The Ottawa Valley Reads event will mirror the successful Canada Reads competition; however, our chosen reads will celebrate culture, marginalized communities, BIPOC voices, Indigenous stories and more.

The five books that will be part of this friendly ready competition are….

• The Boat People – Sharon Bala
• The Break – Katherena Vermette
• Black Boys Like Me – Matthew R. Morris
• RU – Kim Thuy
• Ohpikiihaakan-Ohpihmen (Raised Somewhere Else): A 60s Scoop Adoptees Story of Coming Home – Colleen Hele Cardinal

We can’t wait to start reading and engaging with culture! Visit you local library to see if they have these reads available to borrow. Stay tuned during June, when fellow community members will champion each book on our YouTube channel. After this, the voting will commence once again to determine our winner!

Following the premieres of videos, a weekly bracket vote will commence. Participants will be asked to eliminate a book week by week until we declare a winner during the last week of June. The competition is a great way to get our communities reading and talking about their love of books!

How can I engage?

• Help promote and share the competition on your social media channels
• Offer the selected books for borrowing in a special library spot
• Inter-library loan the reads to have multiple copies available
• Consider limiting borrowing time to one or two weeks
• Keep a bracket on display tracking the competition results
• Participate and read the books