Pack your bags and prepare for the first chapter in a tour around the world! Joins us every third Tuesday until June 2024, where we will discuss a title set in a different country and/or written by a foreign author.

When you pick up a copy of September's title, you will receive a Traveler's Guide to keep with you for the year, in which you may keep notes as you read, draw something from the book that has inspired you, or bring up points you'd like to discuss during the meet-ups.

At every meeting you attend, you will get your "passport" stamped. We hope to see you well-traveled by summer 2024!

New to independent reading?

Join our family book club and discover great reading suggestions to get you started and keep you going. 

We will share favorites, listen to read-alouds and participate in book-related art activities.

For kids ages 6-8 and their adult reading partner.

Join in stimulating discussions on selected titles in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere on the last Friday of the month.

To kick off library month join us at SAW Centre for an in-person paneled discussion about Intellectual Freedom with: Farzana Doctor winner of 2023 Freedom to Read Award, David A Robertson winner of 2021 Freedom to Read Award and Canadian journalist, activist, author, and broadcaster Desmond Cole, moderated by Adrian Harewood. This 90-minute discussion will help bring the term of Intellectual Freedom into focus to help us understand what it is and why it is of critical importance to us all.

Farzana Doctor is a writer, activist, and psychotherapist. Her ancestry is Indian, and she was born in Zambia while her family was based there for five years, before immigrating to Canada. She has also received the following awards for her writing and activism: 2021 Choice Award from Planned Parenthood; 2022 McMaster University Alumni Gallery Inductee; 2023 Freedom to Read Award from The Writers' Union of Canada. While all her books are distinct from one another, some common themes include loss, relationships, community, healing, racism, LGBT rights, diasporic identity and feminism. She seamlessly blends strong stories with social justice issues.

David Alexander Robertson is an Indigenous Canadian author, public speaker, and two-time winner of the Governor General's Literary Award. He is the author of numerous books for young readers including When We Were Alone, which won the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award and the McNally Robinson Best Book for Young People Award. In 2021, he was the recipient of the Writers’ Union of Canada Freedom to Read Award as well as the Globe and Mail Children's Storyteller of the Year. He is a member of Norway House Cree Nation

Desmond Cole is a Canadian journalist, activist, author, and broadcaster. His debut book, The Skin We’re In, won the Toronto Book Award and was a finalist for the Forest of Reading Evergreen Aawrd and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. It was also named best book of 2020 by The Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine, CBC, Quill & Quire, and Indigo. Living in Toronto, Ontario, Desmond Cole engages with his community in issues that include housing, homelessness, racial discrimination, civic engagement and social supports for youth.

Adrian Harewood is a Canadian television and radio journalist. He has been a journalist for over a quarter century, hosting CBC Ottawa’s drive home radio show All in a Day for 3 years and then the anchor of CBC Ottawa News at Six for 13 years. He was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Interviewer in 2017 and he won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Local Anchor in 2020. Adrian also sits on the educational board of the University of Ottawa Press and is a board member of Journalists for Human Rights.

This event will also be streamed live on OPL's YouTube page:

https://youtube.com/live/k6usYGOfkm8