What an amazing day!!  What could be better than spending a great day with fellow book lovers including my daughter and friends at Canada Reads?  After a bit of panic with a delay on the highway, we made it to the GO station and into Toronto to met up with our CanadianContent Goodreads group friends from as far away as Bermuda (yes, I did say Bermuda) and Kingston (Ontario)!

The finale was amazing with two fantastic books squaring off against each other: Homes and By Chance Alone (I am sorry but I am behind in my book reviews so will be adding blog posts about the books soon).  Chuck Comeau was his at his strongest today, highlighting the importance of a young person’s story about his refugee experience.  He took his role so seriously and seemed much more comfortable debating today yet saddened by the loss of Homes.  Like my daughter kept saying, how can you argue against the Holocaust?  It is so important to understand the past to ensure it is never repeated and Ziya Tong led By Chance to victory in a very polished and prepared debate!  Check out day four here.

In the end, the readers won with 5 great books (okay, really 4 as I still struggled with The Woo Woo but some people did somehow find it humorous… I am still not sure what was funny but do agree that mental health is a very important topic).  The authors also won with the brisk sale of their books (not to mentioned the booksellers)  and the audience won with an invigorating opportunity to be in the audience (or listen from their cars, or watch later on the CBC stream).

It was an amazing day!!  Our group is very thankful to both Tara and Chloe at CBC for their help in arranging group tickets and to the CBC Books for a great event!  We celebrated with lunch before we parted ways but are already looking forward to Canada Reads 2020!!!