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Spotlight On: 2023/24 Longlist Titles
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Trailer Park Shakes
by Justene Dion-Glowa
The poems in Trailer Park Shakes are direct and vernacular, rooted in community—working-class Métis voice rarely heard from. These poems, while dreamlike and playful, bear unflinching witness to the workings of injustice—how violence is channeled through institutions and refracted intimately between people, becoming intertwined with the full range of human experience, including care and love. Trailer Park Shakes is a book that seems to want to hold everything--an entire cross-section of lived experience--written by a poet whose courage, attention, and capacity to trace contradiction inspire trust in her words' embrace. Dion-Glowa's poems are quietly philosophical, with a heartfelt, self-possessed politic.
The Creator: Justene Dion-Glowa is a queer Métis creative, beadworker and poet born in Win-Nipi (Winnipeg) and has been residing in Secwepemcú'lecw since 2014. They are a Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity alumni. They have been working in the human services field for nearly a decade. Their microchap, TEETH, is available from Ghost City Press. Trailer Park Shakes is their first full-length poetry book.
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The Summer of Bitter and Sweet
by Jen Ferguson
Lou has enough confusion in front of her this summer. She'll be working in her family's ice-cream shack with her former best friend, King, who is back in their Canadian prairie town after disappearing three years ago... But when she gets a letter from her biological father. Lou immediately knows that she cannot meet him. While King's friendship makes Lou feel safer when her family's business comes under threat, she soon realizes that she can't ignore her father forever.
The Creator: Jen Ferguson is Michif/Métis and white, an activist, an intersectional feminist, an auntie, and an accomplice armed with a PhD in English and creative writing.
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Di-bayn-di-zi-win = To Own Ourselves: Embodying Ojibway-Anishinabe Ways
by Jerry Fontaine and Don McCaskill
A collaboration exploring the importance of the Ojibway-Anishinabe worldview, use of ceremony, and language in living a good life, attaining true reconciliation, and resisting the notions of indigenization and colonialization inherent in Western institutions.
Indigenization within the academy and the idea of truth and reconciliation within Canada have been seen as the remedy to correct the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canadian society. While honourable, these actions are difficult to achieve given the Western nature of institutions in Canada and the collective memory of its citizens, and the burden of proof has always been the responsibility of Anishinabeg.
The Creators: Makwa Ogimaa (Jerry Fontaine) is Ojibway-Anishinabe from the Ojibway-Anishinabe community of Sagkeeng in Manitoba. He was (indian act) Chief during the period 1987 to 1998 and has been an adviser to Anishinabe communities and industry. Jerry currently teaches in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Winnipeg. He lives in Traverse Bay, Manitoba.
Ka-pi-ta-aht (Don McCaskill) is professor emeritus in the Department of Indigenous Studies at Trent University, where he taught for forty-seven years and served as chair for thirteen years. He has edited seven books in the fields of Anishinabe culture, education, community development, and urbanization. Don lives in Toronto.
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She Holds Up the Stars
by Sandra Laronde
The last thing that twelve-year-old Misko wants to do is to move away from the city to spend time on the rez with her grandmother. She feels strangely compelled to go to the place where her dreams have been tugging at her to come home. Maybe she can finally find out what happened to her mother, who mysteriously disappeared when she was four years old. Misko discovers her unique ability to connect to a spirited horse named Mishtadim who is being violently broken in by the rancher next door and his son, Thomas. Although Misko and Thomas challenge one another, their friendship is forged through the taming of the wild horse. In the process, she realizes the true meaning of belonging and that you can never truly leave home.
The Creator: Sandra Laronde is originally from the Teme-Augama Anishinaabe (People of the Deep Water) in Temagami, Northern Ontario. An accomplished arts innovator and cultural leader, Sandra has conceived, developed, produced, and disseminated many award-winning productions. She is the founder and Executive & Artistic Director of Red Sky Performance, a leading company of contemporary Indigenous performance worldwide.
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Drum from the Heart
by Ren Louie (Writer) and Karleen Harvey (Illustrator)
When he is gifted a handmade drum by his mother, Ren learns the teachings of the drum that she also passes down to him. Ren discovers that through this special drum, he is able to connect to his culture and find a confidence in his voice to joyfully share in singing the traditional songs of his Nuu-chah-nulth Nation.
The Creators: Ren Louie is Nuu-chah-nulth from Ahousaht, he also comes from mixed African American and Ukrainian heritage. Ren is passionate about his language and culture and enjoys learning new songs and traditional teachings from Elders and Knowledge Keepers in the Indigenous community. Born and raised on Lekwungen and WASNEC Territory in Victoria, B.C., Ren continues to live there today.
Karlene Harvey is a Tsilhqot’in and Syilx illustrator and writer.
