Forest of Reading Red Maple Award

The Red Maple Award is an award in the Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading Awards. The Red Maple Award celebrates fiction and non-fiction Canadian books for grades 7–8 every year. Out of ten nominated books in each category students must read a minimum of five to vote for their favourite. The winner is chosen by the most popular book in all participating libraries, schools, groups, etc.

History

Five years after the original Silver Birch Award was created an award for grades 7–9, the Red Maple Award was created. In 2005 a non-fiction subcategory of the Red Maple Award was created. It runs on all odd-numbered years.
So far, there have been 22 awards in fiction and 8 in non fiction.
Only seven authors have won the award more than once: Eric Walters with four, Susin Neilsen and Kenneth Oppel with three each, and Gayle Friesen, Wesley King, Norah McClintock, and Andreas Schroeder with two each. Friesen was the first to win the award twice, while Walters was the first to win three and four times.
Kenneth Oppel was the first to win back to back in 2005 and 2006, followed by Eric Walters in 2007 and 2008. Andreas Schroeder was the first to win back to back in non-fiction in 2005 and 2007.
Carol Matas was the first fiction winner, while Andreas Schroeder was the first non-fiction winner.