The White Pine Award

I mentioned in my review of Getting the Girl that I was planning on doing a post about the Ontario Library Association’s White Pine Award program. Well, as promised, here it is. 

Every year the OLA hosts the Forest of Reading program where 10 different Canadian authors/illustrators are nominated for an award in 7 different age groups/ categories. It’s called the Forest of Reading because all of the categories names are tree related (pretty clever huh?).  I’m going to focus on the White Pine award because it’s directed at high school students and YA books.

The program is supported through local public and school libraries across Ontario and ultimately the goal is get people reading, no matter what their age!! Something I whole heartedly support. The nominees are announced in November and the cool thing about the program is that participants get to vote for their favourite book at the end of April and the whole thing culminates with the awesome Festival of Trees in May of each year. The Festival of Trees is a two day event held at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto where the participants have the opportunity to attend and meet the authors. Ohh, and of course they give out the award!! Last year’s winner of the White Pine Award was Mostly Happy by Pam Bustin.

Here is a list of the 2011 White Pine Nominee’s. (with links)

1. 1.   Borderline- Allan Stratton

2.  2.   Fear the Worst- Linwood Barclay

3.  3.   Fishtailing- Wendy Phillips

4.  4.   Gravity Brings Me Down- Natale Ghent

5.  5.   Hearts at Stake- Alyxandra Harvey

6.  6.   The Monkeyface Chronicles- Richard Scarsbrook

7.  7.   The Second Trial- Rosemarie Boll

8.  8.   Some Girls Are- Courtney Summers

9.  9.   Swim the Fly- Don Calame

1010.  The Worst Thing She Ever Did- Alice Kuipers

There are three books on this list on my TBR radar that I think would really appeal to the guys out there, so I`m going to try and get my hands on copies and post a review for all of you to check out! 

This year’s Festival of Trees is being held May 11^th and 12^th. I plan on being there and when it`s all said and done I`ll definitely be posting all about it!

In the meantime check out the Forest of Reading Website to learn more about this amazing program! It really highlights some of the best YA books coming out of Canada.  And Canada is pretty awesome. Just saying.