Variety Of Books Available in Our Library 2024!

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A collection of intersecting stories by both new and veteran Native writers bursts with hope, joy, resilience, the strength of community, and Native pride.

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Mackenzie, a Cree millennial, wakes up clutching a pine bough she had been holding in her dream just moments earlier. When she blinks, it disappears. Mackenzie continues to accidentally bring back items from her dreams, dreams that are eerily similar to real memories of her older sister and Kokum before their untimely deaths. Desperate for help, Mackenzie returns to her mother, sister, cousin, and aunties in her small Alberta hometown. Together, they try to uncover what is haunting Mackenzie before something irrevocable happens to anyone else around her.

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"When twelve-year-old Olive, who suffers from brittle bone disease and has been homeschooled all her life, finally attends school in person she soon discovers fitting in is not that easy, but if she can find the magical wish-granting hummingbird that supposedly lives nearby, and prove herself worthy, maybe her deepest wish will be granted"-- Provided by publisher.

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Saul Indian Horse is a child when his family retreats into the woods. But when winter approaches, Saul loses everything: his brother, his parents, his beloved grandmother--and then his home itself. Alone in the world and placed in a horrific boarding school, Saul is surrounded by violence and cruelty. At the urging of a priest, he finds a tentative salvation in hockey. His intuition and vision are unmatched. His speed is remarkable. Together they open doors for him: away from the school, into an all-Ojibway amateur circuit, and finally within grasp of a professional career. Yet as Saul's victories mount, so do the indignities and the taunts, the racism and the hatred--the harshness of a world that will never welcome him, tied inexorably to the sport he loves.

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There have been many Clayton Thomas-Müllers: The child who played with toy planes as an escape from domestic and sexual abuse, enduring the intergenerational trauma of Canada's residential school system; the angry youngster who defended himself with fists and sharp wit against racism and violence, at school and on the streets of Winnipeg and small-town British Columbia; the tough teenager who, at 17, managed a drug house run by members of his family, and slipped in and out of juvie, operating in a world of violence and pain. But behind them all, there was another Clayton: the one who remained immersed in Cree spirituality, and who embraced the rituals and ways of thinking vital to his heritage; the one who reconnected with the land during summer visits to his great-grandparents' trapline in his home territory of Pukatawagan in northern Manitoba. And it's this version of Clayton that ultimately triumphed, finding healing by directly facing the trauma that he shares with Indigenous peoples around the world. Now a leading organizer and activist on the frontlines of environmental resistance, Clayton brings his warrior spirit to the fight against the ongoing assault on Indigenous peoples' lands by Big Oil. Tying together personal stories of survival that bring the realities of Canada's First Nations into sharp focus, and lessons learned from a career as a frontline activist committed to addressing environmental injustice at a global scale, Thomas-Müller offers a narrative and vision of healing and responsibility.

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Growing up in the tiny village of Smith, Alberta, Darrel J. McLeod was surrounded by his Cree family's history. In shifting and unpredictable stories, his mother, Bertha, shared narratives of their culture, their family and the cruelty that she and her sisters endured in residential school. Darrel was comforted by her presence and that of his many siblings and cousins, the smells of moose stew and wild peppermint tea, and his deep love of the landscape. In spite of the traumas of Darrel's childhood, deep and mysterious forces handed down by his mother helped him survive and thrive: her love and strength stay with him to build the foundation of what would come to be a very fulfilling and adventurous life.

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Restoration ecology is grounded in an idea that we must return the natural world to an untouched, pristine state, placing humans in a godlike role--a notion at odds with Indigenous histories of purposeful, reciprocal interaction with the environment. This disconnect sent Dr. Grenz on a personal journey of joining her head (Western science) and her heart (Indigenous worldview) to find a truer path toward ecological healing. In Medicine Wheel for the Planet, building on sacred stories, field observations and her own journey, Dr. Grenz invites readers to share in the teachings of the four directions of the medicine wheel: the North, which draws upon the knowledge and wisdom of elders; the East, where we let go of colonial narratives and see with fresh eyes; the South, where we apply new-old worldviews to envision a way forward; and the West, where a relational approach to land reconciliation is realized.

