Shayla Stonechild, championing A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, wins Canada Reads 2025

CBC Books

· Posted: Mar 20, 2025 11:07 AM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hr ago

After a fewer days of fierce and thoughtful debates, Shayla Stonechild has won Canada Reads 2025. The publication she championed, A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, with Mary Louisa Plummer, survived the elimination ballot connected March 20, 2025.

• Watch the Canada Reads 2025 finale

Podcaster and wellness advocator Stonechild successfully argued that A Two-Spirit Journey best fits the taxable arsenic "one publication to alteration the narrative."

In A Two-Spirit Journey, Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian who grew up successful a distant bluish Ontario community, tells the communicative of however she overcame experiences with maltreatment and intoxicant addiction to go a counsellor and pb Thunder Bay's archetypal cheery pridefulness parade. 

• What being two-spirit means to Indigenous elder Ma-Nee Chacaby

Stonechild shed a fewer blessed tears aft learning that she won and discussed the four-day accelerated she did conscionable earlier the competition.

"I really went done a truly idiosyncratic and extremist transformation," she said. "It's my 2nd twelvemonth four-day fasting. And this is thing that I deliberation we request arsenic Indigenous radical arsenic a reclamation of our ceremonies and of transportation to Creator and this is what I wanted to champion Ma-Nee for is due to the fact that there's solutions, there's ways forward and there's action."

"I would impulse Canadians and each listeners to instrumentality action, but besides to unfastened your bosom similar Ma-Nee's. There's been truthful galore strangers that person helped her on her travel and that's what makes america Canadian and that's what makes america unite as a state and arsenic a nation."

In a property statement, Chacaby said that winning Canada Reads is an "unexpected and beauteous gift."

"Mary and I privation to convey everyone who joined america connected this travel and made it possible, particularly our friends and loved ones, and the fantastic unit of the University of Manitoba Press and  Canada Reads. We truly admit each of the readers and the different writers that besides joined america connected this journey," she wrote.

"Most of each we are grateful to Shayla Stonechild for choosing the publication and championing it truthful well! We anticipation the publication volition animate different radical to archer their stories, particularly First Nations elders who person truthful overmuch to share. I promote everybody to conscionable bask your beingness contiguous and retrieve to emotion yourself."

LISTEN | Shayla Stonechild and Ma-Nee Chacaby on The Next Chapter:  

Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew was the runner-up. Pastry chef Saïd M'Dahoma championed the moving novel.

Dandelion is a caller astir household secrets, migration, isolation, motherhood and intelligence illness. When Lily was a child, her mother, Swee Hua, walked distant from the household and was ne'er heard from again. After becoming a caller parent herself, Lily is obsessed with discovering what happened to Swee Hua.

She recalls increasing up successful a British Columbia mining municipality wherever determination were lone a fistful of Asian families and however Swee Hua longed to instrumentality to Brunei. Eventually, a hint leads Lily to southeast Asia to find retired the information astir her mother.

• Dandelion tells a generational communicative of migration — work an excerpt now

Ultimately, Dandelion lost to A Two-Spirit Journey in a 3-2 vote connected the last day.

WATCH | Linwood Barclay and Shayla Stonechild sermon memoirs connected Day One of Canada Reads 2025: 

Stonechild is a Red River Métis and Nehiyaw iskwew (Plains Cree woman) from Muscowpetung First Nations. She founded the Matriarch Movement, an online platform, podcast and nonprofit that amplifies Indigenous voices and provides wellness opportunities for Indigenous women and two-spirit individuals.

• Shayla Stonechild recommends 5 books that changed her life

She is besides a planetary yoga ambassador for Lululemon and is the archetypal Indigenous idiosyncratic featured connected Yoga Journal's cover. Stonechild has hosted APTN's Red Earth Uncovered, appeared connected Season 9 of Amazing Race Canada and co-hosted ET Canada's Artists & Icons: Indigenous Entertainers successful Canada for which she won 2 Canadian Screen Awards.

The 2025 Canada Reads winner brought a beardown and well-researched position to the debates, some making a beardown lawsuit for the A Two-Spirit Journey and acknowledging the merits of the different books successful contention.

One of her poignant arguments revolved astir the powerfulness of vulnerability in A Two-Spirit Journey and the mode Chacaby brings a affirmative outlook contempt each the challenges she faced.

"In today's society, vulnerability is often seen arsenic a weakness and I deliberation that's what Ma-Nee has, that's her strength," she said. "For maine speechmaking it, I was like, 'Oh, wow, I bash person the powerfulness to stock some the acheronian and the airy due to the fact that that's a portion of the quality experience.'"

"I don't deliberation we should discredit oregon fell distant oregon consciousness ashamed oregon consciousness blameworthy for  the traumas that person happened to america due to the fact that a portion of healing is transmuting that acheronian and bringing it into the light."

• Past Canada Reads contenders and winners

Chacaby is a two-spirit  Ojibwa-Cree writer, artist, storyteller and activist. She lives successful Thunder Bay, Ont., and was raised by her grandmother near Lake Nipigon, Ont. Chacaby won the Ontario Historical Society's Alison Prentice Award and the Oral History Association's Book Award for A Two-Spirit Journey.

In 2021, Chacaby won the Community Hero Award from the politician of Thunder Bay.

Her co-writer and adjacent friend, Plummer, is a societal idiosyncratic whose enactment focuses connected nationalist wellness and children's rights. She collaborated with Chacaby, who lone learned English aboriginal successful beingness and is visually impaired, to archer Chacaby's communicative successful the astir authentic imaginable way, drafting connected world probe astir Indigenous storytelling and years of relationship and communal trust.

The different 3 books were eliminated earlier successful the week. Thriller novel Watch Out for Her by Samantha M. Bailey, championed by Maggie Mac Neil, was eliminated connected Day One. The memoir Jennie's Boy by Wayne Johnston, defended by Linwood Barclay, was eliminated connected Day Two. Novel Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper, championed by Michelle Morgan, was eliminated connected Day Three.

WATCH | A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, with Mary Louisa Plummer Canada Reads 2025 trailer: 

This year's amusement was hosted by Ali Hassan. The contenders and their chosen books were:

• Olympic golden medallist Maggie Mac Neil champions Watch Out for Her by Samantha M. Bailey
• Podcaster and wellness advocator Shayla Stonechild champions A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, with Mary Louisa Plummer
• Heartland actor Michelle Morgan champions Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
• Thriller writer Linwood Barclay champions Jennie's Boy by Wayne Johnston
• Pastry cook Saïd M'Dahoma champions Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew