Book Centre Award Nominees

Nominee for the 2012 Silver Birch Express Award in the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading Program

This lavishly illustrated book brings Gordon Lightfoot's heart-stirring song, "Canadian Railroad Trilogy," to readers young and old.

The song was commissioned by the CBC in 1967 to mark Canada's centennial year and it has been a classic ever since. It eloquently describes the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway -- "an iron road runnin' from the sea to the sea" -- a great feat of …

A young boy must come to terms with the moral prejudices of his small town in the prairies in the 40's when he befriends the daughter of a young widow who moves in next door. Gracie is unlike anyone Luke has ever met - fun, charming, imaginative and full of life. But when the townsfolk discover that her mother's past is less than completely honourable, they set out to isolate both mother and daughter.

This striking new novel from Valerie Sherrard explores themes of friendship, loyalty, hypocrisy …

Winner of the 2011 Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, the 2010 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the 2011 Ezra Jack Keats and New York Public Library New Writer Award, and a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Children's Illustration

The little girl in this story lives with her family in a trailer in northeastern Saskatchewan, where her father is building a dam. She knows everything about the place she lives -- her road, her school, the forest where she plays hide-and-seek and where the wo …

In Front of My House is a whimsical celebration of a child's imagination and all the places it can travel. This circular story begins and ends in a tidy front yard, but in between takes the reader to mountains and mysterious caves, up to outer space, down into the ocean and beyond. It's a journey as boundless and surprising as young imaginations.

Filled with inventive and delightful twists, this charming story reveals a child's fancy taking flight, showing how imaginative play can begin in a pla …

His mum is a spoon. His dad is a fork. And he's a bit of both. He's Spork!

Spork sticks out in the regimented world of the cutlery drawer. The spoons think he's too pointy, while the forks find him too round. He never gets chosen to be at the table at mealtimes until one day a very messy ... thing arrives in the kitchen who has never heard of cutlery customs. Will Spork finally find his place at the table?

This “multi-cutlery” tale is a humorous and lively commentary on individuality and toler …

Stanley's home life goes awry when he suddenly finds himself with a new, feline “sister.” Making friends with this perplexing creature is not easy. Stanley's big, friendly sniff is met with an abrupt THWACK! from the cat's paw. “ROWP!” yelps Stanley. No fair!

Even less fair is the way his people blame him for causing trouble when all he's trying to do is make friends! Is it Stanley's fault the cat doesn't understand dog talk? Given time and a bit of mutual understanding, can peace and pu …

We live in a time of heightened environmental awareness, and the stress of this pervasive alarmism is creating a generation of kids with feelings of eco-anxiety — the world is doomed, isn't it? Maybe not. Not Your Typical Book about the Environment aims to allay some of these fears by showing how all is not lost. Young readers will learn about the remarkable time that they are living in: the Anthropocene era where humans are the dominating environmental force on Earth. This is a time of amazin …