[1] The prize for writers and illustrators was $25,000 and "a specially bound copy of the winning book".
[1] The Canada Council for the Arts, the award program's administrator, faced some criticism around its nomination of the graphic novel Skim in the Children's Literature category.
Two prominent Canadian graphic novelists, Chester Brown and Seth, circulated an open letter to the Canada Council asking them to revise the nomination,[2] arguing that unlike a more traditional illustrated book, a graphic novel's text and illustration are inseparable parts of the work's narrative, and that both women should accordingly be credited as equal co-authors.
Their letter was also endorsed by other prominent Canadian and American graphic novelists, including Lynda Barry, Dan Clowes, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware and Julie Doucet, as well as by Chris Oliveros of Canadian comic and graphic novel publisher Drawn & Quarterly and Peter Birkemore of Toronto comic store The Beguiling.
[4] The Canada Council later faced controversy over its selection of Jacob Scheier's More to Keep Us Warm as the winner in the poetry category.