Spathelfer, Teoni, 1963- author.
2022
"A vivid dream teaches Little Wolf about courage and acceptance of those who are different, and inspires her to show her daughters and their classmates how to be proud of their diverse cultural backgrounds. Throughout her life, Little Wolf has been troubled by the injustice she sees all around her. When she was young, she was bullied for her Indigenous heritage. Her mother, White Raven, spent ten years in a residential school, separated from her family and isolated from her culture. Little Wolf's own children are growing up in a different, more open society, but hatred and racism still exist. Little Wolf worries about the world her daughters will inherit. One night, a vivid dream helps her realize her own strength as a leader and peacemaker in her community. Told with powerful imagery and symbolism, Abalone Woman is the third book in the Little Wolf series, which presents themes of racism, trauma, and family unity through relatable, age-appropriate narratives"-- Provided by publisher.
Mitchell, Brandon, author
2022
A Mi'kmaw girl battles an ancient giant and forms an unexpected friendship in the first volume of this series of graphic novels inspired by traditional stories. Long ago, all living creatures on this land shared a special balance with one another. The pugulatmu'j - the Little People - were the original guardians of the land, and they looked after all living things. As time passed, we forgot these playful yet powerful guardians, but they did not forget us. Occasionally, they make their presence known with the little tricks they play. When her hair clip disappears, Mali is devastated. It was special, made by her giju'. Her mom thinks she lost it, but Mali knows it was stolen by the pugulatmu'j. Soon after, Mali is surprised to meet Puug - and he's wearing her hair clip. If she helps him find what he needs, she has a chance of getting it back. As they hunt for the objects on Puug's list, Mali uncovers a lot of unanswered questions along the way.
Omulo, Priscilla, author.
2022
Author Priscilla Omulo addresses Canada's complicated history with Indigenous peoples and how that contributes to today's challenges in the business realm. While the challenge is real, so is the opportunity, and Omulo's step-by-step guide explains how any organization can make immediate plans to improve the way they do business by doing the research, consulting the right people, and formulating a strategy to move forward.
Gray Smith, Monique, 1968- adapter.
2022
"Botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer's best-selling book Braiding Sweetgrass is adapted for a young adult audience by children's author Monique Gray Smith, bringing Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the lessons of plant life to a new generation"-- Provided by publisher.
Vowel, Chelsea, author
2022
Powerful stories of "Métis futurism" that envision a world without violence, capitalism, and colonization. "Education is the new buffalo" is a metaphor widely used among Indigenous peoples in Canada to signify the importance of education to their survival and ability to support themselves, as once Plains nations supported themselves as buffalo peoples. The assumption is that many of the pre-Contact ways of living are forever gone, so adaptation is necessary. But Chelsea Vowel asks, "Instead of accepting that the buffalo, and our ancestral ways, will never come back, what if we simply ensure that they do?" Inspired by classic and contemporary speculative fiction, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo explores science fiction tropes through a Métis lens: a Two-Spirit rougarou (shapeshifter) in the nineteenth century tries to solve a murder in her community and joins the nêhiyaw-pwat (Iron Confederacy) in order to successfully stop Canadian colonial expansion into the West. A Métis man is gored by a radioactive bison, gaining super strength, but losing the ability to be remembered by anyone not related to him by blood. Nanites babble to babies in Cree, virtual reality teaches transformation, foxes take human form and wreak havoc on hearts, buffalo roam free, and beings grapple with the thorny problem of healing from colonialism. Indigenous futurisms seek to discover the impact of colonization, remove its psychological baggage, and recover ancestral traditions. These eight short stories of "Métis futurism" explore Indigenous existence and resistance through the specific lens of being Métis. Expansive and eye-opening, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo rewrites our shared history in provocative and exciting ways.
Wouters, Teresa, author
2022
"Sixteen-year-old Josh is no stranger to gang life. His dad, the leader of the Warriors, a gang on their reserve, is in jail, and Josh's older brother has taken charge. Josh's mom has made it clear the Warriors and their violence aren't welcome in her home--Josh's dad and brother included. She wants Josh to focus on graduating high school. Josh is unsure whether gang life is for him--that is until gang violence arrives on his doorstep. Turning to the Warriors, Josh, now known as "Creeboy," starts down the path to becoming a full gang member--cutting himself off from his friends, family and community outside the gang. It's harder than ever for Creeboy to envision a different future for himself. Will anything change his mind?"-- Publisher's website.
Daniel, Danielle, author
2022
1657. Marie, a gifted healer of the Deer Clan, does not want to marry the green-eyed soldier from France who has asked for her hand. But her people are threatened by disease and starvation and need help against the Iroquois and their English allies if they are to survive. When her chief begs her to accept the white man's proposal, she cannot refuse him. 1675. Jeanne, Marie's oldest child, is 17, neither white nor Algonquin, caught between worlds. Her heart belongs to a girl named Josephine, but soon her father will have to find her a husband or be forced to pay a hefty fine to the French crown.
Daniel, Danielle, author.
