On October 28, 2004 the Canadian Children’s Book Centre and the TD Bank Financial Group announced the establishment of a brand-new annual, children’s book award, the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award for the most distinguished book of the year. “Distinguished” is defined as marked by conspicuous excellence and/or eminence, individually distinct and noted for significant achievement with excellence in quality.

All books, in any genre, written by a Canadian and for children ages 1 through 12 are eligible. In the case of a picture book, both the author and the illustrator must be Canadian. Only books first published in Canada are eligible for submission.

The grand prize is $20,000 for the most distinguished book written in English and $20,000 for the most distinguished book written in French. In addition, there is a total of $20,000 awarded for honour book winners with a maximum of four books being eligible for the honour list in each language category.

$2,500 shall go to the publisher of the grand prize-winning book for promotion and publicity purposes.

There will be five judges for the English-language award and five for the French-language award. In finding the two most distinguished books of the year, the judges will, in their deliberations, consider only the individual book and not the entire body of work by an author nor whether the author has previously won the award.

2008 TD Canadian Children's Literature Award

7th November- Toronto- Windsor-based children's author Christopher Paul Curtis has won the fourth annual English language prize in the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award.

He receives a $20,000 prize, one of the largest for children's literature in Canada.

The award recognized his book Elijah of Buxton, about an 11-year-old boy living with runaway slaves in Ontario who goes back to the United States and discovers first-hand the horrors of the life his parents fled. christopher_paul_curtis

Curtis, originally from Flint, Mich., has lived in Windsor for 25 years. His other award-winning books include The Watsons Go to Birmingham, Bud, Not Buddy and Bucking the Sarge.

Elijah of Buxton has also received the Coretta Scott King Book Award for best African-American youth fiction and a Newbery Honor Award.

The other finalists were authors Hugh Brewster for Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose: The Story of a Painting; Kenneth Oppel for Darkwing; Shane Peacock for Eye of the Crow: The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His First Case; and Frieda Wishinsky for Please, Louise. They will share a $10,000 award.

The TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award for the most distinguished French-language book of the year was presented in Montreal on Oct. 29, 2008 to author Gilles Vigneault and illustrator Stéphane Jorisch for Un cadeau pour Sophie (A Gift for Sophie).

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2007	English Language	Sarah Ellis Odd Man Out. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2006.
2007	French Language	André Leblanc L’Envers de la chanson : des enfants au travail 1850-1950. Montreal: Les éditions Les 400 coups, 2006.
2006	English Language	Pamela Porter The Crazy Man. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2005.
2006	French Language	François Gravel David et le salon funéraire. Illustrated by Pierre Pratt. St-Lambert, QC: Dominique et compagnie, 2005.
2005	English Language	Marthe Jocelyn Mable Riley: A Reliable Record of Humdrum, Peril, and Romance. Toronto: Tundra Books, 2004.
2005	French Language	François Barcelo Le nul et la chipie. Illustrated by Anne Villeneuve. St-Lambert, QC: Soulières Éditeur, 2004.