Sydney Smith is the inaugural winner of the Sheila Barry Best Canadian Picturebook of the Year Award. The Nova Scotia illustrator won for his picture book Small in the City.

The $2,500 prize, created in honour of the late Sheila Barry, who was the publisher and an editor for Toronto-based children's publisher Groundwood Books, celebrates the best picture book by a Canadian writer, published in the previous year.

Small in the City is about a young boy exploring the downtown of a city after having stepped off a streetcar on a snowy day. On his journey, the boy discovers shortcuts and friendly faces, all the while trying to find his way home.

The picture book, which won the 2019 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — illustration, is the first book that the Halifax-based writer and illustrator has both illustrated and written.

"Small in the City takes readers young and old on a journey full of tension and surprise. The exquisitely rendered images not only illustrate, but advance the story, adding layers of feeling. Together with Smith's deceptively simple text, they convey both the vulnerability of children and their resourcefulness. But ultimately, this book is about more than a lost pet. It dramatizes the universal human fear of being separated from those we love. Then, gently, compassionately, it leads us back home where hope awaits," the jury said in a press release.

The jury for the prize was comprised of Caroline Adderson, Tonya Lowe and Logaine Navascues.

They also selected three honour books from the 10-book shortlist.

The honour books are Pokko and the Drum by Matthew Forsythe, Me, Toma and the Concrete Garden by Andrew Larsen and illustrated by Anne Villeneuve and The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota's Garden by Heather Smith and illustrated by Rachel Wada.

There will be a virtual celebration for the prize on Nov. 14, 2020.