The Alcuin Society has announced the winners of its annual competition for Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada.

A total of 33 books were selected by the judges from 209 titles submitted from 79 publishers. The annual awards have been granted since 1981. Judges Jason Dewinetz, Mark Goldstein, and Gilbert Li, reviewed the submitted books on Feb. 28.

Winners were named in nine categories, though some categories did not have first- or second-place winners.

Children’s Picture Books

• First (tie): John Martz for The Little Ghost Quilt’s Winter Surprise (Tundra Books/Penguin Random House Canada) and Sophie Paas-Lang for The Newest Gnome (Tundra Books/PRHC)
• Second: Howie Shia for Ra! Ta! Ma! Сuе! (Annick Press)
• Third: Andrew Dupuis for Unnaturally Blue (Kids Can Press)
• Honourable Mention: John Martz for Words with Wings and Magic Things (Tundra Books/PRHC)

Comics

• First (tie): Lee Lai, Lucia Gargiulo, and Tracy Hurren for Cannon (Drawn & Quarterly) and Michael DeForge, Megan Tan, and Tom Devlin for Holy Lacrimony (Drawn & Quarterly)
• Second: Zoé Jusseret and Thierry van Hasselt for About the Little Ones (Conundrum Press)
• Third: Laurent Pinabel for La bête à sa mère: Le roman graphique (Les Éditions Stanké)

Limited Edition

• Honourable Mention: Bennett Bedoukian for A Herald Came Calling (O Underworld! Press)
• Honourable Mention: Anthony Geer for Solaris (Conversation Tree Press)
• Honourable Mention: Victoria Wai Kei Li for tethered

Pictorial

• First: Sonja Zagermann for How Modern: Biographies of Architecture in China 1949 – 1979 (Canadian Centre for Architecture and M Books)
• Second (tie): Claire Dawson for Archive / Recollection: 75 Years of the Advertising and Design Club of Canada (The Advertising and Design Club of Canada) and Lara Minja for David Blackwood: Myth & Legend (Goose Lane Editions and Art Gallery of Ontario)
• Third (tie): Matthias Kreutzer with David Diaz Méndez for État Des Lieux: École De Designs 50 Ans (École de design de l’UQAM) and Matthias Kreutzer for Blur (Free Pony Press)
• Honourable Mention: Teresa Bubela for Richard Johnson: Resilience Ice Huts and Root Cellars (2007-2021) (Figure 1 Publishing)

Poetry

• First: Jayme Spinks for “piyyut” (Nevermore Press / Copy Shop Books)
• Second: Feed for Les visages de Rembrandt (les éditions du passage)
• Third: Crystal Sikma and Eric Schmaltz for I Confess (Coach House Books)
• Honourable Mention: Natalie Olsen for My Works, Ye Mighty (Athabasca University Press)

Prose: Fiction

• Second: Talia Abramson for Solitaria: A Novel (Alchemy by Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Third (tie): Sebastian Frye for The Sapling (Scribner Canada) and Terri Nimmo for Wolf, Moon, Dog: A Novel (Random House Canada)

Prose: Illustrated

• Second: Lara Minja for Ornament and Symbol in French Romantic Architecture: Simon-Claude Constant-Dufeux (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
• Third: Setareh Ashrafologhalai for Hidden Flowers: A Memoir (Heritage House)

Prose: Nonfiction

• First: Kate Sinclair for A Steady Brightness of Being: Truths, Wisdom, and Love from Celebrated Indigenous Voices (Penguin Canada/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Second: Jennifer Griffiths for Story of Your Mother (Strange Light/McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada)
• Honourable Mention: Alan Brownoff for The Postcolonial Bildungsroman: Narratives of Youth, Representational Politics, and Aesthetic Reinventions (University of Alberta Press)

Reference

• Second: Teresa Bubela for Sea of Islands: Exploring Objects, Stories, and Memories from Oceania (Figure 1 Publishing and Museum of Anthropology at UBC)
• Third: Jessica Sullivan for IN GOOD HEALTH: Uncomplicated, Allergen-Aware Recipes for a Nourished Life (Figure 1 Publishing)
• Honourable Mention: Naomi MacDougall for Perch: Soil • Land• Sea – A Cookbook (Figure 1 Publishing)