In this issue
- Letter from CELA’s Executive Director
- Awards Update
- Help shape CELA's future
- Accessible Reading Symposium March 11-12
- Evergreen Award
- Great news! Update on Bill C-15
- Governor General winning authors on Life, Rearranged
- Reading for Truth and Reconciliation
- Webinars for you
- Featured title for adults: Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival
- Top five books
- Featured title for kids: I'm so happy you're here: A celebration of library joy
- Top five for kids
- Top five for teens
- Service tip Launching Alexa
- Stay connected!
Letter from CELA’s Executive Director
In February we celebrated Freedom to Read week, which is a chance to think about and affirm the importance of intellectual freedom. We are lucky in Canada to have these freedoms. And we are especially proud of the CELA collection which supports choice in materials and formats for people who historically have not had as much access as they deserve. We’re thrilled to offer more than 1.5 million titles through our collection and in partnership with Bookshare.
The CELA staff and Board have had a chance to explore what it means to do this work as part of our strategic planning process. During the Ontario Library Association Super Conference we had a chance to gather in one space. As we’re usually spread across the country, it was a treat to be together and engage in really interesting and important conversations. If you would like to learn more about our strategic planning process and how you can take part in our surveys or focus groups, please visit our website.
We have good news to share on our advocacy efforts to ensure that the Free Literature for the Blind program continues to receive the legal protections it deserves. On February 23, the House of Commons Finance Committee approved amendments to Bill C-15 (2025 Budget Implementation Act) that reinstate the protections for free literature for the blind and reduced postage rates for library materials in the Canada Post Corporations Act. A huge thank you to everyone who supported and helped in this important advocacy work. More information is available on our blog.
And don’t miss the upcoming virtual Accessible Reading Symposium which is happening March 11 - 12! It’s packed with interesting sessions, author interviews and more. And it’s free! Learn more in this newsletter and on our website.
This spring, whether you are reading for school, work, for your own education, or as a much deserved escape, I hope you find something in our collection that is perfect for you. Our recommendations page or awards page are good places to start.
Happy Reading!
Laurie Davidson, Executive Director
Awards Update
Congratulations to two Canadian authors who have been named to the longlist of the Dublin Literary Award.
Maria Reva, author of Endling and Éric Chacour, author of What I Know About You are among the 20 international authors longlisted for the 2026 prize.
The Dublin Literary Award recognizes the best work of English fiction, or work translated to English, from anywhere in the world.
The prize of approximately $160,000 Canadian will be announced in May. You can read books from the longlist in our collection.
If you are looking for more potential prize winning books, there's still time to read the 5 selected titles before the Canada Reads Debates take place April 13-16.
Help shape CELA's future
CELA is developing a new strategic plan to help guide our work over the next five years – and we want to hear from you! There are two ways to get involved:
1. Complete an online survey (open to everyone)
2. Register for a virtual focus group
Who should participate?
We want to gather feedback from a wide range of perspectives including from:
- People who use CELA’s accessible reading materials, including designates (friends or family members who help CELA users)
- Library staff, educators, and other professionals who support people in using CELA
- Organizations that work with or support CELA
Everyone who answers our survey can be entered into a draw to win one of three Envoy Connect devices!
If you need assistance completing the survey, we can help. Call our Contact Centre and one of our staff can help you complete the survey over the phone.
Learn more about the process on our Strategic Planning page.
Accessible Reading Symposium March 11-12, 2026
The Accessible Reading Symposium is a virtual, two-day, bilingual event designed to help library staff and readers with print disabilities learn about accessible reading in Canada.
The Symposium brings together readers, authors including Amanda Leduc, libraries, content providers, publishers, and technology developers/providers to share practical demonstrations, introductory knowledge, and different viewpoints on accessible reading.
The Symposium’s goals are to:
- Help everyone better understand accessible reading and formats.
- Share the experiences of readers with print disabilities.
- Strengthen knowledge among libraries, content providers, publishers, technology providers, and readers.
- Provide library staff and readers with print disabilities the opportunity to explore available tools, formats, and services.
The Symposium will take place March 11 - 12 and it is free to attend. Learn more about the symposium, speakers and the schedule on our website.
Evergreen Award
Don't let the kids have all the fun. The Forest of Reading has a program for adults. Evergreen includes 10 novels. Adults can read and vote for their favourites through their local library or community. The deadline for voting is September 30, so there is lots of time to read!
Reach out to your local library to let them know you are interested in participating.
Read the 2026 Evergreen selections in accessible formats.
Great news! Update on Bill C-15
The advocacy efforts to protect the Free Literature for the Blind program have been successful. On February 24 the House of Commons Finance Committee approved amendments to Bill C-15 (2025 Budget Implementation Act) that reinstates the protections for free literature for the blind and reduced postage rates for library materials in the Canada Post Corporations Act.
You can read more about the specifics on our blog!
