Canada Reads panel makes its choice

CBC Radio'sCanada Reads panel chose a single book on Friday it recommends be read by all Canadians.

After two rounds of voting, the all-star panel of winners from previous editions of Canada Reads chose Lullabies for Little Criminals, by Heather O'Neill.

Lullabies for Little Criminals follows the progress of Baby, a young girl making her way through a Montreal underworld of drugs and prostitution.

"I'm very excited [we chose] Lullabies for Little Criminals because it's a first-time writer and I think this will help it get out there in the world," said John Samson, a musician with the Weakerthans, who defended the book.

CBC Radio One host Bill Richardson compared this year's winner to Miriam Toew's A Complicated Kindness, also championed by Samson, which won last year.

Both are coming-of-age stories and very similar in tone, he said.

"The stories are universal and universal because they are so specific," Samson said, noting that A Complicated Kindness is set in Manitoba, close to home for him, while O'Neill's book has a very different setting.

Found themes disturbing

The panellist most opposed to the choice was author and broadcaster Denise Bombardier, who voted against it consistently and said she found the themes of drug use and child prostitution disturbing.

"It's about the trash issues that we have everywhere in our time," she said.

"It's too depressing as a book for all of Canada to read. I'm not at ease with it."

But Samson said there was an element of hope despite the bleak landscape.

"We have to look at these brutalities because they go on every day," he said.

There were three books in contention going into Friday's show Lullabies for Little Criminals, Stanley Park by Timothy Taylor and The Song of Kahunsha by Anosh Irani.

The Song of Kahunsha, about an orphan child trying to survive in Mumbai, was eliminated in the first vote by the panel.

Stanley Park is about a Vancouver restaurateur and his troubled relationship with his father, who is an anthropologist among the homeless in Stanley Park.

The panel praised the ambition of the book, which deals with themes of globalization, alienation, homelessness and selling out.

"I was disappointed because it was not as nuanced as it could be," said Steven Page, of Barenaked Ladies.

Stanley Park was eliminated in the second vote. The other panellists on Canada Reads were author Donna Morrissey and musician Jim Cuddy.

The Canada Reads series is airing daily this week on CBC Radio One at 11:30 a.m. (12 noon NT) and 7:30 p.m. (8 p.m. NT).