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Spotlight on: 2024/25 Selected Titles
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White Girls in Moccasins
by Yolanda Bonnell
Something is missing from Miskozi's life... so she goes on a search for herself and her culture, accompanied by her inner white girl, Waabishkizi, and guided by Ziibi, a manifestation of an ancestral river. Miskozi begins the journey back before she waseven born, right at the seeds of colonization when her ancestors were forced to hide their culture anywhere they could. Burying their language. Their teachings. Their bundles. Their moccasins. White Girls in Moccasins is a hilarious and poignant reclamation story that world-hops between dreams, memories, and a surreal game show. Along the way, Miskozi is forced to grapple with her own truth, while existing in a society steeped in white supremacy.
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Poppa and His Drum
by Judith M. Doucette (Author) & Rebecca Reid (Illustrator)
After moving from an all-French Indigenous community to the English community of St. George's when he was a little boy, Poppa's life as a young man was very sad. He was treated badly by his schoolteachers and some other children in the town.
Years later, when his grandson wants to bring him into school to play his drum for the class, Poppa is nervous but goes anyway. He is relieved to see he is welcomed and even encouraged to share his knowledge of the traditions and customs of his Mi'kmaw culture.
Thankfully, times have changed from Poppa's generation, and he is pleased to have reconciled with the bad experiences he had when he went to school. Indeed, there is strength and wisdom in Reconciliation!
The Creators:
Judith M. Doucette was born and raised in St. George’s, a little town on the west coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. She graduated high school in 1980 and a medical office administration program in 1995.
In 2004, she began her employment with the Federation of Newfoundland Indians, and she is employed with the Qalipu First Nation Band as client intake officer with the Department of Education and Training in St. George’s. Judith is married and has two adult children, Tiffany and Travis, and a beautiful, vibrant granddaughter, Aria.
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Dreams: Visions of the Crow, Volume 1
by Wanda John-Kehewin (Author) and Nicole Marie Burton (Illustrator)
Damon just wants to get through senior year. After he is seized by a waking dream in the middle of a busy street, he is forced to look within himself, mend the bond with his mother, and rely on new friends to find the answers he so desperately needs. Travelling through time and space, Damon will have to go back before he can move forward.
The Creators:
Cree poet Wanda John-Kehewin studied criminology, sociology, Aboriginal studies, and creative writing while attending the Writer’s Studio writing program at Simon Fraser University. She uses writing as a therapeutic medium through which to understand and to respond to the near decimation of First Nations culture, language, and tradition. She has been published in Quills, Canadian Poetry Magazine, the Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast anthology Salish Seas, and the Writer’s Studio emerge anthology. She has shared her writing on Vancouver Co-op Radio, performed at numerous readings throughout the Lower Mainland, and read for the Writers Union of Canada.
Nicole Marie Burton is an artist and creator as well as a publicist and organizer. She is passionate about promoting ideas and concepts that seek to create positive social change.
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Becoming a Matriarch
by Helen Knott
Helen Knott’s bestselling debut memoir, In My Own Moccasins, wowed reviewers, award juries, and readers alike with its profoundly honest and moving account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, resilience, and survival. Now, with her highly anticipated second book, Knott exceeds the highest of expectations with a chronicle of grief, love, and legacy. Having lost both her mom and grandmother in just over six months, forced to navigate the fine lines between matriarchy, martyrdom, and codependency, Knott realizes she must let go, not just of them, but of who she thought she was. Woven into the pages are themes of mourning, sobriety through loss, and generational dreaming. Becoming a Matriarch is charted with poetic insights, sass, humour, and heart, taking the reader over the rivers and mountains of Dane Zaa territory in Northeastern British Columbia, along the cobbled streets of Antigua, Guatemala, and straight to the heart of what matriarchy truly means. This is a journey through pain, on the way to becoming.
The Creator:
Helen Knott is a Dane Zaa, Nehiyaw, and mixed Euro-descent woman living in Fort St. John, British Columbia. She has worked with Amnesty International on a campaign to protect her traditional territory from a hydroelectric dam, was featured by the Nobel Justice Women's Initiative in 2016 as one of sixteen global female change makers, and is a poet.
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Nipugtug
by Emma Metallic (Author) & Natalie Laurin (Illustrator)
Nipugtug (In the Forest–pronounced “nee-book-dook”) follows A’le’s, a young Mi’gmaw woman, as she snowshoes through the forest at different times in her life. On her journeys, she meets and converses with the animals and the trees, who guide her through the challenging and nourishing emotions of learning her Mi’gmaw language. Grounded in her relationship with the territory, A’le’s navigates memories of her language and culture that cling to realities within and beyond her life. A delightful and moving story illustrated with Natalie Laurin’s beautiful paintings, Nipugtug is written in both Mi’gmaw and English for language-learners of any age.
The Creators:
Emma Metallic (she/her) is from the Mi'gmaq community, Listuguj, Quebec, located in the seventh district Gespe'gewa'gi, Mi'gma'gi. Emma holds a BA in Contemporary studies and Law, Justice, & Society with a minor in Indigenous Studies from the University of King's College. Emma is passionate about writing stories that reflect her community's knowledge, needs, and desires. While a learner of the Mi'gmaw language, Emma strives to use the language as much as she can in her day-to-day life. Nipugtug is her debut book.
