to reassure you of some important things.
- There are no changes to any other CELA services.
- We will continue to add audiobooks and audio magazines to our collection, and they can be read using a variety of devices or technologies.
- Our Direct to Player service will continue unchanged.
- CD users have lots of time to assess their best options for reading books, and we have plenty of support, including training and our upcoming Q and A sessions, tutorials and more.
- Deposit collections of CELA CDs are available to libraries until July 2025. If you don’t currently receive a deposit collection, and would like to add a CD deposit collection to your library, please reach out to Member Services. Libraries can keep and continue to circulate accessible CDs from CELA after July 31, 2025.
To learn more about this shift in CELA’s services please join the CELA team at our upcoming Information Session on April 29, at 1 pm EDT.
Festival of Literary Diversity!
The Festival of Literary Diversity is Canada’s first festival for diverse authors and storytellers. Each year, the FOLD provides one-of-a-kind events for kids and adults that aim to engage readers and inspire writers, while highlighting important, diverse and often underrepresented voices.
The festival includes a variety of virtual and in person panels, discussions, workshops and interactive events. CELA has worked with the FOLD to help bring the festival to our users by offering accessible formats of many of the featured titles.
This year, the festival will return April 27 – May 4. Check out the line up of events on the FOLD website, and then check out the accessible versions in our collection.
Awards update
Did you follow along with Canada Reads this year? This year, the winner of the annual reading debate was A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, with Mary Louisa Plummer.
This incredible biography details Chacaby's life as she overcomes abuse and addiction to become an organizer and elder within her community.
Congratulations also go to Canada's own Michael Crummey whose book The Adversary made it to the Dublin Literary Award final list.
We're also delighted to have recently added Vantage Points: On Media as Trans Memoir by Chase Joynt which was one of the Hilary Weston shortlisted titles.
Stay up to date on all the Awards news on our Awards page.
Reading for Truth and Reconciliation
Killing the Wittigo: Indigenous culture-based approaches to waking up, taking action, and doing the work of healing: a book for young adults by Suzanne Methot.
A powerful book that uses plain language to talk about colonial trauma and transformational change. History. Identity. Lateral Violence. Complex Trauma.
Who are we and how are we seen? How do we learn what safety is when we've never experienced it?
Killing the Wittigo talks about the effects of colonization and the healing work being done by young Indigenous people toward individual and systemic change, through song lyrics and first-person accounts of their own journeys of decolonization and healing. Sexual Abuse. Relationships. Kindness and Kinship. Are your relationships harmful or healthy? What do healthy families look like?
Killing the Wittigo shatters the isolation and shame to talk about everything from managing triggers to what young people are asking of their parents and their =LDRship. Abandonment. Dis-Ease. Reconnection. Change. How do you turn distressing feelings into emotions that you can understand? How does making sense of your stories help you gain choice and control?
From market capitalism and food security to community hubs and sustainable development goals, Killing the Wittigo has everything a young person needs to move from surviving to thriving. Killing the Wittigo offers: Reflection questions to anchor/reframe life experiences. Mindfulness activities to help readers center themselves in the present, develop self-awareness, and create new patterns of behaviour. Activities and exercises to support meaning making and change.
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.
The Globe and Mail returns
CELA is pleased to be able to offer The Globe and Mail newspaper to our users again, effective March 19, 2025. As you may recall, our supplier of accessible newspapers was no longer able to offer the paper in accessible format last year.
We have negotiated direct access to The Globe and Mail through a link with their website.
This will allow CELA users to read articles as they are published, search the website and access the archives and past articles, and enjoy extra features like podcasts and horoscopes. The Globe and Mail can be accessed using a mobile device or desktop computer through our website.
This platform provides access to far more content than our previous supplier, but it is also more complex to navigate. We have tested it and have developed tutorials for different types of assistive technology to help our users learn to use this platform more easily. You will find links to those tutorials and tips on our Newspaper page and also on our How to read a newspaper page.
We have developed a general tutorial along with ones specifically for screen readers and screen magnifiers.
If you require further assistance, please contact us by email at help@celalibrary.ca or call us at 1-855-655-2273.
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.
Sound Bites at Regina Public Library: Offering accessible book clubs at your library configuration options
Book clubs have long been a hallmark of public libraries. Library involvement can vary widely from loanable book club kits to complete program-hosting, but often the collection format and the intended audience don’t change. In our unique twist on a traditional favourite, Regina Public Library started a book club specifically for customers with print disabilities that has been thriving for over a decade. Join Patti-Lynne McLeod and Stacey Fayant from Accessibility Services at Regina Public Library to hear about Sound Bites: how it started, how it’s going, and how libraries can start their own accessible book clubs.
