In this issue:
- Letter from CELA’s Executive Director
- Awards update
- Plan for your accessible summer reading club!
- Support for CD users
- Reading for Truth and Reconciliation
- Books for Pride Month
- Books to promote at your library
- Possible Canada Post service disruption
- Come see us at the conference!
- Webinars
- Featured title for adults: Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)
- Top five books
- Top five for kids
- Featured title for teens: Messy Perfect
- Top five for teens
- Stay connected!
Letter from CELA’s Executive Director
As readers, many of us have a long list of books we want to read and that list often grows as we plan our summer reads. We’ve been working diligently to add more books to our collection so we’re ready for your patrons. Whether they are after a beach read, a mystery or something to really sink into, we have lots to offer.
Our team has been busy the last month at conferences and events across the country including meeting students and teachers at the Forest of Reading festival in Toronto, and presenting at the BC and Manitoba Library Conferences. In June our team members will present at the Atlantic Provinces Library Conference, as well as the Braille Literacy Symposium. We are also pleased to welcome Cora Payne as our new Outreach Manager. Cora and others on our team will work together to connect with people and communities to bring CELA services to more people who can use accessible formats.
Lastly, I want to acknowledge the potential Canada Post service disruption. We know that many of our users rely on mail to receive their reading materials. While we can’t do anything to resolve the service disruption, we have put together more resources to support users who want to try digital options. You can find links to those resources on our blog or our CD Transition Resources page. Please follow our blog and social media for updates regarding CELA services during any potential service disruption. On behalf of the team here, we want to thank you for supporting users who rely on the mail for books and may be facing this disruption.
Laurie Davidson, Executive Director
Awards update
Congratulations to the following authors!
Michael Crummey has won the 2025 Dublin Literary Award for his book The Adversary.
Canadian writer Canisia Lubrin has won the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for her book Code Noir.
Percival Everett wins the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel James, which is inspired by Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Plan for your accessible summer reading club!
Summer is just around the corner, and CELA is here to support libraries in creating an accessible summer reading club. Incorporating accessibility into all aspects of your planning means that you can welcome even more kids into the club.
Getting started is easy with CELA’s Summer reading for everyone! webinar. You’ll learn about accessibility considerations for registration, prizes, book reporting, programs, and more.
The TDSRC Plan for Accessibility page is newly updated this year. You’ll find practical tips on everything from programming to promotions. If you’re planning a launch party, or any other large events throughout the summer, consult the accessibility checklist to help make sure you are creating an inclusive event for everyone.
We’re looking forward to another great summer and can’t wait to hear about how you’ve welcomed people with disabilities into your reading clubs.
Support for CD users
As you may know, we announced earlier this spring that CELA would no longer be providing CDs after July 31. Our CD Transition Resources page has important information about this shift in our services.
New CD transition resources
- A downloadable and online guide: Getting started guide: Victor Stratus4 M
- A tutorial for how to burn a CELA audiobook or magazine to a CD
New CD transition resources
- A downloadable and online guide: Getting started guide: Victor Stratus4 M
- A tutorial for how to burn a CELA audiobook or magazine to a CD
Upcoming training for libraries
Supporting CELA patrons without CDs
How to support library patrons to read CELA’s audiobooks and magazines: Transitioning from reading on CDs to other devices
Tues. June 17: 1:00-2:00pm EDT
Reading for Truth and Reconciliation
52 Ways to Reconcile: How to Walk with Indigenous Peoples on the Path to Healing
By David A. Robertson
From bestselling author of the Misewa Saga series David A. Robertson, this is the essential guide for all Canadians to understand how small and attainable acts towards reconciliation can make an enormous difference in our collective efforts to build a reconciled country.
52 Ways to Reconcile is an accessible, friendly guide for non-Indigenous people eager to learn, or Indigenous people eager to do more in our collective effort towards reconciliation, as people, and as a country.
As much as non-Indigenous people want to walk the path of reconciliation, they often aren’t quite sure what to do, and they’re afraid of making mistakes. This book is the answer and the long overdue guide.
The idea of this book is simple: 52 small acts of reconciliation to consider, one per week, for an entire year. They’re all doable, and they’re all meaningful. All 52 steps take readers in the right direction, towards a healthier relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and a time when we are past trauma. By following these steps, we can live in stronger and healthier communities equally, and respectfully, together.
Books for Pride Month
Pride events kick off in June and happen across the country all summer long. Here are a few recent additions to our collection, perfect for Pride.
For kids and teens:
- It's Pride, Baby! by Allen R. Wells
- The Curse of Eelgrass Bog by Mary Averling
- Skater Boy by Anthony Nerada
For adults:
- Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories by Torrey Peters
- The Shots You Take by Rachel Reid
- Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir by Danny Ramadan
- Everything and Nothing At All: Essays by Jenny Heijun Wills
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.
Possible Canada Post service disruption
CELA will continue to produce and mail reading materials as long as Canada Post continues to deliver mail. If this labour negotiation results in a full strike or lockout, CELA will suspend production and distribution of physical materials and let users know through posts on our blog and social media.
