Toronto by Jessica Yang
2025 finalist: Grades 10 to 12 category
Toronto by Jessica Yang is a finalist in the 2025 First Page student writing challenge in the Grades 10 to 12 category.
Students across Canada wrote the first page of a novel set 150 years in the future, imagining how a current-day trend or issue has played out. About 1,000 students submitted their stories.
The shortlist was selected by a team of expert CBC readers. The winners will be selected by YA writer S.K. Ali and be announced on June 12.
Yang, 16, a student at St. Clement's School in Toronto., writes about artificial capitalism and control.
Cha-ching.
A crisp fifty slides down the slot. Shades of yellow, red and blue flash across the screen, along with YOU WIN written in big green, bold letters. I grab the bill and pocket it, grinning wide at my victory.
It doesn't matter that everyone wins this game—or any game as a matter of fact—because as Leader Wilkins says, there is no such thing as failure here.
I adjust my glasses, making sure that it's on Sun Mode to block the sunlight bouncing off the ever-glistening walls. All around me, people smile and laugh. I don't blame them. Toronto is absolutely enthralling. Since its expansion, the city now sits over the majority of North America. And as promised, it has been specially curated to fill all desires and necessities—for everyone here, at least.
Everything is indoors, including the painted-on skies and lush, plastic forests.
I was just a young child when I arrived. My parents dropped me off in the casino hall before fleeing with my baby sister, running away from dark figures waiting outside. All I remember was we had no money and Toronto was going to be the first vacation we would ever have. But Leader Wilkins found me alone and saved me.
I'm about to play the game again when someone collides with my legs. Peering over the frames of my glasses, I spot a little girl in a torn-up coat staring at me. The hairs at the back of my neck rise. I recognize her from somewhere.
"Oh. Hello, little girl," I manage to say, staring into familiar brown, doe-eyes.
Silence.
"Where are your parents?"
She shakes her head. I don't know what to do except comment on what she's wearing. Leader Wilkins told us that starting a conversation with comments on appearance is polite.
"Why are you wearing a coat? Don't you know the sun comes out on Tuesdays?"
Suddenly, a government officer appears next to her.
Panic surges through me, and I find myself reaching for her hand. She takes it, and we start running through the chaos of Toronto.
About The First Page student writing challenge
CBC Books asked students to give us a glimpse of the great Canadian novel of the year 2175. They wrote the first page of a book set 150 years in the future, with the protagonist facing an issue that's topical today and set the scene for how it's all playing out in a century and a half.
Two winning entries — one from the Grades 7 to 9 category and one from the Grades 10 to 12 category — will be chosen by bestselling YA author S.K. Ali.
Her books include the YA novels Saints and Misfits, Love from A to Z and Love from Mecca to Medina. She has also ventured into children's books with her picture book The Proudest Blue and the middle-grade anthology she co-edited, Once Upon an Eid which won the Middle East Book Honor Award in 2020.
Her latest novel explores a different genre to everything she has done before — dystopian science fiction. In Fledgling: The Keeper's Records of Revolution, the first of a YA duology, two Earths are on the brink of self destruction.
Winners will receive...
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A one-year subscription to OwlCrate, which sends fresh boxes of books to young readers across Canada on a monthly basis.
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50 free YA books for their school library
You can read the complete rules and regulations here.
Last year's winners were Toronto's Anya Thadani in the Grades 7 to 9 category for Fixed and Kleefeld, Man's Hayley Peters in the Grades 10 to 12 for Forbidden Realities.
The winner will be announced on CBC Books on June 12, 2025.
