CBC’s CANADA READS concluded today with a live elimination vote, and Ducks by Kate Beaton has been voted Canada’s must-read book for 2023. It is the first graphic narrative to win the annual battle of the books. Over four days of lively debate, moderated by seven-time host Ali Hassan, five celebrity panellists championed their chosen Canadian books that speak to the theme, ‘One Book to Shift Your Perspective.’ Each day of the competition, one book was eliminated by the panellists until Beaton’s acclaimed book was crowned the winner, in a broadcast that was available on CBC Radio One, CBC TV, CBC Listen, CBC Gem, CBCBooks.ca, YouTube and Facebook.
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The winning book’s champion is Canada’s most successful Jeopardy! champion, Mattea Roach. Originally from Halifax, they now live in Toronto.
Ducks is an autobiographical graphic novel, inspired by Beaton‘s time spent working in the Alberta oil sands. With the goal of paying off her student loans, she leaves her tight-knit seaside Nova Scotia community and heads west, where she encounters harsh realities. Ducks is a Globe and Mail bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book, and was also on Barack Obama’s list of favourite books of 2022. She is also the bestselling cartoonist of Hark! A Vagrant, and the author of two picture books for children.
“Mattea has spoken so poignantly and thoughtfully about Ducks. Just to have been a part of Canada Reads was more than I thought would happen, and it’s such an honour to be in the company of these four brilliant books and their champions,” said Kate Beaton. “A lot of the labour that is done in the work camps feels quite invisible but the human toll of oil and mining is ongoing, and Indigenous communities continue to suffer the worst of it, as events happening right now in Fort Chipewyan remind us yet again. I hope Ducks can be a small reminder for us all in the ways that we need to do better. I hope that this is the first of many graphic novels on the [Canada Reads] list because Canada produces some of the best comic artists in the world.”
The CANADA READS 2023 debates took place from March 27–30, 2023. This season, and for the past seven seasons, every CANADA READS finalist has appeared on the Canadian bestseller lists following the announcement of the shortlist, and many titles have spent months on these lists.
The books voted off this week in order of elimination are:
- Mexican Gothic (Del Ray, an imprint of Penguin Random House) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, was championed by #BookTok (TikTok) content creator and nursing student Tasnim Geedi.
- Greenwood (McClelland & Stewart, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada) by Michael Christie, was championed by actor and filmmaker Keegan Connor Tracy.
- Hotline (Esplanade Books, an imprint of Véhicule Press) by Dimitri Nasrallah, was championed by Yukon-based bhangra artist and educator Gurdeep Pandher.
- Station Eleven (HarperPerennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Canada) by Emily St. John Mandel, was championed by actor, director, dancer, choreographer, and artistic director Michael Greyeyes.
- WINNER: Ducks (Drawn & Quarterly) by Kate Beaton, was championed by Canada’s most successful Jeopardy! champion, Mattea Roach.
Catch up on the week’s debates on the free CBC Gem streaming service and CBC Listen.
The CANADA READS conversation continues on CBCBooks.ca, @CBCBooks on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using the hashtag #CanadaReads.
