CBC partners with Forest of Reading Festival to bring 2020 award ceremonies online
Online ceremonies for the 2020 awards will be held on on June 16
CBC Books will host an online award ceremony for the 2020 Forest of Reading, Canada's largest annual children's literary festival, on Tuesday, June 16.
The schedule is:
- 9 a.m. ET: Blue Spruce Award
- 10 a.m. ET: Silver Birch Express Award
- 11 a.m. ET: Silver Birch Award
- 12 p.m. ET: Yellow Cedar Award
- 1 p.m. ET: Red Maple Award
- 2 p.m. ET: White Pine Award
The awards ceremony will be broadcast on Curio, CBC's educational service.
Forest of Reading cancelled its live in-person festival in Toronto due to COVID-19.
Each spring, the Forest of Reading curates a wide selection of Canadian titles for school-aged children. Forest of Reading has 10 awards, divided by age group and reading level. Each award has 10 nominated titled and students across Canada vote on their favourite to determine the winner.
More than 270,000 students across Canada participate each year through their schools, public libraries, literacy centres and at home.
There are six English-language categories:
- Blue Spruce Award: picture books for readers in kindergarten to Grade 2
- Silver Birch Express Award: fiction or nonfiction for readers in Grades 3-4
- Silver Birch Fiction Award: fiction for readers from Grades 3-6
- Yellow Cedar Award: nonfiction for readers in Grades 4-8
- Red Maple Award: fiction for readers in Grades 7-8
- White Pine Award: fiction for readers in high school
The 10 finalists in each category are chosen by a committee of of library practitioners.
CBC Books will host the awards ceremonies for each category, revealing the six English-language winners.
Throughout the month of June, CBC Books will be highlighting the finalists in each category leading up to the virtual ceremonies.
The Forest of Reading program is organized by the Ontario Library Association.
