|
Spotlight On: 2020-2021 Longlist Titles
|
|
|
The Pencil
by Susan Avingaq (Writer), Maren Vsetula (Writer), Charlen Chua (Illustrator)
Susan and her sister, Rebecca, love watching their mother write letters to people in other camps. Their mother has one precious pencil, and she keeps it safe in her box for special things. One afternoon, Anaana leaves the iglu to help a neighbour, and Susan, Rebecca, and their brother Peter are left with their father. They play all their regular games but are soon out of things to do-until Ataata brings out the pencil! As Susan draws and draws, the pencil grows shorter and shorter. What will Anaana think when she comes home?
The Creators: Susan Avingaq was born on the land and moved to the community of Igloolik, Nunavut, in the mid-1970s. She loves to go camping and fishing whenever she can and often brings new people along to teach them these land skills. She enjoys sewing and teaching younger people important cultural practices. She is an extremely resourceful person and thinks that this is an important quality to pass on to the younger generation. She has many grandchildren, whom she likes to share her stories with.
Maren Vsetula is a teacher and educational writer. She loves to spend as much time on the land as she can, hiking, fishing, paddling, and dogsledding. She has lived and worked in Nunavut for over a decade.
Charlene Chua worked as a web designer, senior graphic designer, web producer, and interactive project manager before she decided to pursue illustration as a career. She grew up in Singapore, where she divided her time between drawing, reading comics and failing her Chinese classes. Her work has appeared in American Illustration, Spectrum, and SILA's Illustration West, as well as several art books. She illustrated the children's picture books Julie Black Belt: The Kung Fu Chronicles and Julie Black Belt: The Belt of Fire. She lives in Toronto.
|
|
|
Wolverine and Little Thunder: An Eel Fishing Story
by Alan Syliboy
Wolverine and Little Thunder enjoy eel fishing whatever the season, but one night they encounter a giant eel that they cannot catch. From the bestselling creator of The Thundermaker comes another adventure featuring Little Thunder and Wolverine a trickster, who is strong and fierce and loyal. The two are best of friends, even though Wolverine can sometimes get them into trouble. Their favourite pastime is eel fishing, whether it's cutting through winter ice with a stone axe or catching eels in traditional stone weirs in the summer. But that all changes one night, when they encounter the giant river eel the eel that is too big to catch. The eel that hunts people! At once a universal story of friendship and problem-solving, Wolverine and Little Thunder is a contemporary invocation of traditional Mi'kmaw knowledge, reinforcing the importance of the relationship between the Mi'kmaq and eel, a dependable year-round food source traditionally offered to Glooscap, the Creator, for a successful hunt.
The Creator: Alan Syliboy was born and raised in Truro, Nova Scotia. Living in the Millbrook First Nations community, he journeys through his life with a demeanour of strength. Alan has built an ever growing list of accomplishments throughout his lifetime, although many people are most familiar with his beautiful and unique works of art that captivate and inspire us.
Alan studied privately with Shirley Bear and attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where twenty-five years later, he was invited to sit on the Board of Governors. Alan looks to the indigenous Mi'kmaw petroglyph tradition for inspiration and develops his own artistic vocabulary out of those forms. This is his second children's book. He lives in Truro, Nova Scotia.
|
|
|
Crow Winter
by Karen McBride
Since coming home to Spirit Bear Point First Nation, Hazel Ellis has been dreaming of an old crow. He tells her he's here to help her, save her. From what, exactly? Sure, her dad's been dead for almost two years and she hasn't quite reconciled that grief, but is that worth the time of an Algonquin demigod? Soon Hazel learns that there's more at play than just her own sadness and doubt. The quarry that's been lying unsullied for over a century on her father's property is stirring the old magic that crosses the boundaries between this world and the next. With the aid of Nanabush, Hazel must unravel a web of deceit that, if left untouched, could destroy her family and her home on both sides of the Medicine Wheel.
The Creator: Karen McBride is an Algonquin Anishinaabe writer from the Timiskaming First Nation in the territory that is now Quebec. She holds a bachelor of arts in music and English, a bachelor of education from the University of Ottawa and a master of arts in creative writing from the University of Toronto. Karen works as an elementary school teacher on her home reserve. Crow Winter is her first novel.
|
|
|
From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way
by Jesse Thistle
From being lost and alone, falling apart, living on the streets and later to reconciliation, From the Ashes is Thistle’s life story. Through four parts from 1997 to 2015 he recounts life through his stories of growing up berry picking with his Kokum in Debden, Saskatchewan; through his parents’ separation, and living rough, begging and going hungry with his father and then being in foster care. School life, his teenage and later years discuss his pain of loss, friendships and loneliness and the consequences of some decisions made in the moment. Yet it is also a story of resilience and trying to find a home and another life.
The Creator: Jesse Thistle is a Métis-Cree-Scot Ph.D. Candidate in the History program at York University in Toronto, he also teaches there as an assistant professor where he is working on theories of intergenerational and historic trauma of the Métis people. This work, which involves reflections on his own previous struggles with addiction and homelessness, has been recognized as having a wide impact on both the scholarly community and the greater public.
|
|
2020-2021 Selected Titles: Children's and Young Adult/Adult
|
|
|
Sus Yoo/The Bear's Medicine
by Clayton Gauthier (Author) and Danny Alexis and Theresa Austin (Translators)
A mother bear shares with her cubs how to be grateful for all they have in the natural world. The Bear's Medicine shows the interconnectedness of all things in the world they live in and how each season brings changes and blessings for the bears. It is a story of a mother's love for her children as she teaches them how to survive.
The Creator: Clayton Gauthier is a Cree/Dakelh artist and a graduate from the En’owkin Centre’s National Aboriginal Professional Artist Training Program (NAPAT).
|
|
|
Chasing Painted Horses
by Drew Hayden Taylor
Chasing Painted Horses has a magical, fable-like quality. It is the story of four unlikely friends who live in Otter Lake, a reserve north of Toronto. Ralph and his sister, Shelley, live with their parents. On the cusp of becoming teenagers, they and their friend William befriend an odd little girl, from a dysfunctional family. Danielle, a timid 10-year-old girl, draws an amazing, arresting image of a horse that draws her loose group of friends into her fantasy world. But those friends are not ready for what that horse may mean or represent. It represents everything that’s wrong in the girl’s life and everything she wished it could be. And the trio who meet her and witness the creation of the horse, are left trying to figure out what the horse means to the girl, and later to them. And how to help the shy little girl.
The Creator: Drew Hayden Taylor was born on July 1, 1962 and is an Ojibway from the Curve Lake First Nations. In addition to his plays and books, he has worked as a scriptwriter and documentary filmmaker. Taylor lives on the Curve Lake Reserve in Ontario.
|
|
|
If you are having trouble unsubscribing to this newsletter, please contact the Guelph Public Library at 519-824-6220, 100 Norfolk Street Guelph, ON N1H 4J6
|
|
|
|