Natalie Laurin is a Métis and settler illustrator and interdisciplinary designer. She is from the Dusome-Clermont family line with roots in the Georgian Bay Métis community. Natalie holds a Bachelor of Design from NSCAD University, where she majored in Interdisciplinary Design and minored in Illustration.
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Bernice and the Georgian Bay Gold
by Jessica Outram
It's the summer of 1914. Eight-year-old Bernice lives with her family in a lighthouse on Georgian Bay. One day Bernice wakes up to find a stranger named Tom Thomson sleeping in their living room. When she overhears him talk about gold on a nearby island, Bernice is determined to find it. Inspired by her beloved Mâemáer's stories of their Mâetis family's adventures and hardships, Bernice takes the treasure map the stranger left behind and sets out in a rowboat with nothing more than her two dogs for company and the dream of changing her family's fortunes forever.
The Creator:
At two weeks old, Jessica Outram visited family on Georgian Bay and has spent as much time there as possible ever since. Jessica is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario. An educator for over 20 years, she is Principal of Program in Indigenous Education in the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. Jessica lives in Cobourg, Ontario, where she is their 4th Poet Laureate.
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Whistle at Night and They Will Come
by Alex Soop (Author) and Cary Thomas Cody (Illustrator)
In this followup to his hugely popular Midnight Storm Moonless Sky: Indigenous Horror Stories, Blackfoot storyteller Alex Soop plunges us again into enthralling tales that mix reality with dark terror. Within its stories, Whisper at Night and They Will Come reveals ancient theories of the paranormal, post apocalyptic scenarios, impossible wells of grief, and monstrous phobias. Soop scares the wits out of readers, all the while uncovering overlooked social anxieties and racism affecting Indigenous Peoples across North America.
The Creators:
Alex Soop, of the Blackfoot Nation meticulously voices each and every one of the stories in Midnight Storm Moonless Sky from the First Nations Peoples’ perspective. While striving to entertain readers with his bloodcurdling tales, Alexander imaginatively implements the numerous issues that plague the First Nations people of North America, by way of subliminal and head-on messages. These specific matters include alcohol and drug abuse; systemic racism; missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls; foster care; Residential School aftereffects; and over-incarceration. He also deals with legends of Indigenous folklore, such as Wendigo, ghosts, and the afterlife. His urban home is Calgary and his ancestral home is the Kainai (Blood) Nation of southern Alberta.
Cary Thomas Cody is an Indigenous storyteller and writer/director for The Skull Crawlers Movie Club & podcast. He is of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma.
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Adult/YA and Children's Selected 2024/2025 Titles
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And Then She Fell
by Alicia Elliott
When strange things start happening, Alice, a young Indigenous woman living in a posh Toronto neighborhood, starts losing bits of time and hearing voices she can't explain and discovers the picture-perfect life she's always hoped for may have horrifying consequences—and may be linked to the Haudenosaunee creation story.
The Creator:
Alicia Elliot is a Mohawk writer and editor living in Brantford, Ontario. She has written for The Globe and Mail, CBC, Hazlitt and many other publications. She's had numerous essays nominated for National Magazine Awards, winning Gold in 2017 and an honorable mention in 2020. Her short fiction was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2018 (by Roxane Gay), Best Canadian Stories 2018, and The Journey Prize Stories 30. Alicia was chosen by Tanya Talaga as the 2018 recipient of the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award. Her first book, A Mind Spread Out On The Ground, was a national bestseller in Canada. It was also nominated for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and won the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award.
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Freddie the Flyer
by Fred Carmichael (Author), Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail (Author), and Audrea Loreen-Wulf (Artist)
When Freddie was young, he saw a plane up close for the first time when it dropped off supplies at his family's remote bush camp. He was instantly hooked. Freddie has flown for nearly seventy years, doing everything from supply runs to search and rescue to transporting dog teams to far-flung areas.
The Creators:
Frederick “Freddie” Carmichael split his childhood between the trapline and the town of Aklavik, Northwest Territories (NWT). He worked hard to become the first Indigenous commercial pilot in the Arctic, founded multiple aviation companies and has served the people of the Mackenzie Delta in the air and as a leader and Elder. Fred is a Member of the Order of Canada and Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame, and he holds an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Saskatchewan. Fred still flies his Cessna 170 from his home in Inuvik, NWT, where he lives with his wife, Miki, and their dog, Shadow.
Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail is a historian and a former Historian Laureate for the city of Edmonton, as well as a former president of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society. She has written For the Love of Flying: The Story of the Laurentian Air Services and Polar Winds: A Century of Flying the North, and edited In This Together: Fifteen Stories of Truth and Reconciliation. Her first book for children is Alis the Aviator. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta.
Artist Audrea Loreen-Wulf was born in the Tuktoyaktuk area and lived there as a young child. She now lives in Salmon Arm, BC. She expresses her deep love for the North through her paintings.
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