2022
Adventurous, trail-blazing Wolf lives in a northern mining town and spends her days exploring the mountains and wilderness with her three best friends Penny, Ann and Brandi. The girls' secret refuge is their tree-house hideaway, Birchwood, Wolf's favourite place on earth. When her beloved grandmother tells her that she is the great-granddaughter of a tree talker, Wolf knows that she is destined to protect the birch trees and wildlife that surround her. But Wolf's mother doesn't understand this connection at all. Not only is she reluctant to engage with their family's Indigenous roots, she seems suspiciously on the wrong side of the environmental protection efforts in their hometown.
Phillips, Katrina M., author
2022
"Indigenous Peoples' Day is about celebrating! The second Monday in October is a day to honor Native American people, their histories, and cultures. People mark the day with food, dancing, and songs. Readers will discover how a shared holiday can have multiple traditions and be celebrated in all sorts of ways"-- Provided by publisher.
George, Doris, author
2022
A magical children's picture book, written in Cree and English, depicting the transformation of a barren landscape into a rich natural world where an elderly couple can spend their remaining days. Don K. Philpot is an educator specializing in Cree language structures and use, language and literacy education, and childrens literature. Alyssa Koski is an illustrator and member of the Kainai Nation.
Whitehead, Joshua (Writer), author
2022
In the last few years, following the publication of his debut novel Jonny Appleseed, Joshua Whitehead has emerged as one of the most exciting and important new voices on Turtle Island. Now, in this first non-fiction work, Whitehead brilliantly explores Indigeneity, queerness, and the relationships between body, language and land through a variety of genres (essay, memoir, notes, confession). Making Love with the Land is a startling, heartwrenching look at what it means to live as a queer Indigenous person "in the rupture" between identities. In sharp, surprising, unique pieces--a number of which have already won awards--Whitehead illuminates this particular moment, in which both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are navigating new (and old) ideas about "the land." He asks: What is our relationship and responsibility towards it? And how has the land shaped our ideas, our histories, our very bodies? Here is an intellectually thrilling, emotionally captivating love song--a powerful revelation about the library of stories land and body hold together, waiting to be unearthed and summoned into word.
2022
"Today's hottest Native American and Indigenous talent make their mark with stories that explore the rich heritage of Marvel's incredible cast of Indigenous characters!"-- Provided by publisher.
Sorell, Traci, author
2022
Because she has been very ill and weak, River cannot join in the dancing at this year's tribal powwow, she can only watch from the sidelines as her sisters and cousins dance the celebration--but as the drum beats she finds the faith to believe that she will recover and dance again.
Fouillard, Camille, author.
2022
"One cold February morning in 1992, Anna receives a phone call, a request to work with the Utshimassiu Innu in Labrador to organize a people's inquiry, a self-examination into a house fire that killed six children. Eager to escape a complicated relationship and afraid to face the grief of losing her father, Anna accepts the invitation. She catches a plane, painfully aware that she doesn't have a clue what a people's inquiry might look like, and heads for Nitassinan. This world, with its own language and spirits, is where she's told children die because people do not care for the caribou bones. It is a world where an inquiry becomes a gathering of voices. As the community tells its story -- elders, men, women, and children -- Anna learns to listen deeply to their words, to the land, to the past and the present. Memories knit together to find meaning in a pain that cannot be named. She immerses herself and leans into her own grief. As she bears witness to the fiercely close community and the unexpected, tender, and courageous way they look after each other and carry on, she learns something about our collective need to imagine a future together, no matter how fragile and imperfect. Inspired by true events, and the Gathering Voices report, of which Fouillard served as editor, Precious Little is a unique enmeshing of the imagination with memories and experiences spanning decades of working and living with the Innu."--publisher.
Florence, Melanie, author
2022
Canada's residential school system for Indigenous children is now recognized as a grievous historic wrong committed against First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. Through historical photographs, documents and first-person narratives from people who survived residential schools, this book offers an account of the injustice of this period in Canadian history. It documents how official racism was confronted and finally acknowledged. In 1857, the Gradual Civilization Act was passed in Canada with the aim of assimilating Indigenous people. In 1879, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald commissioned a report that led to residential schools across Canada. First Nations and Inuit children were taken from their families and sent to residential schools where they were dressed in uniforms, their hair was cut, they were forbidden to speak their native language and they were often subjected to physical and psychological abuse. The schools were run by churches and funded by the federal government. The last federally funded residential school closed in 1996. The horrors that many children endured at residential schools did not go away. It took decades for people to speak out, but with the support of the Assembly of First Nations and Inuit organizations, former residential school students took the federal government and the churches to court. Their cases led to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history. In 2008, Prime Minister Harper formally apologized to former native residential school students for the atrocities they suffered and the role the government played in setting up the school system. The agreement included the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which has worked to document the experience. More than five years after the TRC Report was released, there have been reports of unmarked graves of children being discovered at the site of former residential schools. This updated edition includes some of those findings and examines what has and what still has to be done in regards to the TRC Report's Calls to Action.