A huge thank you to everyone who supported and helped in this important advocacy work. NNELS and CELA worked collaboratively with the Canadian Urban Libraries Council (CULC), the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), Braille Literacy Canada (BLC) and Public Library InterLINK on this issue. We also worked alongside CNIB and other disability partners - all of our voices together have collectively made a difference
Governor General winning authors on Life, Rearranged
CBC Books has asked winners of the 2025 Governor General Literary Awards to write on the theme of change and explore life's transitions through original essays. From the CBC website "The special series, Life, Rearranged, centred around the theme of change — exploring the moments, small and seismic, that rearrange a life, and the quiet work of moving through what comes next.
Canadian authors Claire Cameron, Karen Solie, Heather Smith, Tonya Simpson and Jessica Moore have all delivered an original piece of writing — from poetry to nonfiction — inspired by this theme."
This special series is presented in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts.
Read these essays on the CBC Books website.
Reading for Truth and Reconciliation
This month's pick is Five Seasons of Charlie Francis by Danica Roache
A bold, refreshing, and darkly funny debut novel about a mixed-ancestry Mi'kmaw woman balancing academia, grief, love, and new motherhood, for fans of Fleabag and Amanda Peters.
When the tides in the Cobequid Bay went out and left stretches of mudflats, I could walk halfway to the other shore. Sometimes the mud engulfed my feet, right up to my ankles, and made it hard to move. The longer you stayed stuck, the harder it was to keep going.
Featuring the voices of both new and acclaimed Indigenous writers and edited by bestselling Muscogee author Cynthia Leitich Smith, this collection of interconnected stories serves up laughter, love, Native pride, and the world’s best frybread.
Charlie Francis's five-year plan has gone to shit. She was supposed to greet the new millennium by diving head-first into a master's degree, but her thesis has ground to a halt, Y2K was a bust, her rambunctious family and claustrophobic hometown are driving her around the bend-and the maybe-love-of-her-life, Adam, keeps joking about her moving home to marry him and have his babies.
When Charlie's beloved uncle-the same person who told her to get out of town and never look back-dies suddenly, Charlie leans into her independence, breaking Adam's heart and rushing headlong into an academic career despite the baked-in racism of the predominantly white institution. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she has to navigate being a (mostly) single mother on top of everything else.
With grit, humour, a lovable cast, and the nostalgia of the early aughts, this bold and refreshing novel from a powerful new voice in Indigenous fiction explores grief, the complex bonds of family, and cultural identity.
Webinars for you
We host a series of webinars on Zoom to help users access CELA services, to stay up to date on new technologies and to learn more about accessible reading. Most of our webinars are recorded.
On the Webinars for you page, you will find upcoming webinars. On that same page you will find links to other CELA video resources available on our YouTube channel.
Ask Us! Come chat with CELA staff and have your questions answered
This hour long interactive conversation gives CELA users an opportunity to ask questions related to using CELA’s library services. We encourage you to bring your questions and learn from CELA staff, as well as to share experiences with other CELA patrons in the audience. This Q&A aims to support how you access the books, magazines and newspapers in CELA’s multiple format collections for people with print disabilities.
To register for the online Zoom webinar please select the link below and fill in the registration form. To attend by phone, please call the Contact Centre at 1-855-655-2273.
Starting with CELA: finding and getting books and magazines
Have you recently registered for CELA or would you like a refresher on how to find and read books and magazines? Or are you a designate who assists a CELA user with a print disability manage their library service? We’re pleased to share how you can use the 1.5 million titles available to you in this 60-minute webinar.
- What CELA offers: books & more!
- What kind of devices do you need to listen to CELA's books and magazines
- Discover how to access a book or magazine using CELA's site: log in, search and choose a book
- Find tutorials and videos for more help
To register for the online Zoom webinar please select the link below and fill in the registration form. To attend by phone, please call the Contact Centre at 1-855-655-2273.
Tuesday April 7 7:00-8:00pm EDT
Accessing CELA using a Victor Stratus DAISY Player
Do you own a Humanware Victor Reader Stratus 4M or the new Stratus 2? Were you receiving books on CD and want to continue using the Stratus for CELA content? Are you considering getting the Stratus to access reading materials from CELA? Join us for this hour-long webinar 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 Stratus users or those interested in learning new ways of using this player. By attending this webinar, you will learn about:
- General features of the Victor Stratus, and what’s new with the latest model
- Configuring the device for use with CELA
- How to navigate and manage your Direct to Player bookshelf
- Reading a title and playback options
- How to find help in using the Victor Stratus with CELA
To register for the online Zoom webinar please select the link below and fill in the registration form. To attend by phone, please call the Contact Centre at 1-855-655-2273.
Tuesday May 12 2:00-3:00pm EDT
CELA at your fingertips: Braille for everyone
Have you ever wanted to learn more about CELA’s braille and printbraille collections? Join us for this hour-long webinar about the braille reading delights that are at the fingertips of CELA users. This webinar is for anyone using braille or printbraille as well as supporting new or experienced braille readers. By attending this webinar you will learn about:
- The value of braille in developing literacy skills
- CELA’s and Bookshare’s braille books, text magazines and specialized Braille magazine collections
- CELA’s printbraille picture books for children with printed text, images and braille
- Braille formats, delivery options and compatible devices.
