Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton has won Canada’s premier literature debate, Canada Reads! Championed by Jeopardy! star Mattea Roach, Ducks was chosen this year as the book every Canadian should read.
“Roach successfully argued that Ducks — an autobiographical graphic memoir that recounts author Beaton’s time spent working in the Alberta oil sands — best fits the Canada Reads 2023 theme as the ‘one book to shift your perspective.’ After getting a job in the camps to pay off her student debt, she recounts her experiences with economic migration, sexism and environmental destruction through an illustrated narrative.”—CBC Books
“We are all implicated in the story Ducks tells. Ducks is one woman’s story, but it is the story of an industry that we all rely on in some way. Whether we are people living in Alberta who go to work in the sands … Whether we’re people that live in central Canada who benefit from the wealth this industry creates. We are all implicated.”—Mattea Roach
Images courtesy of CBC Books.