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Silence to Strength: Writings and Reflections on the Sixties Scoop
by Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith
From the 1960s through the 1980s the Canadian Children's Aid Society engaged in a large-scale program of removing First Nations children from their families and communities and adopting them out to non-Indigenous families. This systemic abduction of untold thousands of children came to be known as the Sixties Scoop. The lasting disruption from the loss of family and culture is only now starting to be spoken of publicly, as are stories of strength and survivance.
In Silence to Strength: Writings and Reflections on the 60s Scoop, editor Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith gathers together contributions from twenty Sixties Scoop survivors from across the territories of Canada. This anthology includes poems, stories and personal essays from contributors such as Alice McKay, D.B. McLeod, David Montgomery, Doreen Parenteau, Tylor Pennock, Terry Swan, Lisa Wilder, and many more. Courageous writings and reflections that prove there is strength in telling a story, and power in ending the silence of the past.
The Creator: Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith is a Saulteaux writer, editor, and journalist from Peguis First Nations who has received numerous awards.
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Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation
by Andrew Stobo Sniderman
Valley of the Birdtail is about how two communities became separate and unequal—and what it means for the rest of us. In Rossburn, once settled by Ukrainian immigrants who fled poverty and persecution, family income is near the national average and more than a third of adults have graduated from university. In Waywayseecappo, the average family lives below the national poverty line and less than a third of adults have graduated from high school, with many haunted by their time in residential schools.
This book follows multiple generations of two families, one white and one Indigenous, and weaves their lives into the larger story of Canada. It is a story of villains and heroes, irony and idealism, racism and reconciliation. Valley of the Birdtail has the ambition to change the way we think about our past and show a path to a better future.
The Creators: Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii) is the Prichard Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and has served as a senior policy advisor to Ontario’s attorney general and minister of Indigenous affairs. He is Swampy Cree, Beaver clan, of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation.
Andrew Stobo Sniderman is a writer, lawyer, and Rhodes Scholar from Montreal. He has written for the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, and Maclean’s. He has also argued before the Supreme Court of Canada, served as the human rights policy advisor to the Canadian minister of foreign affairs, and worked for a judge of South Africa’s Constitutional Court.
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Children's and Young Adult Selected Titles from 2023/24 Longlist
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My Indian Summer
by Joseph Kakwinokanasum
For Hunter Frank, the summer of ’79 begins with his mother returning home only to collect the last two months’ welfare cheques, leaving her three “fucking half-breeds” to fend for themselves. When his older sister escapes their northern BC town and his brother goes to fight forest fires, Hunter is on his own, with occasional care coming from a trio of elders—his kookums—and companionship from his two best friends.
It’s been a good summer for the young entrepreneur, but the cash in the purple Crown Royal bag hidden in his mattress still isn’t enough to fund his escape from his monstrous mother and the town of Red Rock. As the Labour Day weekend arrives, so does a new friend with old wisdom and a business opportunity that might be just a boy at the crossroads needs. My Indian Summer is the story of a journey to understanding that some villains are also victims, and that while reconciliation may not be possible, survival is.
The Creator: Of Cree and Austrian descent, Joseph Kawkwinokanasum grew up in the Peace region of northern BC, one of seven children raised by a single mother. A graduate of SFU's Writers Studio, his short story “Ray Says” was a finalist for CBC’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize. In 2022, he was selected by Darrel J. McLeod as one of the Writers Trust of Canada’s “Rising Stars.” He now lives and writes in BC’s Lower Mainland.
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Phoenix Gets Greater
by Marty Wilson-Trudeau (Author), Phoenix Wilson (Author), and Megan Kyak-Monteith (Illustrator)
Phoenix loves to play with dolls and marvel at pretty fabrics. Most of all, he loves to dance--ballet, Pow Wow dancing, or just swirling and twirling around his house. Sometimes Phoenix gets picked on and he struggles with feeling different, but his mom and brother are proud of him. With their help, Phoenix learns about Two Spirit/Niizh Manidoowag people in Anishinaabe culture and just how special he is. Based on the childhood experiences of her son, Phoenix, Marty Wilson-Trudeau demonstrates the difference that a loving and supportive family can make.
The Creators: Marty Wilson-Trudeau is an Anishinaabe Kwe writer originally from M'Chigeeng, ON. She is a drama teacher at St. Charles College in Sudbury, ON. She is a mother to two wonderful sons, Brandan and Phoenix Wilson.
Phoenix Wilson is a proud Anishinaabe actor and dancer. He started dancing ballet at age three, grass dancing at five, and acting at six. He can be seen onscreen in Longmire, Letterkenny, and the critically acclaimed movie Wild Indian.
Megan Kyak-Monteith is an Inuk illustrator and painter born in Pond Inlet, Nunavut in 1997. She currently is living in Halifax, Nova Scotia and studying interdisciplinary arts at NSCAD University with a focus on painting. When she is not illustrating, she can be found watching movies or working in her studio on large scale oil paintings.
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