Thistle, Jesse, author
2022
In his second moving collection, Jesse Thistle digs deeper into the poetic form, which is especially close to his heart. Charting his own history, the stories of people from his past, the burning intensity of new and unexpected love, the complex legacies of family and community, and the beauty of parenthood, this collection is a profound mediation that expands his engagement with the ideas and experiences that have shaped his body of work thus far.
2022
In 'Siksikaitsitapi', seven Blackfoot authors share their stories that come from both from legend and from their personal experiences, with many of the stories in both Blackfoot and English languages. The book is illustrated with beautiful full-colour pictures and photos which help convey their stories from Blackfoot traditional and contemporary traditions and cultures. The Blackfoot Confederacy is made up of the Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, and Amskapi Piikuni Nations of Southern Alberta and Montana. These stories were originally published as separate books in the Calgary Public Library, Treaty 7 language series.
Yellowhorn, Eldon, 1956- author
2022
"From healing to astronomy to our connection to the natural world, the lessons from Indigenous knowledge inform our learning and practices today. How do knowledge systems get passed down over generations? Through the knowledge inherited from their Elders and ancestors, Indigenous Peoples throughout North America have observed, practiced, experimented, and interacted with plants, animals, the sky, and the waters over millennia. Knowledge keepers have shared their wisdom with younger people through oral history, stories, ceremonies, and records that took many forms. In Sky Wolf's Call, award-winning author team of Eldon Yellowhorn and Kathy Lowinger reveal how Indigenous knowledge comes from centuries of practices, experiences, and ideas gathered by people who have a long history with the natural world. Indigenous knowledge is explored through the use of fire and water, the acquisition of food, the study of astronomy, and healing practices."-- Provided by publisher.
Van Camp, Richard, author
2022
"No one knows how a suit of samurai armour ended up in the Fort Smith museum. When a mysterious stranger turns up to claim it, Sonny, a young Tłı̨chǫ Dene boy, is eager to help. Shinobu has travelled to Fort Smith, NWT, to reclaim his grandfather's samurai sword and armour. But when he discovers that the sword was lost in a poker game, he must confront the man known as Benny the Bank. Along the way, Shinobu must rely on unlikely heroes--Sonny, his grandmother, and a visitor from the spirit world. Together, they face Benny and his men, including the giant they call Flinch. Will Shinobu be able to regain the lost sword and, with it, his family's honour? Can Sonny and his grandmother help Shinobu while keeping the peace in their community? Now in full-colour, this new edition includes additional background information and cultural context. Learn about the real-life inspiration behind the story and the intersections between Indigenous and Japanese-Canadian experiences during the Second World War"-- Provided by publisher
Robertson, David, 1977- author
2022
After discovering a near-lifeless Eli at the base of the Great Tree, Morgan knows she doesn't have much time to save him. And it will mean asking for help -- from friends old and new. Racing against the clock, and with Arik and Emily at her side, Morgan sets off to follow the trail away from the Great Tree to find Eli's soul before it's too late. As they journey deep into the northern woods, a place they've been warned never to enter, they face new challenges and life-threatening attacks from strange and horrifying creatures. But a surprise ally comes to their aid, and Morgan finds the strength to focus on what's most important: saving her brother's life.
Robertson, David, 1977- author
2022
Following a devastating tragedy, Matthew and his sixteen-year-old daughter, Holly, head out onto the land in search of a long-lost cabin on the family trapline, miles from the Cree community they once called home. Each of them searching for something more than a place. When things go wrong during the journey, they find they have only each other to turn to for support. What happens to father and daughter on the land will test them, and eventually heal them, in ways they never thought possible.
Poll, Willie, author
2022
In this beautifully illustrated book, a young, determined Anishnaabe girl decides to go on a transformative journey into a forest on her traditional territory, in search of adventure. She is joined by a chorus of women and girls in red dresses ancestors who tell her they remember what it was like to be carefree and wild too. Soon, though, the girl is challenged by a monster named Hate who envelops the girl in a cloud of darkness. With the creature at her heels, she climbs a mountain to try and evade him, and with the help of her matriarchs and the power of Thunder Bird, the monster vanishes. With Hate at bay, the women and girls beat their drums together in song and support to give the girl the confidence needed to become a changemaker in the future, able to fend off any monster in her way.
Wilson-Raybould, Jody, 1971-, author
2022
There is one question Canadians have asked Jody Wilson-Raybould more than any other: What can I do to help advance reconciliation? TRUE RECONCILIATION is broken down into three core practices - Learn, Understand, and Act - that can be applied by individuals, communities, organizations, and governments. They are based on the historical and contemporary experience of Indigenous peoples in their relentless efforts to effect transformative change and decolonization; and deep understanding and expertise about what has been effective in the past, what we are doing right, and wrong, today, and what our collective future requires. True Reconciliation, ultimately, is about building transformed patterns of just and harmonious relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples at all levels of society.
Newman, Carey, 1975- author
2022
This nonfiction book for middle-grade readers, illustrated with photographs, tells the story of the making of the Witness Blanket, a work by Indigenous artist Carey Newman that includes items from every residential school in Canada and stories from the Survivors who donated them.
Frost, Asha, author
2022