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2020-2021 Selected Titles: Children's and Young Adult/Adult
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Sus Yoo/The Bear's Medicine
by Clayton Gauthier 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).
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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.
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Spotlight On: 2019-2020 Longlist Titles
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You Hold Me Up/ Ki Kîhcêyimin Mńa
by Monique Gray Smith (author) and Danielle Daniel (illustrator)
Consultant, international speaker and award-winning author Monique Gray Smith wrote You Hold Me Up to prompt a dialogue among young people, their care providers and educators about reconciliation and the importance of the connections children make with their friends, classmates and families. This is a foundational book about building relationships, fostering empathy and encouraging respect between peers, starting with our littlest citizens.
The Creator: Monique Gray Smith is a mixed-heritage woman of Cree, Lakota and Scottish ancestry and a proud mom of twins. Monique is an accomplished consultant, writer and international speaker. Her first novel, Tilly: A Story of Hope and Resilience, won the 2014 Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature. Monique's picture book My Heart Fills With Happiness won the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize and was selected as the TD Grade One Giveaway Book for all grade one students in Canada in 2019. Monique and her family are blessed to live on Lekwungen territory in Victoria, British Columbia.
Danielle Daniel is the author and illustrator of Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox, winner of the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, a finalist for the First Nation Communities Read Award and the Blue Spruce Award and a New York Public Library's Most Notable Books of 2015. Danielle is currently working on two novels and completing an MFA in creative writing through UBC. She writes and paints in Sudbury, Ontario. For more information, visit danielledaniel.com.
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Unearthing Secrets, Gathering Truths
by Jules Arita Koostachin
Finalist for the 2019 Indigenous Voices Award in Published Poetry in English. To unearth our secrets means we must face our past, and in doing so, we will find our voice. Unearthing of Secrets: Gathering of Truths explores the heartfelt and evocative fragmented experiences through the eyes of an Indigenous woman. Through the honesty of her words, she embraces the spirit world, the resilience of her foremothers, the integral healing powers of disassociation as a survival mechanism, and the richness of her mitewin - dreams, which reconnects her to herself. Through her poetry, she has found the courage to face her difficult past, and now as a mother, she is gathering the truths of her family to help in the healing process.
The Creator: Jules Koostachin, owner of VisJuelles Productions Inc., is Cree from Attawapiskat and a PhD candidate with the Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC. She carries extensive experience working in Indigenous community in varying capacities such as counseling, consulting, teaching and management. Jules, also known as a storyteller and digital media maker, works to honour cultural protocols and build relationships within Indigenous community through her media arts practice. Her artistic endeavours are informed by her experience living with her Cree grandparents in northern Ontario. With an energetic and fun onstage presence, Jules presents poetry readings, storytelling, and educational presentations which use her media work to educate on Indigenous realities.
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Surviving the City
by Tasha Spillett and Natasha Donovan (Illustrator)
Indigenous teens Miikwan and Dez are best friends that navigate living in the city together, but when Dez's grandmother gets sick, Dez runs away instead of going to a group home, leaving Miikwan and the community to try and find her.
The Creators: Tasha Spillett (she/her/hers) draws her strength from both her Nehiyaw and Trinidadian bloodlines. She is a celebrated educator, poet, and emerging scholar. Tasha is most heart-tied to contributing to community-led work that centres on land and water defence, and the protection of Indigenous women and girls. Tasha is currently working on her PhD in Education through the University of Saskatchewan, where she holds a Vanier Canada Award.
Natasha Donovan is a self-taught illustrator from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with a focus on comics and children's illustration. Her work has appeared in The Other Side Anthology (2016), edited by Melanie Gillman and Kori Handwerker, and This Place Anthology (2018), published by Portage & Main. She illustrated the award-winning children’s book The Sockeye Mother (written by Brett Huson) and the graphic novel Surviving the City (written by Tasha Spillett). She has a degree in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia, and has worked in academic and magazine publishing. She currently lives in Bellingham, Washington. Natasha is a member of the Métis Nation of British Columbia
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