- Ways to access braille through the mail or direct download
To register for the online Zoom webinar please select the link below and fill in the registration form. To attend by phone, please call the Contact Centre at 1-855-655-2273.
Getting Started with Accessible Reading Canada: Listen to CELA Audiobooks with Alexa
Join us for a live webinar introducing Accessible Reading Canada, a new way for CELA patrons to enjoy CELA audiobooks using Alexa-enabled smart speakers. This 60-minute session will walk you through how to use voice commands to search, browse, and listen to audiobooks from your CELA Direct to Player Bookshelf using the Accessible Reading Canada Alexa skill.
This webinar will cover:
- What Alexa-enabled smart speakers are and how they work
- How to set up and use the Accessible Reading Canada skill
- How to use voice commands for browsing and reading
- Where to find help guides and additional support
After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session to ask additional questions. This session will be recorded.
To register for the online Zoom webinar please select the link below and fill in the registration form. To attend by phone, please call the Contact Centre at 1-855-655-2273.
Featured title for adults: Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival
A dazzling memoir about one woman's coexistence with bears in the boreal forest and a singular meditation on sibling loss.When Trina Moyles was five years old, her father, a wildlife biologist known in Peace River as "the bear guy," brought home an orphaned black bear cub for a night before sending it to the Calgary Zoo.
This brief but unforgettable encounter spurred Trina’s lifelong fascination with Ursus americanus—the most populous bear on the northern landscape, often considered a nuisance to human society. As a child roaming the shores of the Peace in the footsteps of her beloved older brother, she understood bears to be invisible entities: always present but mostly hidden and worthy of respect.
Growing up during the oil boom of the 1990s, the threats in the siblings’ hard-drinking resource town were more human, dividing them from a natural reverence for the land, and eventually, from each other.After years of working for human rights organizations, Trina returned to northern Alberta for a job as a fire tower lookout, while her brother worked in the oil sands, vulnerable to a boom-and-bust economy and substance addiction. When she was assigned to a tower in a wildlife corridor, bears were alarmingly visible and plentiful, wandering metres away on the other side of an electrified fence surrounding the tower.
Over four summers, Trina begins to move beyond fear and observe the extraordinary essence of the maligned black bear—a keystone species who is as subject to the environmental consequences of the oil economy as humans. At the same time, she searches for common ground with her brother on the land that bonded them.Impassioned and eloquent, Black Bear is a story of grief and a vision of peaceful coexistence in a divided world. It captures the fragility of our relationships with human and nonhuman species alike, and the imperative to protect the wild—along with the people we hold closest.
Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival by Trina Moyles
Top five books
Most popular with our readers last month:
- The First Time I Saw Him (Hannah Hall #2) by Laura Dave, Family stories
- King Sorrow: a novel by Joe Hill, Ghost and horror stories
- The Invisible Woman: a thriller by James Patterson, Mysteries and crime stories
- The Widow: a novel by John Grisham, Legal stories
- Ain't Nobody's Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton by Martha Ackmann, Music biography
Featured title for kids: I'm so happy you're here: A celebration of library joy
Dubbed "the Internet's librarian"— and now host of the relaunched Reading Rainbow — Mychal Threets invites all to take a look and find themselves at the library! Perfect for little readers who are regular visitors and those who might be stepping into the stacks for the first time. Welcome to the library! It’s a place just for you! There are activities, movies, games, and so many stories. Best of all, it’s a place where you will always belong.
Take a tour of the library with the internet’s favorite librarian, Mychal Threets! This heartwarming debut picture book from Mychal extends an invitation to anyone who could use a little library joy and a reminder that libraries are for everyone.
Read I'm so happy you're here: A celebration of library joy by Mychal Threets in our collection.
Top five for kids
Most popular with kids last month:
- Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume and Roy Doty, Humourous fiction
- Little House in the Big Woods (Little house books #1) by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Classic fiction
- The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure; The House on the Cliff; The Secret of the Old Mill (#1, 2 & 3) by Franklin W. Dixon, Mysteries and crime stories
- Chuck Yeager, the man who broke the sound barrier: a science biography by Nancy S. Levinson, Science and technology
- Dog Diaries: Happy howlidays: a middle school story (Dog Diaries Series) by James Patterson, Animal stories
Top five for teens
Most popular with teens last month:
- Wildefire by Karsten Knight, Fantasy
- The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom by Corrie Ten Boom and John Sherrill, Journals and memoirs
- Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter, Romance
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins, Adventure stories
- Light a Single Candle by Beverly Butler, Blind and visually impaired fiction
Service tip: Launching Alexa
Did you know that you can change the phrase you use to launch the Accessible Reading Canada skill on your Alexa smart speaker? If you’d like to customize your phrase or make it easier to say, you can find a tutorial on our website.
And if you have an Alexa but haven’t tried using it to read your CELA books you can learn more on our Accessible Reading Canada page.
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.