For ongoing information about the situation please follow the Canada Post website.
Come see us at the conference!
This month, Jessica Desormeaux will present Inclusive Libraries: Breaking Barriers for Patrons with Print Disabilities at the APLA conference. If you are attending, come say hello!
And Lindsay Tyler will be traveling to Dublin to present the findings from our Accessible Commercial Audiobooks project to the EDR Lab Digital Publishing Summit 2025. Our Accessible Commercial Audiobook Project concluded at the end of March and the recording of our final presentation is now available on our YouTube channel.
Webinars
Supporting CELA patrons without CDs
Feeling stuck on how your library can provide CELA audiobooks without CDs? We invite you to join this session presented by three guest librarians who will share their practical experience serving patrons with print disabilities in new ways. Our speakers are:
- Luke Gray, Library Experience Facilitator from Calgary Public Library in Alberta will speak about loading books on to SD cards for use on a variety of players.
- Tara Glaspey, Senior Libary Clerk from South Interlake Regional Library in Manitoba will speak about lending out wifi-configured Victor Stratus players pre-loaded with books.
- Janice Finkle, Extension Services/Home Delivery Services with Kingston-Frontenac Public Library in Ontario will speak about lending out pre-loaded Envoy Connect devices.
Bring your questions! After these brief presentations there will be lots of time for you to ask questions and share your own experiences of the various options for providing audiobooks and magazines to patrons with print disabilities. This session will be recorded.
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: Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)
Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever in this follow-up to the hit Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. … Ever since a man was found dead in Vera's teahouse, life has been good. For Vera that is. She’s surrounded by loved ones, her shop is bustling, and best of all, her son, Tilly, has a girlfriend! All thanks to Vera, because Tilly's girlfriend is none other than Officer Selena Gray. The very same Officer Gray that she had harassed while investigating the teahouse murder.
Still, Vera wishes more dead bodies would pop up in her shop, but one mustn't be ungrateful, even if one is slightly...bored.
Then Vera comes across a distressed young woman who is obviously in need of her kindly guidance. The young woman is looking for a missing friend. Fortunately, while cat-sitting at Tilly and Selena's, Vera finds a treasure trove: Selena's briefcase. Inside is a file about the death of an enigmatic influencer—who also happens to be the friend that the young woman was looking for. Online, Xander had it all: a parade of private jets, fabulous parties with socialites, and a burgeoning career as a social media influencer. The only problem is, after his body is fished out of Mission Bay, the police can't seem to actually identify him. Who is Xander Lin? Nobody knows. Every contact is a dead end. Everybody claims not to know him, not even his parents. Vera is determined to solve Xander's murder. After all, doing so would surely be a big favor to Selena, and there is nothing she wouldn't do for her future daughter-in-law.
Read Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jese Q. Sutanto.
Read the first book in the series: Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jese Q. Sutanto.
Top five books
Most popular with our readers last month:
- Death at the Sanatorium: A Mystery by Ragnar Jónasson, Police procedural fiction
- Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves, Mysteries and crime stories
- Blood Ties by Jo Nesbo, Mysteries and crime stories
- Onyx Storm (The Empyrean #3) by Rebecca Yarros, Fantasy
- My Time to Stand: A Memoir by Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, Women biography
Top five for kids
Most popular with kids last month:
- Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett, Science fiction
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Fantasy
- Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow Book 4 (Nevermoor #4) by Jessica Townsend, Adventure stories
- The City of Ember: The First Book Of Ember (The City of Ember #1) by Jeanne Duprau, Science fiction
- Wings of Starlight by Allison Saft, Folklore
Featured title for teens: Messy Perfect
Perfect for fans of Mason Deaver and Becky Albertalli, this tender, raucous novel follows a rule-following, perfectionist teen who starts an underground GSA club at her conservative Catholic high school, from the acclaimed author of Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens. Cassie Perera is a star student in St. Luke's junior class. But the new school year brings an unwelcome surprise—the return to St. Luke's of Cassie's former friend, Ben, who left a few years ago after a homophobic bullying incident Cassie knows she didn't do enough to prevent.
Still harboring guilt from her inaction, Cassie decides, in her usual, overzealous way, to team up with the neighboring public school to found an underground Gender and Sexuality Alliance—as a complicated strategy for making things up to Ben. Secretly, Cassie is also tempted by the possibility of opening up about her own sexuality for the first time. As Cassie's new friends urge her out of her comfort zone, she unlocks a kind of joy and freedom she's never felt before—even as she struggles to balance these experiences with her typical tightrope of being the perfect daughter, student, and Catholic. Cassie's perfectly curated life unravels into turmoil, but can she embrace the mess enough to piece together something new?
Read Messy Perfect by Tanya Boteju.
Top five for teens
Most popular with teens last month:
- In the Shadow of Blackbirds: A Novel by Cat Winters, Historical fiction
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins, Adventure stories
- The Hunger Games (Hunger Games #1) by Suzanne Collins, Science fiction
- The Originals by Cat Patrick, Romance
- Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J. Maas, Adventure stories
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.