Indigenous ERAC Approved Titles

Taylor's powerful, haunting and incredibly entertaining stories in Fearless Warrior are a full frontal assault on stereotypes of all kinds--an edifying affirmation of humanity unlike anything else. More than anything else, these stories shine with a wisdom, an understanding of the human condition, that is rare among writers courageous enough to take on these themes.

Internationally acclaimed as a playwright, screen-writer, comic and sardonic commentator on the endless gaffs, absurdities and the profound and painful misunderstandings that continue to characterize social interactions between aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples, Taylor’s stories in Fearless Warriors are a full frontal assault on stereotypes of all kinds and an edifying affirmation of humanity unlike anything else in fiction.

Each of these stories is as remarkably different in terms of its unique narrative tone, origin and direction, as are the characters of his plays, making Taylor’s singular collection of fictions quite intentionally much more than the sum of their parts. By degrees dramatic, shocking, tender, chilling, affirmative and tragic, each story takes on a different cliché or “common sense understanding” of inter-racial and inter-cultural relations, all of them suffused with the incomparable wit, gentle and generous humour, mercilessly critical edge and profound emotional empathy of a master story-teller.

No quarter is given, nor is it taken—Native stereotypes of White culture are as fair a species of game for this writer as any other. Ultimately, each of these narratives becomes a bridge of understanding between cultures, giving its readers access to the seemingly inexplicable actions of characters at the distant edges of our imaginations—even just one of these stories, “The Boy in the Ditch,” does more to illuminate the tragedy of the pre-teen gasoline sniffing culture of Davis Inlet than any number of Royal Commissions will ever do.

Educator Information
Grades 10-12 BC English First Peoples resource for the units How Do We Define Ourselves and Place Conscious Learning - Exploring Texts through Local Landscape.

Additional Information
192 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" 

A sleepy native reservation. A troubled teen girl. A vampire returns home.

Nothing ever happens on the Otter Lake reservation. But when 16-year-old Tiffany discovers her father is renting out her room, she's deeply upset. Sure, their guest is polite and keeps to himself. But he''s also a little creepy.

Little do Tiffany, her father or even her astute Granny Ruth suspect the truth. The mysterious Pierre L'Errant is actually a vampire, returning to his tribal home after centuries spent in Europe. But Tiffany has other things on her mind: her new boyfriend is acting weird, disputes with her father are escalating, and her estranged mother is starting a new life with somebody else.

Fed up and heartsick, Tiffany threatens drastic measures and flees into the bush. There, in the midnight woods, a chilling encounter with L'Errant changes everything... for both of them.

A mesmerizing blend of Gothic thriller and modern coming-of-age novel, The Night Wanderer is unlike any other vampire story.

Reviews
"One of Quill and Quire's Books of the Year 2007: "Shivers and chills in an Anishinabe setting... refreshingly smart humour." — Patty Lawlor, Quill and Quire, December 2007

"Teens who devour vampire fiction will enjoy this unusual slant on the oft-told legend." — Jan Chapman, VOYA, June 2008

Educator Information
Recommended Ages: 12-18.

Grades 10-12 BC English First Peoples resource for units on Identity, Place-Conscious Learning, and Relationships.

This book is available in French: Le rôdeur de nuit

Additional Information
218 pages | 5.00" x 7.25"

The bestselling graphic novel on Canada's infamous folk hero is back in a paperback edition with a new cover by Chester Brown. Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is the book that launched the graphic novel medium in Canada. Brown received the Harvey Award for best writing and best graphic novel, and made several Best of the Year lists. Publishers Weekly hailed the book as a "contender for best graphic novel ever."

Chester Brown reinvents the comic book medium to create a historical biography on Louis Riel. He crafts a compelling and meticulous retelling of the charismatic 19th-century Métis leader, regarded by some as a martyr and by others as a treacherous murderer. Canadian history at its best, Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography is entertaining and accessible for all ages.

