In case you missed it, Wednesday was the fourth annual I Read Canadian Day/Des Livres Canadiens Pour Moi, "a national celebration of Canadian books for young people, with the goal of elevating the genre and celebrating the breadth and diversity of these books." The IRC committee featured virtual presentations for the day, and encouraged schools, libraries, bookstores, daycares, and families to "join the rest of Canada in reading, being read to, or listening to a Canadian book for 15 minutes." Last year, nearly 3,300 registered participants tuned into I Read Canadian Day's two livestreamed events.
The festivities are made possible through the partnership of Canadian School Libraries, the Canadian Children's Book Centre, the Canadian Society of Children's Authors, Illustrators and Performers, the Ontario Library Association, and the Forest of Reading, and through the financial support of Access Copyright and Orca Book Publishers.
Indie booksellers checking in on social media for #IReadCanadianDay included:
Beggar's Banquet Books, Gananoque, Ont.: "We're always celebrating Canadian books, but today, on I Read Canadian Day, we're giving one away too! Buy a Canadian book of any genre today and have a chance to win a gift card of the same value."
Mabel's Fables Children's Bookstore, Toronto: "Happy #ireadcanadianday ! Of course, it is always a good day to read Canadian, but especially today!"
Carrefour Atlantic Emporium and the Puffin Gallery, Halifax, N.S.: "Happy #IReadCanadian day! We are always well stocked with the best books in (Atlantic) Canada!"
Noting that "the yearly event is the perfect time to take the pulse of the performance of books by Canadian contributors in the market," BookNet Canada reported that the number of titles by Canadian contributors in the BiblioShare database has been consistently increasing. From January 2020 to October 2023, the number of titles with a Canadian marker increased by 23%, with 8% of that gain happening from January 2022 to October 2023.
According to SalesData, however, from 2017 to 2022, the overall sales of Canadian titles decreased by 13%, with the most significant drop happening in 2022 when sales dropped by 9% compared to 2021. In 2021, there was a noteworthy uptick in sales of 6% compared to 2020.
"While these stats might seem alarming, it's important to keep in mind that the sales of Canadian-contributor books represented around 12% of all sales in most of those years. This remained pretty consistent with the exception of 2017, where it rose to 13.3%," BookNet Canada noted.
Another factor was that 2017 to 2019 were exceptional years for books by Canadian authors, including Rupi Kaur's The Sun and Her Flowers, Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life, Greta Podleski's Yum and Yummer, and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments. The impact of the Covid pandemic--business closures, supply-chain disruptions, concerns around the economy--also contributed to the recent sales dip.
BookNet Canada's Canadian Leisure & Reading Study 2022 reported that 24% of survey respondents read books by or about Canadians or locals the previous year. Additionally, many respondents displayed awareness of significant Canadian book awards, with the top three more widely known being the Governor General's Literary Awards (29%), Scotiabank Giller Prize (27%), and Canada Reads (25%). "Although high awareness doesn't automatically result in increased sales or borrowing of Canadian books, these figures are promising and reflect a positive trend," BookNet Canada wrote.
Unreleased data from the Canadian Book Consumer survey during the first half of 2023 shows that the desire to discover local or regional Canadian authors was a reason for visiting a bookstore in person (4%), a bookstore online (3%), and a public library (7%). In fact, 25% of respondents said they actively search for books about Canada and regions within Canada, and 28% said they search for books by Canadian authors and illustrators.
As it happens, I accidentally celebrated I Read Canadian Day last weekend by finishing a brilliant book: We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing by Dr. Jillian Horton, which recently won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction.
The book chronicles five days that Horton, a general internist, spent at a Zen center in upstate New York with a group of other burned-out physicians ("It dawns on me--I mean, really dawns on me. This is Doctor Rehab.").
In addition to sharing her grudging response to retreat assignments ("Noticing the breath. Breath is a vital sign. I was trained to notice other people's breath.... But nobody ever instructed me to notice my own breath.") and her fellow retreatants ("I look normal, though. I look the same as anyone else here, except for the blue hair. Maybe I am the same as anyone else here. Maybe this is normal."), Horton weaves a story of personal and professional challenges. It's a compelling mix.
Horton is not a doctor writing a book; she's a writer who became a doctor for complicated reasons, personal as well as professional. She actually turned down a full scholarship to Oxford for a Ph.D. in English to go to medical school.
"Sometimes people ask why so many doctors are writers," she observes. "But maybe the question really should be, why do so many writers put themselves through the unmistakable hell of becoming doctors?" And later she writes: "Why am I here? To learn to breathe, or to stop holding my breath?"
It was a great week to be reading Canadian.