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Spotlight On: 2020-2021 Longlist Titles
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Birdsong
by Julie Flett
A celebration of art, nature and connecting across generations traces the experiences of a young girl who moves to a small town, where her friendship with an elderly fellow crafter is shaped by the seasons and her awareness of her friend’s failing health.
The Creator: Julie Flett studied fine arts at Concordia University in Montreal and Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver. She received the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize and was nominated for the Governor Genera's Award for Children's Literature for her book Owls See Clearly at Night (Lii Yiiboo Nayaapiwak lii Swer): A Michif Alphabet (L'alphabet di Michif). Julie is Cree-Métis and currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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The Walrus and The Caribou
by Maika Harper (Writer) and Marcus Cutler (Illustrator)
When the earth was new, words had the power to breathe life into the world. But when creating animals from breath, sometimes one does not get everything right on the first try! Based on a traditional Inuit story passed forward orally for generations in the South Baffin region of Nunavut, this book shares with young readers the origin of the caribou and the walrus—and tells the story of how very different these animals looked when they were first conceived. Illustrations.
The Creators: Maika Harper is an Inuit Canadian actress and model born and raised in the Arctic. She briefly studied classical theatre in the BFA program at the University of Windsor before starring in APTN's hit dramatic comedy Mohawk Girls as Anna. She has also made appearances in Kim’s Convenience as Michaela, and most recently on Burden of Truth as Doreen. Her theatrical debut was as an alternate in Treasure Island at the 2017 Stratford Festival and her film debut will be in The Education of Fredrick Fritzell which will be released later in 2019. In her spare time, she advocates for mental health awareness and mentors youth in Canada with Youth Fusion. Marcus Cutler is a both a children's illustrator and an occasional climber of rocks. He lives in Windsor, Ontario with his wife and two daughters. Maika Harper.
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Injichaag/My Soul in Story: Anishinaabe Poetics in Art and Words
by Rene Meshake and Kim Anderson
This book shares the life story of Anishinaabe artist Rene Meshake in stories, poetry, and Anishinaabemowin "word bundles" that serve as a dictionary of Ojibwe poetics. Meshake was born in the railway town of Nakina in northwestern Ontario in 1948, and spent his early years living off-reserve with his grandmother in a matriarchal land-based community he calls Pagwashing. He was raised through his grandmother's "bush university," periodically attending Indian day school, but at the age of ten Rene was scooped into the Indian residential school system, where he suffered sexual abuse as well as the loss of language and connection to family and community. This residential school experience was lifechanging, as it suffocated his artistic expression and resulted in decades of struggle and healing. Now in his twenty-eighth year of sobriety, Rene is a successful multidisciplinary artist, musician and writer.
The Creators: Rene Meshake is an Anishinaabe Elder, visual and performing artist, award-winning author, storyteller, flute player, new media artist and a Recipient of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. Dr. Kim Anderson is Associate Professor in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph. As an Indigenous (Metis) scholar, she has spent her career working to improve the health and well-being of Indigenous families in Canada. Much of her research is community partnered and has involved gender and Indigeneity, urban Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous masculinities, and Indigenous feminism. Her single-authored books include A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood (2nd Edition, Canadian Scholars, 2016) and Life Stages and Native Women: Memory, Teachings and Story Medicine (University of Mainitoba Press, 2011). Recent co-edited books include Indigenous Men and Masculinities: Legacies, Identities, Regeneration (with Robert Alexander Innes, University of Manitoba Press, 2015), and Mothers of the Nations: Indigenous Mothering as Global Resistance, Reclaiming and Recovery (with Dawn Lavell-Harvard, 2014).
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Disintegrate/Dissociate: Poems
by Arielle Twist
In her powerful debut collection of poetry, Arielle Twist unravels the complexities of human relationships after death and metamorphosis. In these spare yet powerful poems, she explores, with both rage and tenderness, the parameters of grief, trauma, displacement, and identity. Weaving together a past made murky by uncertainty and a present which exists in multitudes, Arielle Twist poetically navigates through what it means to be an Indigenous trans woman, discovering the possibilities of a hopeful future and a transcendent, beautiful path to regaining softness.
The Creator: Arielle Twist is a writer and sex educator from George Gordon First Nation, Saskatchewan, now based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is a Nehiyaw, Two-Spirit, trans femme supernova writing to reclaim and harness ancestral magic and memories. Within her short career pursuing writing, she has attended a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity and has work published with Them, CBC Arts, Canadian Art, The Fiddlehead, and PRISM international. Disintegrate/Dissociate is her first book.
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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 (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).
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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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