For Canadian book lovers everywhere, CBC’s Canada Reads is like the Grammys.  Or Oscars.  We eagerly await each year for March to see what will be chosen as Canada’s book of the year to read.  This year’s selections are as varied as their defenders: The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (defended by Avi Lewis), Fruit by Brian Francis (defended by Jen Sookfong Lee), The Outlander by Gil Adamson (defended by Nicholas Campbell), Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richardson (defended by Sarah Slean), and The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant by Michel Tremblay (defended by Anne-Marie Withenshaw).  All sound like wonderful books in their own right.  And I can only imagine that even the books that don’t win will be well read across the country.  While I have to admit I haven’t read any of this year’s choices, I do own one (Book of Negroes) and a couple of the others are on my must read list.

Since the five finalists were announced last November, book lovers and book clubs across the country have been celebrating this year’s choices for Canada Reads, including the second annual Battle of the Book Clubs held in Charlottetown, PEI. I had the chance to go and take part, helping to celebrate great Canadian literature.

Books and fun do go together

Held at the Guild, the second annual CBC’s Battle of the Book Clubs was an evening of books, laughter, and fun.  I didn’t attend last year’s event, so I honestly didn’t know what to expect. The idea behind the Battle of the Book Clubs is pretty simple: five book clubs from across PEI each defend one of the Canada Reads choices.  The audience votes, and the book club with the highest votes combined with their current points (I’ll explain that in a second) wins the battle.

I thought the battle would entail each of the clubs defending their book and stating why it’s the best.  I was almost picturing a speech contest of sorts, with the most eloquent and convincing being branded the winner.  Well, I was sort of right. While each club did wax poetic about their chosen novel, it was only a small part of the battle.

To start the evening off, each book club came up with a short poem that best described themselves.  After the poem was a round of Canadian literature trivia, with each correct answer being worth points.  Despite being encouraged by host Matt Rainey to keep our mouths shut, there were members of the audience that couldn’t help but yell out the answers.  Most of us, however, were able to keep quiet and whisper to friends what we though the correct answers were.

Next was a hilarious round of literary charades.  Yes, literary charades. (I so want to do this sometime!) Each book club was given a book title and had to act it out with other members guessing.  As equally entertaining was the section of the competition where the book clubs had to answer such questions as “Who would you invite to your book club?” and “What would your book club’s theme song be?”

The books themselves

At this point in the evening, each book club had five minutes to defend their book.  It was interesting to see that while each book club did an excellent job of defending their books, each went about it in a completely different way. (Montague’s book club, defending Mercy Among the Children couldn’t make it, due to inclement weather.)

Plus One book club defending Brian Francis’ Fruit, used interaction and humor in explaining the premise of the book and why we should vote for it.  A coming-of-age story about a young overweight teenage boy and his talking nipples, the presentation was as quirky as the book. Bluefield’s Society for the Appreciation of Great Literature chose a more serious route in their defense of The Book of Negroes, with an introduction of the book and then speeches from four of the novel’s characters.  The final speech by the book’s main character, Aminata Diallo, a former slave documenting her life was particularly powerful. Summerside’s Friday Night Girls took a straightforward approach with a head-on explanation and defense of why The Outlander should be the winner.  A mystery of sorts set in the Canadian wild with a main character known only as “the widow,” this book was touted as having it all. While the defense was serious in tone, it was sprinkled with a bit of humor along with two club members riding wooden horses, in honour of the book’s heroine. Beyond Word’s book club took a more personable tone when presenting their arguments for The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, the story of a French neighborhood and its reaction to a 40-year -old woman’s pregnancy. The most scholarly of the four presentations, they even threw in a comparison of one of last years Canada Reads’ books, Timothy Findley’s Not Wanted on the Voyage.  Not wanting to miss out on the fun, they finished their defense off with a little dance number by “the fat woman next door who is pregnant.”

The winner of the evening was last years returning champs, Bluefield’s The Society for the Appreciation of Great Literature and their defense of Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, which was also crowned the winner of the official CBC Canada Read’s competition.

You really can’t go wrong with any of the five finalists. I myself am planning on reading both The Book of Negroes and Fruit in the next couple of weeks, so next time I’ll chat about these two great books.

Happy Reading!

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