The Ontario Library Association has announced the nominees for the 2020 Forest of Reading, an initiative which raises the profile of Canadian authors and publishing houses by encouraging students to read and vote on books across a number of categories, based on reading level and age group.

In the youngest category, Rebecca Bender’s Giraffe and Bird Together Again is up against Marie-Louise Gay’s Mustafa, among others. Heavy hitters Kenneth Oppel (Inkling) and Jonathan Auxier (Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster) are part of a group of 10 authors up for the middle-grade Silver Birch Award. Graphic novels Operatic, by Kyo Maclear and Byron Eggenschwiler, and Surviving the City, by Tasha Spillet and illustrator Natasha Donovan, are included in the Red Maple category along with other nominated novels aimed at Grade 7 and 8 students.

A strong contingent of YA books fill the White Pine category, including Sarah Henstra’s We Contain Multitudes, Tanaz Bhathena’s Beauty of the Moment, Faith Erin Hicks’s Comics Will Break Your Heart, Nicki Pau Preto’s Crown of Feathers, and the thriller Sadie, by Courtney Summers. In the non-fiction category there’s a range of subjects covered, from humanoid robots in Hubots, by Helaine Becker and illustrator Alex Ries, to Van Ho’s story of her childhood in post-war Vietnam, Too Young To Escape, written with Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch.

Readers can vote for their favourite books in April, and the winning authors will named at a Festival of Trees ceremony in May.

SEE THE FULL 2020 FOREST OF READING NOMINATED LISTS: accessola.com/forest