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. April 15: 2:30-3:30pm EDT
Tues. June 17: 1:00-2:00pm EDT
Featured title for adults: All the Little Monsters: How I Learned to Live with Anxiety
With humour, warmth and heartbreaking honesty, award-winning author David A. Robertson explores the struggles and small victories of living with chronic anxiety and depression, and shares his hard-earned wisdom in the hope of making other people's mental health journeys a little less lonely.
From the outside, David A. Robertson looks as if he has it all together-a loving family, a successful career as an author, and a platform to promote Indigenous perspectives, cultures and concerns.
But what we see on the outside rarely reveals what is happening inside. Robertson lives with "little monsters": chronic, debilitating health anxiety and panic attacks accompanied, at times, by depression. During the worst periods, he finds getting out of bed to walk down the hall an insurmountable task. During the better times, he wrestles with the compulsion to scan his body for that sure sign of a dire health crisis.
In All the Little Monsters, Robertson reveals what it's like to live inside his mind and his body and describes the toll his mental health challenges have taken on him and his family, and how he has learned to put one foot in front of the other as well as to get back up when he stumbles. He also writes about the tools that have helped him carry on, including community, therapy, medication and the simple question he asks himself on repeat: what if everything will be okay? In candidly sharing his personal story and showing that he can be well even if he can't be "cured," Robertson hopes to help others on their own mental health journeys.
Read All the Little Monsters by David A. Robertson.
Top five books
Most popular with our readers last month:
- Blood Ties by Jo Nesbo, Mysteries and crime stories
- Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves, Mysteries and crime stories
- The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus: A Novel by Emma Knight, General fiction
- Jennie's Boy: A Newfoundland Childhood by Wayne Johnston, Journals and memoirs
- Dengue Boy: A Novel by Michel Nieva, Humourous fiction
Top five for kids
Most popular with kids last month:
- Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, War stories
- The BFG by Roald Dahl, Fantasy
- Taylor Swift: All Access by Scholastic, Music biography
- The Big Splash by Angela Ahn, Humourous fiction
- Ask A Scientist: Professor Robert Winston Answers More Than 100 Big Questions From Kids Around the World! by Robert Winston, Science and technology
Featured title for young adults: The Dark Becomes Her
Ruby Chen has always played the part of the dutiful eldest daughter: excelling in school; excelling in piano lessons; excelling at keeping her younger sister, Tina, focused on extracurriculars meant to impress college admissions officers. But when a ghost from the spirit world attacks Ruby in the middle of Vancouver's Chinatown neighborhood, her life is plunged into a darkness that no amount of duty can free her from. Overnight, Ruby's sister seems to change.
There are strange noises coming from her bedroom at all hours; and the once sweet, funny Tina has been replaced by something dark and unnatural. As Ruby races to save her sister from demonic possession, she is thrown into an ancient battle over the gateway to the underworld. On one side, a sinister traveling temple known for making dark wishes come true has returned to Chinatown after many years-intent on breaking down the gateway and unleashing the wickedness within. On the other side, the guardians determined to stop this encroaching evil.
And in order to survive, Ruby must not only face the horror taking over her community, but must also confront the horror within herself. Chinese and Taiwanese mythology get the Junji Ito treatment in this bone-chilling, propulsive story that takes the horrors of the Asian diaspora experience to a whole new level.
Read The Dark Becomes Her by Judy I. Lin.
Top five for teens
Most popular with teens last month:
- The Darkness Within Us (The Shadows Between Us #2) by Tricia Levenseller, Romance
- Hatchet: Hatchet Series, Book 1 by Gary Paulsen, Adventure stories
- Heartless Hunter: The Crimson Moth, Book 1 by Kristen Ciccarelli, Fantasy
- Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J. Maas, Adventure stories
- 1984: A Novel by George Orwell, Classic fiction
Elections Canada accessible resources
With the federal election happening later this month, here's a quick refresher on where to find information for accessible voting options and resources on the Elections Canada website.
- Voter information in accessible formats
- Polling place accessibility
- Accessibility tools and services at the polls
- Guide to the federal election
- Community Leader Handbook
Additional information about accessible services offered by Elections Canada can be found in the Electors with Disabilities section on the website.
Service tip: Accessible book clubs
When creating book club resources, don’t forget to consider accessibility! Include information about accessible versions of featured books in your book club sets, and choose books with accessible formats when running library book clubs. For more great tips check out our webpage Running an inclusive book club or register for our upcoming webinar Sound Bites at Regina Public Library: Offering accessible book clubs at your library on April 9 at 1pm EDT.
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.