Everything you need to know about Canada Reads 2025

CBC

13-03-2025

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Canada Reads 2025 will take place March 17-20. This year, the great Canadian book debate is looking for one book to change the narrative.
The 2025 contenders are:
The debates will take place live at 10:05 a.m. ET. You can tune in live or catch a replay on the platform of your choice. You can see all the broadcast details here.
ONLINE: CBC Books will livestream the debates at 10:05 a.m. ET on YouTube, CBC Gem and CBCBooks.ca.
The debates will be available to replay online each day. The livestream on YouTube will be available to watch outside Canada.
If you'd rather listen to the debates online, they will air live on CBC Listen. A replay will be available later each day.
ON RADIO: Canada Reads will air on CBC Radio at 10:05 a.m. in the Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones.
It will air at 11:05 a.m. in Nunavut, the Maritimes, 1:05 p.m. in Labrador and at 1:35 p.m. in Newfoundland.
The debates will replay at 9 p.m. local time in all time zones, except in Newfoundland, where it will replay at 9:30 p.m.
ON TV: CBC TV will broadcast Canada Reads at 1 p.m. in the Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones. It will air at 2 p.m. in the Atlantic time zone and at 2:30 p.m in the Newfoundland time zone.
PODCAST: The episode will be posted each day after the live airing. You can download the episodes on the podcast app of your choice.
If you'd like the Canada Reads books in an accessible format, both CELA and NNELS provide books in audio, braille, print braille and text formats. You can find out which formats are available for each of the books here for CELA and here for NNELS.
The Canada Reads books are available in print, e-book and audiobook format at your local bookstore or library of choice. You can use this link to find an independent bookstore near you. New this year, audiobooks from Audible are now included on Amazon Music Unlimited — and all the Canada Reads titles are available here.
The books chosen for Canada Reads deal with difficult topics, such as trauma and abuse. These stories may be shared during the broadcast. Click this link to find publicly available resources for support.
Learn more about the Canada Reads 2025 contenders below.
Watch Out for Her is about a young mother named Sarah who thinks her problems are solved when she hires a young babysitter, Holly, for her six-year-old son. Her son adores Holly and Holly adores Sarah, who is like the mother she never had. But when Sarah sees something that she can't unsee, she uproots her family to start over. Her past follows her to this new life, raising paranoid questions of who is watching her now? And what do they want?
"I just love feeling suspense and trying to figure out what's going to happen at the end," she said on CBC Radio's Commotion.
I just love feeling suspense and trying to figure out what's going to happen at the end.
"You don't have have to read a book to learn something. You can read something because you simply enjoy it. As someone who picked up reading more vigorously later in life, hopefully this book will encourage others if they haven't started that journey for themselves."
Samantha M. Bailey is a journalist and editor in Toronto. Her first thriller, Woman on the Edge, was released in 2019 and was an international bestseller. Her other novels include A Friend in the Dark and Hello, Juliet. Her journalistic work can be found in publications including NOW Magazine, The Village Post, The Thrill Begins and The Crime Hub.
"I wanted to look at what happens when we're hiding our true selves," said Bailey in an interview with CBC Books. "I think only children are innocent. How can you be totally innocent if you're human? Because if you're human, that means you're flawed."
I also wanted to explore the idea that we can't watch who watches our children when we're not there.- Samantha M. Bailey
"And if you're human, that means you've been hurt and you've been traumatized and you've gone through difficult situations and you've hurt other people and you've made mistakes.
"I also wanted to explore the idea that we can't watch who watches our children when we're not there."
Maggie Mac Neil is a Canadian swimmer who competed in two Olympic Games and won three medals at Tokyo 2020: Gold, Silver and Bronze. She is an eight-time World Champion, three-time NCAA champion and holds three world records. She is also the first person to simultaneously hold titles in 100m butterfly in the NCAA, Olympics, world short course metres and world long course metres.
She was raised in London, Ont. and attended the University of Michigan for her undergrad and Louisiana State University for her Master of Science in Sport Management. In 2024, after the Paris Olympics, she retired from swimming to focus on applying to law school.
In A Two-Spirit Journey, Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian who grew up in a remote northern Ontario community, tells the story of how she overcame experiences with abuse and alcohol addiction to become a counsellor and lead Thunder Bay's first gay pride parade.