"If you love to read a gripping story, if you are awed by the talent of an artist, then look no further: Chester Brown's Louis Riel is comix history in the making, and with it, history never looked so good." -Globe and Mail

Ages 14 and up

Ashley Anowiak is in search of a murderous polar bear that may be real or mythical. The only thing for certain is that what she discovers will change her life - and her community's - forever.

In spite of its name, no one in the tiny troubled hamlet of Nanurtalik "the place with polar bears" can remember seeing a polar bear in decades. But when a teenager's dismembered body is discovered on a nearby ice road, everyone fears polar bears have returned. The community is thrown into chaos as another suspected bear attack sparks a flury of bullets that whiz through the town during a blinding four-day blizzard. Was it a real or phantom bear? No one can say for sure.

Ashley Anowiak is swept into this storm of confusion by her special link with polar bears expressed through the magic of her art and the terror of her dreams. She finds herself on the trail of Nanurluk, a giant bear that has haunted her people for thousands of years.

Ashley's bear hunt leads from the frozen catacombs beneath Itkiqtuqjuaq to the jumbled ice fields covering the Arctic Ocean. As she closes in on the bear, Ashley's inner and outer worlds are torn apart, leaving her desperate for any stability she can find.

This is the story of a gifted northern youth struggling to find her true home in a fast-changing arctic, where culture, climate and landscape seem to be crumbling all around her.

Visit the website Jamie set up focused on polar bears in a climate of change at www.onthinice.ca.

Reviews
"Traditional culture is also part of the book's charm, with several Inuktitut words adding local colour. A glossary is included at the end of the book." - CM Magazine

Before discovering native healing methods, Herb Nabigon could not imagine a life without alcohol. His powerful autobiography, The Hollow Tree, tells the story of his struggle to overcome addiction with the help of the spiritual teachings and brotherly love of his elders.

Nabigon had spent much of his life wrestling with self-destructive impulses, feelings of inferiority and resentment, and alcohol abuse when Eddie Bellerose, an Elder, introduced him to the ancient Cree teachings. With the help of healing methods drawn from the Four Sacred Directions, the refuge and revitalization offered by the sweat lodge, and native cultural practices such as the use of the pipe Nabigon was able to find sobriety.

The Hollow Tree is one person's testament to the power of indigenous culture to heal. Herb Nabigon's healing journey guided him to a life of kindness, honesty, courage, and humility.

A mystical novel reflecting a positive view of native life and philosophy, it's about a three-year-old who was taken from his home on an Ojibway reserve and placed in a series of foster homes. Join him as he travels back to the reserve and discovers his sense of place and of self.

When Garnet Raven was three years old, he was taken from his home on an Ojibway Indian reserve and placed in a series of foster homes. Having reached his mid-teens, he escapes at the first available opportunity, only to find himself cast adrift on the streets of the big city.

Having skirted the urban underbelly once too often by age 20, he finds himself thrown in jail. While there, he gets a surprise letter from his long-forgotten native family.

The sudden communication from his past spurs him to return to the reserve following his release from jail. Deciding to stay awhile, his life is changed completely as he comes to discover his sense of place, and of self. While on the reserve, Garnet is initiated into the ways of the Ojibway -- both ancient and modern -- by Keeper, a friend of his grandfather, and last fount of history about his people's ways.

By turns funny, poignant and mystical, Keeper 'n Me reflects a positive view of Native life and philosophy -- as well as casting fresh light on the redemptive power of one's community and traditions.

Educator Information
Grades 10-11 BC English First Peoples resource for the unit How Do We Define Ourselves? 

Additional Information
320 pages | 5.19" x 7.98" | This edition published in 2018

This riveting story is about a fifteen-year old boy who, as the story opens, realizes he has no idea who he is-beyond his first name-or what has led to his loss of memory. From the outset, he's on the run, a street kid thrust out on his own, living by
his wits and involved in a quest to find another lost teenager whose First Nations father is desperate for news of his son. In the process, he learns to survive and begins to get a sense of his strengths and character.

Winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award in the category of Juvenile-Young Adult Fiction!

Winner of the Mr. Christie's Book Award!

