Best Canadian Reads of 2025

As Seen on CTV Your Morning

Picture Books, ages 3-7

In Brown Girl in the Snow, a recent immigrant finds a way to connect with the lush, green gardening culture she left behind in the Caribbean in her snowy new home in Canada.

An annual tradition of creating a backyard rink becomes the catalyst for a tender conversation about gender identity between a father and child in Call Me Gray.

The life cycle of the Eastern Monarch butterfly is presented as a beautifully illustrated poem in The Monarch.

Ages 8-12

You Were Made for This is a collection of letters and art from various Indigenous voices celebrating culture, language, and encouraging the next generation of Indigenous kids.

A scrappy, neglected kid finds security, comfort and a new home with her uncle and his partner in Tig, a small but powerful novel about resilience.

Teen

Emiko is a sweet, light-hearted confection that reimagines Jane Austen’s famous matchmaker Emma as a Japanese-Canadian teen living in coastal BC.

Adult

After the year we’ve had, what does it mean to be Canadian? A wide range of artists, athletes, and media personalities tackle this question in this Elbows Up, a collection of essays that is both thought-provoking and a rallying cry for a new kind of nationalism.

The Theory of Water starts with a question; what does it mean to listen to water? What follows is a gorgeous braid of history, legend, science, and personal experience that explores Indigenous cultural connections to water and how a new theory of water could lead to a transformative future.