by Centre for Equitable Library Access (CELA)
CELA is a national accessible library service which provides more than 1.4 million titles to people in Canada who have print disabilities. It is estimated that more than 1 in 10 people have a print disability which includes low vision or blindness, learning disabilities, or physical disabilities which make it difficult to read print. Globally as few as 1 in 7 titles published are available in accessible formats and a lack of access to reading materials impacts academic, economic and social opportunities.
Our services ensure that people with print disabilities across the country are more able to fully participate in learning, work and community life and contribute to the social, cultural, and economic development and success of their local and broader communities.
We’re delighted to work with the FOLD on this challenge and we’ve chosen books which highlight a diverse slate of authors from Canada and Turtle Island who share important perspectives, stories and information, not just for our users but for all readers.
1) Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline (Young Adult)
After inadvertently starting rumours of a haunted cemetery, a teen befriends a ghost in this young adult novel exploring grief and belonging by the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of The Marrow Thieves series, now available in paperback.
Winifred has lived in the apartment above the cemetery office with her father, who works in the crematorium, all her life, close to her mother’s grave. With her sixteenth birthday only days away, Winifred has settled into a lazy summer schedule, lugging her obese Chihuahua around the grounds in a squeaky red wagon to visit the neglected gravesides and nursing a serious crush on her best friend, Jack.
Her habit of wandering the graveyard at all hours has started a rumor that Winterson Cemetery might be haunted. It’s welcome news since the crematorium is on the verge of closure and her father’s job is being outsourced. Now that the ghost tours have started, Winifred just might be able to save her father’s job and the only home she’s ever known, not to mention being able to stay close to where her mother is buried. All she has to do is get help from her con-artist cousin to keep up the ruse and somehow manage to stop her father from believing his wife has returned from the grave. But when Phil, an actual ghost of a teen girl who lived and died in the ravine next to the cemetery, starts showing up, Winifred begins to question everything she believes about life, love and death. Especially love.
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2) The Trailblazing Life of Viola Desmond: A Civil Rights Icon by Rachel Kehoe and Wanda Robson, illustrated by Chelsea Charles (Middle Grade)
Years before Rosa Parks famously refused to give up a bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, Viola Desmond took a similar stand against racial segregation in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.
On November 8, 1946, she was arrested for refusing to move from the “whites-only” section of a movie theater. Her heroic act inspired Black community leaders and made her a symbol of courage in the fight against inequality. This story of Viola’s life is based on rare interviews with her sister Wanda Robson, who spent her life championing her sister’s story and was successful in getting Viola a posthumous pardon that recognized she was innocent of any crime. From their childhood in Nova Scotia to Viola’s career as a teacher in a segregated school and, later, her role as a pioneer in Black beauty culture, young readers are introduced to the girl and the woman who went on to become the face of the civil-rights movement in Canada.
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3) When You Can Swim by Jack Wong (Picture Book)
A reverent celebration of learning to swim among a diverse cast of children and families who each experience the mysterious joys of water in nature.
In expansive vignettes, we meet sandpipers, peaceful lakes, the feeling of a small waterfall on one’s shoulders. Artist and author Jack Wong has delivered an empowering, poetic modern classic that fills readers with the wonder and confidence needed to overcome their fears of the water. When You Can Swim invites children into the warmth and wonder of the natural world and its watery splendors. At the same time, children will experience the joyousness that nature’s lessons teach us through its beauty.
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Ardo Omer