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Years after hanging up his skates, Jordin Tootoo continues to influence people. As he travels back to Nunavut to try to speak with his father about what haunts him, he encounters the ghosts of the entire community. As Tootoo says, we are continuously learning and rewriting our story at every step. He has learned from his mistakes and his victories. He has learned from examples of great courage and humility. He has learned from being a father and a husband. And he has learned from his own Inuk traditions, of perseverance and discipline in the face of hardship.

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Based on the author's thesis. Part I was previously published in 1940 by the American Museum of Natural History. This revised edition includes two additional comparative sections

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Misty never shies away from a challenge, on or off the field. So when the boys tell her she can't play football, there's only one thing to do: join their team and show them what she's got. But the training is rougher than she thought--and so are the other guys, who aren't thrilled about having a girl on their team. Middle school isn't so easy, either. Misty wants to fit in with the popular kids, but they think a girl playing football is 'weird.' Even her best friend doesn't get it. Can Misty find a way to score points with her teammates, make new friends, and show everyone--including herself--what it means to play like a girl?

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Teen life is hard enough, but for teens who are LGBTQ, it can be even harder. When do you decide to come out? Will your friends accept you? And how do you meet people to date? Queer is a humorous, engaging, and honest guide that helps LGBTQ teens come out to friends and family, navigate their social life, figure out if a crush is also queer, and challenge bigotry and homophobia. Personal stories from the authors and sidebars on queer history provide relatable context. This completely revised and updated edition is a must-read for any teen who thinks they might be queer or knows someone who is.

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"Realizing a good life is almost always defined in material terms, typified by those individuals (usually men) who have accumulated considerable wealth. But this construction of a good life is a deception that belies the classed, gendered, and racialized bases of the social supports that enable the 'self-made man' to realize his wealth. Instead, this book turns to Indigenous knowledge about realizing a good life, such as the Cree notion of seeking mino-pimatisiwin, to explore how marginalized men endeavour to overcome systemic inequalities in their efforts to achieve wholeness, balance, connection, harmony, and healing. Twenty-three men, most of whom are Indigenous, shared their stories of this journey. For most of the men, their pathway started in challenging circumstances. As children, they were confronted with the impacts of intergenerational trauma, broken families and child welfare interventions, racism and bullying, and physical and sexual abuse. Turning to drugging and drinking as a way to cope with the pain generated by these harsh experiences or joining a street gang with other disaffected youth set many on a pathway into jail. Once caught in the criminal justice net, realizing a good life became a more daunting project given the imprint of that experience on their identities and life chances. Despite the traumas and setbacks, some of the men have made great strides to realize a good life. The men tell us how they got out of the problem, displaying insights on the ways they have been able to maintain sobriety, navigate systemic barriers, and forge connections and circles of support that have enabled them to establish the basis for living a good life. Ultimately, it came down to social supports -- and caring. As one man put it, change happened when he 'had to care for somebody else in a way that I wanted to be cared for.'"-- Provided by publisher.

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When buffalo were many on the western Plains, when Cree and Blackfoot warred in unrelenting enmity, when the Sun Dance and the shaking tent were still a way of life - these were the days of Chief Thunderchild, who roamed the Saskatchewan Plains, fought and hunted, lived and sometimes nearly starved there. His stories of a fierce and vanished freedom are reprinted here, exactly as he told them to Edward Ahenakew in 1923. His voice, simple and poetic, resonates with something of the wide expanse of sky, the song of the wind, the sound of water. Chief Thunderchild was born in 1849 and died in 1927, four years after recounting his tales to Edward Ahenakew. The other voice in this volume is equally moving, but in a very different way. It is the voice of Old Keyam, pained and angry, raised in protest against the Indian's lethargy and the white man's insensitivity. A fictional character, semi-autobiographical, he is very much the voice of Edward Ahenakew, telling of life on the reservations in the new white world of the early twentieth century. Precursor of later, more vehement voices, Old Keyam presents and examines the Indian's predicament, conveying the tragic image of caged and broken spirits.

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