"This isn't just a book, it's a call to action," said Stonechild in her 30-second pitch on CBC Radio's Commotion."This story follows the life of a two-spirt Ojibwa-Cree elder who has overcome immense challenges, from addiction to sobriety, from intergenerational trauma to healing, all while staying rooted in her culture and her language and dedicating her life to serving others."
This is a testimony to the strength, resilience, perseverance and love that we have within our bloodlines as Indigenous people.
"This is a testimony to the strength, resilience, perseverance and love that we have within our bloodlines as Indigenous people."
Ma-Nee Chacaby is a two-spirit Ojibwa-Cree writer, artist, storyteller and activist. She lives in Thunder Bay, Ont., and was raised by her grandmother near Lake Nipigon, Ont. Chacaby won the Ontario Historical Society's Alison Prentice Award and the Oral History Association's Book Award for A Two-Spirit Journey.
In 2021, Chacaby won the Community Hero Award from the mayor of Thunder Bay.
Mary Louisa Plummer is a social scientist whose work focuses on public health and children's rights.
What being two-spirit means to Indigenous elder Ma-Nee Chacaby
"I want to leave something for my kids. My great-granddaughter and my great-grandsons," said Chacaby in an interview on The Next Chapter. "I want them to know what I was about, what I was made of, what I stood for. Because there is so much violence in the communities up north and around us."
We are storytellers. That is our gift.
"I wish more Native women and older women, even the ones that are older than me, could write their story about their life to share it with other people so their kids can grow to understand them and learn from them.
"We are storytellers. That is our gift. And if they share their real stuff, what really happened in the past, the kids will learn from it."
Shayla Stonechild is a Red River Métis and Nehiyaw iskwew (Plains Cree woman) from Muscowpetung First Nations. She founded the Matriarch Movement, an online platform, podcast and nonprofit that amplifies Indigenous voices and provides wellness opportunities for Indigenous women and two-spirit individuals.
She is also a global yoga ambassador for Lululemon and is the first Indigenous person featured on Yoga Journal's cover. Stonechild has hosted APTN's Red Earth Uncovered, appeared on Season 9 of Amazing Race Canada and co-hosted ET Canada's Artists & Icons: Indigenous Entertainers in Canada for which she won two Canadian Screen Awards.
Heartland actor Michelle Morgan champions Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
In the novel Etta and Otto and Russell and James, 82-year-old Etta decides to walk 3,232 kilometres to Halifax from her farm in Saskatchewan with little more than a rusty rifle and a talking coyote named James for company. Her early life with her husband Otto and their friend Russell are revealed in flashbacks to the Great Depression and the Second World War.
"Hooper's writing is so poignant and it captures the wonder and the hardships of Depression-era Saskatchewan," said Morgan in her 30-second pitch on CBC Radio's Commotion."And her writing is sparing, and it's bare-boned and it leaves readers the space to fill in the gaps with our own experiences of love and loss and remembering and forgetting."
It leaves readers the space to fill in the gaps with our own experiences of love and loss and remembering and forgetting. - Michelle Morgan
Emma Hooper is a Canadian musician and writer. Her other novels include Our Homesick Songs, which was on the longlist for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky. She also holds a PhD in music-literary studies and has published her research on many related topics. Raised in Alberta, she currently lives in England.
Hooper based Etta and Otto and Russell and James on the stories of her own grandparents.
"My grandmother, my mom's mom, was a teacher in a one-room school house and my grandfather, like Otto, was from a farm family with 15 kids. And he, like Otto, also had his hair go white on the way over to the war," said Hooper in an interview on The Next Chapter.
From there, the characters obviously evolved completely into their own people. - Emma Hooper
"There's sort of a starting point there. Then from there, the characters obviously evolved completely into their own people."
Michelle Morgan is a Vancouver actor and filmmaker of Chilean descent. She is best known for playing Lou in Heartland, the longest-running one-hour drama in Canadian television history, and has directed multiple episodes as well.
Morgan's other acting credits include Virgin River, Batwoman and The Good Doctor. She has also directed the award-winning short films Mi Madre-My Father and Save Yourself and the CBC digital series Hudson.
Morgan is an advocate for women's rights and has partnered with women's shelters across Canada, including The Brenda Strafford Women's Shelter and Homefront Calgary, and teaches workshops for survivors of domestic violence.
