{"id":155815,"date":"2025-09-10T23:24:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T23:24:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:24:00","slug":"vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/","title":{"rendered":"Vernon author&#8217;s kids book shortlisted for Canadian honour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chad Soon nearly fell out of his chair when he saw&nbsp;his book on the computer screen.<\/p>\n<p>Soon, from Vernon, a Grade 5 teacher at Mission Hill Elementary, was watching the live streaming of the Canadian Children&#39;s Book Centre&#39;s seven major awards for 2025, celebrating Canadian books for young people.<\/p>\n<p>When it came time to announce the finalists for the Sharon Fitzhenry Award for Canadian Children&#39;s Non-Fiction, Soon&#39;s book The Longest Shot &ndash; How Larry Kwong Changed the Face of Hockey &ndash; was among those read out by the narrator.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ds32kGB2d0U?si=rt4i825BpXZ0q2gv\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"560\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The book was published by Orca Book Publishers.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#39;s super exciting,&quot; said Soon of the nomination. He co-authored the book with Stouffville, Ont.&#39;s George Chiang while Amy Qi of Markham, Ont. provided the illustrations.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#39;s Larry&#39;s book. It&#39;s Larry&#39;s story. His daughter said he would have been thrilled and happy with the way his story is told.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The Longest Shot is the story of Vernon&#39;s Larry Kwong, who left the family home in downtown Vernon to become the first player of Asian descent to play in the National Hockey League when he took a one-minute shift for the New York Rangers in the third period of a game in March 1948 at the old Forum against the Montreal Canadiens.<\/p>\n<p>Soon&#39;s book impressed the nomination panel, who wrote of the book:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;With a wonderful narrative style and a mix of bright illustrations and photographs, this is an incredibly compelling and enlightening story of the amazing Larry Kwong &mdash; the first NHLer of Asian descent&hellip; Larry&#39;s story is important in making young readers aware of the shameful history of racism that the NHL is only slowly beginning to redress&hellip; Despite the racism and discrimination that he had to fight every step of his career, Larry Kwong never gave up and was an amazing hockey superstar&hellip; This is a story of resilience and an important chapter in Canadian hockey history; Larry Kwong&#39;s story will educate and warm hearts of readers young and old.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The book is among five finalists for the Fitzhenry award, which carries with it a $10,000 first prize. The award for Canadian Children&#39;s Non-Fiction is new in 2025, with the Fitzhenry Family Foundation providing the award prize.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The winner will be announced Monday, Oct. 27, in Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>The nominated titles in all seven categories&nbsp;&quot;represent exceptional quality of work by Canadian book creators from across the country,&quot; said CCBC. &quot;Each nominated title captures the imaginations of young readers and was chosen by our juries to represent the best in their category.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Soon&#39;s book is also a non-fiction finalist for the 2025-2026 Red Cedar Book Awards, which &quot;encourages kids, families, and educators from across B.C. to read the nominated non-fiction and fiction books, talk about, and vote for their favourite titles.<\/p>\n<p>The Longest Shot is up against 12 other non-fiction works.<\/p>\n<p>Kwong, who died in 2018 at the age of 94, was inducted this past summer into the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame in Penticton. Soon has been championing for Kwong&#39;s induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I feel hockey fans should know more about Larry, and I think the league (NHL) could do more to highlight his impact,&quot; said Soon. &quot;Not just beyond that one-minute shift, but what a big deal it was for Chinese-Canadians.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I just hope Larry gets the recognition he deserves.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Kwong was a star in senior hockey leagues after his lone NHL shift, and finished his playing career in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chad Soon co-wrote the non-fiction book The Longest Shot: How Larry Kwong Changed the Face of Hockey with Ontario man<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":155820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-video"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Vernon author&#039;s kids book shortlisted for Canadian honour - The Interior News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vernon author&#039;s kids book shortlisted for Canadian honour - The Interior News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chad Soon co-wrote the non-fiction book The Longest Shot: How Larry Kwong Changed the Face of Hockey with Ontario man\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Interior News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-10T23:24:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Staff reports\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Staff reports\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/\",\"name\":\"Vernon author's kids book shortlisted for Canadian honour - The Interior News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2025\/09\/250918-soon-book1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-10T23:24:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b2a2559930289000cbfc74c234c9073b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/2025\/09\/10\/vernon-authors-kids-book-shortlisted-for-canadian-honour\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2025\/09\/250918-soon-book1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/interior-news.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2025\/09\/250918-soon-book1.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":800,\"caption\":\"Vernon's Chad Soon is co-author of the non-fiction children's book about Vernon hockey player Larry Kwong called The Longest Shot: How Larry Kwong Changed the Face of Hockey. 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