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Selected Books and Reflections
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The Eagle's Path
by Michelle Corneau (Author) and Audrey Keating (Illustrator)
Anna explores what it means to be Mohawk, her own identity and the identity of others as she learns to follow the Eagle’s path. She learns how her culture has taught many generations to value honesty, wisdom and courage in their day-to-day lives. Anna also learns about two-spirit people when her best friend tells her that she likes other girls. This revelation leaves her full of questions, and with support from her wise and loving mother, she understands the value in accepting everyone for who they are.
The Creators: Michelle Corneau is Mohawk, Turtle Clan, as her mother was from the Tyendinaga reserve in Ontario. Michelle is an educator who views writing as a gift and believes that when children see themselves reflected in literature, it can inspire them to become life-long readers.
Audrey Keating is the artist who illustrates The Eagle's Path in beautiful, full-coloured pencil sketches.
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Moon of the Crusted Snow
by Waubgeshig Rice
When a small Ojibwa community in the far north loses power at the beginning of the winter, residents do not realize it is because society in the south is failing, and when people arrive from the south, harsh conditions take their toll.
The Creator: Waubgeshig Rice is an author and broadcast journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation. He developed a strong passion for storytelling as a child, hearing stories and teachings from elders in his home community about his Anishinaabe background.
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Neekna and Chemai
by Jeannette Armstrong (author) and Barbara Marchand
NeeNeekna and Chemai are two little girls growing up in the Okanagan Valley. Through these two friends, we learn about the seasonal life patterns of the Okanagan First Peoples. The girls spend time with Great-Grandmother, who tells them about important ceremonies, and they gather plants with Neekna's grandmother.
The Creators: Jeannette Armstrong was born in 1948 on the Penticton Indian reserve in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, and fluently speaks both the Syilx and English language. Armstrong's main goal in writing is to educate young people about Native culture and history. She is the director of the En'owkin Center, a cultural and educational organization operated by the Okanagan Nation.
Barbara Marchand is a published author, editor, and an illustrator of children's and young adult books. Some of the published credits of Barbara Marchand include Kou-Skelowh/We are the People: A Trilogy of Okanagan Legends New Bilingual Edition, and We are the People: A Trilogy of Okanagan Legends.
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river woman
by Katherena Vermette
Katherena Vermette’s second work of poetry, river woman, examines and celebrates love as postcolonial action. Here love is defined as a force of reclamation and repair in times of trauma, and trauma is understood to exist within all times. The poems are grounded in what feels like an eternal present, documenting moments of clarity that lift the speaker (and reader) out of our preconceptions of historical time, while never losing a connection to history. This is what we mean when we describe a work of art as being “timeless.”
The Creator: Katherena Vermette is a Métis writer from Treaty One territory, the heart of the Métis nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her first novel, The Break, is the winner of three Manitoba Book Awards, and it was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and CBC Canada Reads.Book Annotation.
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Split Tooth
by Tanya Tagaq
A girl grows up in Nunavut in the 1970s. She knows joy, and friendship, and parents' love. She knows boredom, and listlessness, and bullying. She knows the tedium of the everyday world, and the raw, amoral power of the ice and sky, the seductive energy of the animal world. She knows the ravages of alcohol, and violence at the hands of those she should be able to trust. She sees the spirits that surround her, and the immense power that dwarfs all of us.
When she becomes pregnant, she must navigate all this.
The Creator: Tanya Tagaq is an Inuk artist from Iqaluktuutiaq, Her performances are innovative and intense. It’s no surprise, then, that Split Tooth, Tagaq’s literary debut, defies categorization. Formally identified as fiction, it is in fact a thick braid of lived experience, philosophy, poetry, and traditional knowledge.
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