Thriller writer Linwood Barclay champions Jennie's Boy by Wayne Johnston
Jennie's Boy is a memoir that recounts a six-month period in Wayne Johnston's chaotic childhood, much of which was spent as a frail and sickly boy with a fiercely protective mother. While too sick to attend school, he spent his time with his funny and eccentric grandmother Lucy and picked up some important life lessons along the way.
"They say that for a writer, the best thing that can happen to you is to have a dysfunctional, miserable childhood. And in that regard, Wayne hit the jackpot," said Barclay in his 30-second pitch on CBC Radio's Commotion. " I've loved his novels for years. But this memoir of his Newfoundland childhood covering a period of time when he was very sick and living in poverty and a lot of troubles."
As dark as it may be, it's also very funny. - Linwood Barclay
"It's a fabulous book. And as dark as it may be, it's also very funny."
Wayne Johnston is a writer, born and raised in Goulds, N.L. His novels include The Divine Ryans, A World Elsewhere, The Custodian of Paradise, The Navigator of New York and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. His 1999 memoir, Baltimore's Mansion, won the RBC Taylor Prize. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a 2003 Canada Reads finalist, when it was championed by now prime minister Justin Trudeau.
"I looked at all the years that I could remember and tried to pick out which one was most representative of what life was like, not just for me, but for my family of three brothers and my mom and dad — my mom, most people call Jennie," Johnston told Shelagh Rogers on The Next Chapter.
It was kind of the funniest year in a lot of ways, a bit sad in some other ways. - Wayne Johnston
"It was kind of the funniest year in a lot of ways, a bit sad in some other ways. And even though the book is called Jennie's Boy, I kind of struggled with the notion of calling it Lucy's Boy.
"That was my grandmother. I was her pet. And that's why I talked about it."
Jennie's Boy won the 2023 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal.
Never Saw It Coming, adapted from his novel of the same name. His books The Accident and No Time for Goodbye were made into a television series in France.
Pastry chef Saïd M'Dahoma champions Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew
Dandelion is a novel about family secrets, migration, isolation, motherhood and mental illness. When Lily was a child, her mother, Swee Hua, walked away from the family and was never heard from again. After becoming a new mother herself, Lily is obsessed with discovering what happened to Swee Hua.
She recalls growing up in a British Columbia mining town where there were only a handful of Asian families and how Swee Hua longed to return to Brunei. Eventually, a clue leads Lily to southeast Asia to find out the truth about her mother.
"What Dandelion brilliantly does is that it shows that there's not just one immigrant story. There are so many different stories, so many different dreams and aspirations that immigrants can have when they come," said M'Dahoma on CBC Radio's Commotion."And immigrants can be from different socioeconomic status. Some of them struggle. Some of
them thrive in Canada, despite the weather for some reason. I think it just changes the perspective that some people might have about immigrants and how diverse immigrants can be."
I think it just changes the perspective that some people might have about immigrants and how diverse immigrants can be. - Saïd M'Dahoma
Jamie Chai Yun Liew is a lawyer, law professor and podcaster based in Ottawa. Dandelion is her first novel, which won her the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award from the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop. She also wrote the nonfiction book Ghost Citizens. Liew was named one of CBC Books writers to watch in 2022.
"I wanted to explore themes of belonging and place from an emotional place. I wrote about it academically in terms of how the law creates foreigners, but I wanted to explore how that feels — what that does to the psyche, how that affects someone's mental health," Liew told CBC Books.
I wanted to explore themes of belonging and place from an emotional place. - Jamie Chai Yun Liew
"There are a lot of assumptions about why people are stateless and the first one is that they are foreigners or migrants.
"And some stateless people are, but a lot of stateless people — millions around the world — are living within their home countries and overwhelmingly people told me, 'I'm being treated like a foreigner in my own country.'"
Saïd M'Dahoma, known on social media as The Pastry Nerd, is a French Comorian Canadian pastry chef based in Calgary. M'Dahoma was born in Paris, where he completed his PhD in neuroscience, and moved to Canada to work at the University of Alberta.
Living so far from home, he began to miss French Comorian dishes and pastries, so he started trying to make his own. Through trial and error and by sharing his journey online, he decided to give up his career as a neuroscientist and become a pastry chef full time.
He shares his skills on television, including shows like The Good Stuff with Mary Berg, and with his online following of more than 200,000 accounts. M'Dahoma was named one of the Top 20 Compelling Calgarians of 2025.