'Shin-Chi’s Canoe' by Nicola Campbell sits on a shelf at Anansi Bookshop in Toronto. It's a title that remains in high demand by school libraries.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
Nicola Campbell’s first two children’s books, Shi-shi-etko and Shin-chi’s Canoe, first came out more than 15 years ago, yet their depictions of Indigenous children’s experiences with residential schools keep them in high demand in schools and their libraries. Last year, the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund alone bought 9,000 copies of Shi-shi-etko to distribute to educators across the country – and it continues to give classrooms sets of the book.
The author, who is Nłeʔkepmx, Syílx and Métis from the Nicola Valley, B.C., says she’s even heard the picture books, illustrated by Kim LaFave, are being considered for audiences even younger than the six- to nine-year-olds they were initially targeted for. Schools and their libraries keep stocking them.
That’s an important market for Groundwood Books, which released both Shi-shi-etko and Shin-chi’s Canoe and keeps them in more lucrative hardcover editions. Indigenous-authored titles have long been central to its publishing list, says publisher Karen Li. And in recent years, libraries’ interest in those titles has soared. “When demand for more Indigenous narratives came through, these were at the ready,” Li said of the two books.
Publisher Karen Li says Indigenous-authored titles have been central to Groundwood Books' publishing list.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission published its 94 calls to action in 2015, which included pushes for curriculums on the role of Indigenous peoples in Canadian history and the legacy of residential schools, teacher-librarians began agitating for more Indigenous-authored books to stock their libraries. The result, according to teacher-librarians, library associations, book publishers and distributors from across Canada, has been a surge in new books from, and backlist sales for, Indigenous writers.
The relationship between children’s publishers, educational curriculums and school libraries has long been a dynamic one – far beyond well-known campaigns such as Scholastic Book Fairs. And over the past decade, leaders in these industries say, there has been a concerted effort from all parties to help students access and understand experiences from all walks of life – and from authors speaking from their own experiences.
“There’s been significant work in the education system toward having truthful conversations and correcting wrongs,” Campbell said. “People have more courage to learn.”
'Boozhoo! / Hello!' is a children’s book written in Anishinaabemowin and English by author Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
James Saunders, the co-owner of Collingwood, Ont.-based distributor Saunders Book Company and the publisher of the school-and-library-focused house Beech Street Books, says this shift is even broader. History is littered with books in which marginalized characters get secondary narratives or have their stories told by non-marginalized authors. Now, he says, real authors are centred in telling their stories.
There was another shift in school demand in 2020, after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police prompted a resurgence in the Black Lives Matter movement. Books such as author Ibram X. Kendi and illustrator Ashley Lukashevsky’s Antiracist Baby and Jenny Devenny’s Race Cars: A children’s book about white privilege began showing up in schools in greater numbers, says Wendy Burch Jones, a Toronto teacher-librarian and president of the Ontario School Library Association.
“Educators had a need for those stories to be able to help explain to kids what was going on in the world,” she said. “I personally think there was a direct correlation between what was happening in the world and the stories that were being published.”
Getting a book into schools can mean a massive sales bump for both authors and publishers. And one of the most influential ways to get that kind of bump in English-speaking Canada is through Forest of Reading, the recreational-reading program put on by the Ontario Library Association in co-operation with schools and public libraries. More than 270,000 readers take part each year by signing up to read titles intended for their age or grade from a group of nominated books, then vote for their favourites.
Books must be Canadian-published and distributed to participate; more than 1,200 have been submitted in previous years, with 100 chosen for the program.
Meredith Tutching, who directs Forest of Reading, says it grosses more than $1-million in sales for nominated titles annually. “Getting a book on one of our lists is very advantageous to their bottom line,” she said.
About two years ago, Tutching saw a surge in Indigenous titles being submitted for consideration. The development may have been attributable to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action – followed by a lag when publishers and authors were signing deals, writing, illustrating and editing new titles. About 15 per cent of last year’s submitted books were written by Indigenous authors or had Indigenous content.
'The One and Only Question' is a children’s book written by Andrea Charles and N. Charles that discusses racism and bullying.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
Getting books into school libraries isn’t always easy. “Sometimes the challenge of working with a big school board is they give us constraints,” said Karen Devonish-Mazzotta, a French-as-a-second-language teacher and teacher-librarian in Toronto who co-chairs Forest of Reading. “You can only buy from certain distributors, and so you’re constrained – who do these distributors represent?”
She gives the example of Black Sun Comics, which publishes Afro-futurist comics and graphic novels that her students really enjoy. She says she had to find a workaround partner to get them into her collection. “You have to be that intermediary and serve the students’ development as learners,” Devonish-Mazzotta said. “It’s good work, but it’s not easy work.”
Tammy Le, a teacher-librarian in Surrey, B.C., and president of the British Columbia Teacher-Librarians’ Association, says she speaks regularly with distributors such as Saunders to share her school’s needs. “It’s hard to find a book to meet the topics students choose, and the level of reading they’re comfortable with, especially when we’re now competing with Google,” she said.
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And in the digital age, publishers thrive off demand from schools and their libraries. At Toronto’s Annick Press, editorial director Katie Hearn says her team looks for more than just interesting voices and storytelling perspectives when signing titles; they also look for where potential books might fit into a curriculum.
And sometimes schools send publishers’ backlists into overdrive. Demand for Patient Zero, a book on deadly epidemics for students in Grades 5 through 9, first published by Annick in 2014, saw immense demand from school librarians after COVID-19 shut down the world in 2020, Hearn says.
When it comes to conveying Indigenous experiences, Campbell said: “Our stories are medicine, and that’s what our elders tell us: They enter into our hearts, they enter into our minds. They remind us of our responsibility to future generations, and in that process, that means that we have a responsibility to tell our stories of joy and of our collective recovery.”
Libraries of all kinds benefit children’s books, including public systems, says Michael Katz, the publisher of Tradewind Books in Vancouver. “Libraries are our best customers,” he said. “Books last for only a year in the shops, but libraries will buy them again and again if they are being read.”