After a few days of fierce and thoughtful debates, Shayla Stonechild has won Canada Reads 2025. The book she championed, A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, with Mary Louisa Plummer, survived the elimination vote on March 20, 2025.
Podcaster and wellness advocate Stonechild successfully argued that A Two-Spirit Journey best fits the theme as “one book to change the narrative.”
In A Two-Spirit Journey, Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian who grew up in a remote northern Ontario community, tells the story of how she overcame experiences with abuse and alcohol addiction to become a counsellor and lead Thunder Bay’s first gay pride parade.
Stonechild shed a few happy tears after learning that she won and discussed the four-day fast she did just before the competition.
“I really went through a really personal and radical transformation,” she said. “It’s my second year four-day fasting. And this is something that I think we need as Indigenous people as a reclamation of our ceremonies and of connection to Creator and this is what I wanted to champion Ma-Nee for is because there’s solutions, there’s ways forward and there’s action.”
“I would urge Canadians and all listeners to take action, but also to open your heart like Ma-Nee’s. There’s been so many strangers that have helped her along her journey and that’s what makes us Canadian and that’s what makes us unite as a country and as a nation.”
In a press statement, Chacaby said that winning Canada Reads is an “unexpected and beautiful gift.”
“Mary and I want to thank everyone who joined us on this journey and made it possible, especially our friends and loved ones, and the wonderful staff of the University of Manitoba Press and Canada Reads. We really appreciate all of the readers and the other writers that also joined us on this journey,” she wrote.
“Most of all we are grateful to Shayla Stonechild for choosing the book and championing it so well! We hope the book will inspire other people to tell their stories, especially First Nations elders who have so much to share. I encourage everybody to just enjoy your life today and remember to love yourself.”
The Next Chapter25:09Shayla Stonechild shares an Ojibwa-Cree elder’s message of hope and healing with Canada Reads
Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew was the runner-up. Pastry chef Saïd M’Dahoma championed the moving novel.
Dandelion is a novel about family secrets, migration, isolation, motherhood and mental illness. When Lily was a child, her mother, Swee Hua, walked away from the family and was never heard from again. After becoming a new mother herself, Lily is obsessed with discovering what happened to Swee Hua.
She recalls growing up in a British Columbia mining town where there were only a handful of Asian families and how Swee Hua longed to return to Brunei. Eventually, a clue leads Lily to southeast Asia to find out the truth about her mother.
Ultimately, Dandelion lost to A Two-Spirit Journey in a 3-2 vote on the final day.
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.
She is also a global yoga ambassador for Lululemon and is the first Indigenous person featured on Yoga Journal’s cover. Stonechild has hosted APTN’s Red Earth Uncovered, appeared on Season 9 of Amazing Race Canada and co-hosted ET Canada’s Artists & Icons: Indigenous Entertainers in Canada for which she won two Canadian Screen Awards.
The 2025 Canada Reads winner brought a strong and well-researched perspective to the debates, both making a strong case for the A Two-Spirit Journey and acknowledging the merits of the other books in contention.
One of her poignant arguments revolved around the power of vulnerability in A Two-Spirit Journey and the way Chacaby brings a positive outlook despite all the challenges she faced.
“In today’s society, vulnerability is often seen as a weakness and I think that’s what Ma-Nee has, that’s her strength,” she said. “For me reading it, I was like, ‘Oh, wow, I do have the power to share both the dark and the light because that’s a part of the human experience.'”
“I don’t think we should discredit or hide away or feel ashamed or feel guilty for the traumas that have happened to us because a part of healing is transmuting that darkness and bringing it into the light.”
Chacaby is a two-spirit Ojibwa-Cree writer, artist, storyteller and activist. She lives in 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 mayor of Thunder Bay.
Her co-writer and close friend, Plummer, is a social scientist whose work focuses on public health and children’s rights. She collaborated with Chacaby, who only learned English later in life and is visually impaired, to tell Chacaby’s story in the most authentic possible way, drawing on academic research about Indigenous storytelling and years of friendship and mutual trust.
The other three books were eliminated earlier in the week. Thriller novel Watch Out for Her by Samantha M. Bailey, championed by Maggie Mac Neil, was eliminated on Day One. The memoir Jennie’s Boy by Wayne Johnston, defended by Linwood Barclay, was eliminated on Day Two. Novel Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper, championed by Michelle Morgan, was eliminated on Day Three.
This year’s show was hosted by Ali Hassan. The contenders and their chosen books were:
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