Madeline Sonik’s collection of first-person essays, Afflictions and Departures (Anvil Press), has won the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize, beating Esi Edugyan’s Scotiabank Giller Prize“winning novel Half-Blood Blues (Thomas Allen Publishers). Sonik received the $5,000 award at last night’s Victoria Book Prize Society gala.

The other finalists were: William Deverell’s novel I’ll See You in My Dreams (McClelland & Stewart), Mark Zuehlke’s Breakout from Juno: First Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign, July 4“August 21, 1944 (Douglas & McIntyre), and All the Dirt: Reflections on Organic Farming (TouchWood Editions) by Rachel Fisher, Heather Stretch, and Robin Tunnicliffe.

Caitlyn Vernon’s Nowhere Else on Earth: Standing Tall for the Great Bear Rainforest (Orca Book Publishers) won the $5,000 Bolen Books Children’s Book Prize. Vernon was up against Kit Pearson’s novel The Whole Truth (HarperCollins Canada) and Pamela Porter’s novel I’ll Be Watching (Groundwood Books).