2026 CCBC Awards winners

On October 26, the Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) announced the winners of the 2026 CCBC Book Awards at a ceremony held at DoubleTree by Hilton’s in Toronto.

This year saw the return of Shari Green, Kim Spencer, as well as the team of Laurel Croza and Matt James as winners.

Green’s Song of Freedom, Song of Dreams won the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People last year. Spencer’s Weird Rules to Follow – the prequel to I Won’t Feel This Way Forever – was awarded the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People, the Jean Little First-Novel Award, and the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award three years ago. And creators of the Rock, Croza and James, won the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award in 2011 for I Know Here.

The six English-language winners are:

Amy Mathers Teen Book Award ($5,000)

• He’s So Possessed with Me by Corey Liu (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

David Booth Children’s and Youth Poetry Award ($3,500)

• Song of Freedom, Song of Dreams by Shari Green (Andrews McMeel Publishing)

Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People ($3,000)

• I Won’t Feel This Way Forever by Kim Spencer (Orca Book Publishers) (review)

Richard Allen Chase Memorial Award ($5,000)

• Oasis by Guojing (Godwin Books)

Sharon Fitzhenry Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction ($10,000)

• The True Story of Vanilla: How Edmond Albius Made History by Ann Richards and Arden Taylor, ill. (Orca Book Publishers)

Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award ($20,000)

• Rock by Laurel Croza and Matt James, ill. (Groundwood Books)

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