Sarah Leavitt

Fiction: Sarah Leavitt, Agnes, Murderess (Freehand Books)
"Sarah Leavitt delivers a most powerful story, artfully tying together the engaging voice of her protagonist with well-timed ellipses and magical drawings that are the hallmark of the successful graphic novel." – Vine Awards Jury

Matti Friedman

History: Matti Friedman, Spies of No Country (Signal, McClelland & Stewart)
"Spies of No Country reads like a spy-thriller page-turner, replete with all the suspense of double identities and the close calls of betrayals–except that this is not a work of fiction. Well researched, and offering up much intriguing and gritty detail, it is the unveiling of several intricately-woven true stories of the earliest days of Mossad, and the pivotal, but until now obscured, role of the four Arab Jews who laid the underground work for the imminent birth of the country of Israel." – Vine Awards Jury

Naomi K. Lewis

Non-Fiction: Naomi K. Lewis, Tiny Lights for Travellers (University of Alberta Press)
"In this memoir, Lewis appears to be on a quest to retrace the actual route of her beloved Opa’s escape from German Controlled Europe, but along the way, traveling alone from Amsterdam to Lyon, unexpected family secrets are unearthed. In the best tradition of the memoir form, Lewis’s explorations take her well beyond her expectations, and she finds that her initial quest is a small part of a much larger understanding of herself and her Jewishness." – Vine Awards Jury

Eric Walters and Kathy Kacer

Young Adult/Children's Literature: Eric Walters and Kathy Kacer, Broken Strings (Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers)
"Broken Strings seamlessly blends themes of young love, artistic identity, 9/11, grief, and the Auschwitz orchestra into a moving and insightful young adult novel." – Vine Awards Jurys Jury