Shortlist for the 2004 Canadian Library Association Young Adult Canadian Book Award

Ontario Library Association's Golden Oak Award winner, 2005

When Clayton Mack was a child, his parents wrapped him in wolf skin and dumped him in water four times so he would grow up strong and fierce in the woods like a wolf. True to this Nuxalk tradition, Mack grew up to be a world-famous grizzly bear hunter and guide.

Clayton Mack''s first book of amazing tales about bears and q''umsciwas (white men), "Grizzlies and White Guys," became an instant best seller when it was published in 1993. In "Bella Coola Man," Clayton Mack continues his hair-raising stories about pulling bears out of the bushes by their legs, eating fresh bear meat with Thor Heyerdahl, finding gold nuggets in the bush, murder in the Big Ootsa country and dead men's talking beans, plus Crooked Jaw the Indian agent and where to find good fishing.

Clayton Mack was a walking encyclopedia of tribal lore, and one of the best storytellers ever born. The stories in "Bella Coola Man" are the last he told, and reflect his desire to pass on as much information about Nuxalk life and legends as he could before his death. Hear about the man-eater dance performed at River's Inlet where the dancers ate a dead woman's head, or about the last Indian war on the coast, native remedies like devil's club tea which is "good for anything," Alexander Mackenzie''s travels through Bella Coola country along the Grease Trail, how native hunters killed mountain goats by prying them off cliffs with sticks, and about forgotten villages and places, which come alive again through Clayton Mack''s words.

Clayton Mack had a deep understanding and appreciation of life on British Columbia''s rugged coast. His stories are unique lessons in history, as well as pure entertainment. Here are the stories of the legend himself, Clayton Mack.

Additional Information
240 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Robinson''s mastery is confirmed in Monkey Beach, the first full-length work of fiction by a Haisla writer and an unforgettable story set in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest. This powerful novel reminds us that places, as much as people, have stories to tell.

Five hundred miles north of Vancouver is Kitamaat, an Indian reservation in the homeland of the Haisla people. Growing up a tough, wild tomboy, swimming, fighting, and fishing in a remote village where the land slips into the green ocean on the edge of the world, Lisamarie has always been different. Visited by ghosts and shapeshifters, tormented by premonitions, she can''t escape the sense that something terrible is waiting for her. She recounts her enchanted yet scarred life as she journeys in her speedboat up the frigid waters of the Douglas Channel. She is searching for her brother, dead by drowning, and in her own way running as fast as she can toward danger.

Circling her brother''s tragic death are the remarkable characters that make up her family: Lisamarie''s parents, struggling to join their Haisla heritage with Western ways; Uncle Mick, a Native rights activist and devoted Elvis fan; and the headstrong Ma-ma-oo (Haisla for "grandmother"), a guardian of tradition.

Haunting, funny, and vividly poignant, Monkey Beach gives full scope to Robinson''s startling ability to make bedfellows of comedy and the dark underside of life. Informed as much by its lush living wilderness as by the humanity of its colorful characters, Monkey Beach is a profoundly moving story about childhood and the pain of growing older--a multilayered tale of family grief and redemption.

Educator Information
Grades 10-12 BC English First Peoples resource.

Note: This novel contains mature subject matter such as drug use and depictions of sex and violence.

This book is available in French: Les esprits de l'océan

Additional Information
384 pages | 5.14" x 8.00"

Memories. Some memories are elusive, fleeting, like a butterfly that touches down and is free until it is caught. Others are haunting. You'd rather forget them, but they won't be forgotten. And some are always there. No matter where you are, they are there, too.

In this moving story of legacy and reclamation, two young sisters are taken from their home and family. Powerless in a broken system, April and Cheryl are separated and placed in different foster homes. Despite the distance, they remain close, even as their decisions threaten to divide them emotionally, culturally, and geographically. As one sister embraces her Métis identity, the other tries to leave it behind.

Will the sisters’ bond survive as they struggle to make their way in a society that is often indifferent, hostile, and violent?

Based on the adult novel In Search of April Raintree, this edition has been revised specifically for students in grades 9 through 12. 

Educator Information
Recommended Grades: 9-12.  This version of the novel was written specifically for students in grades 9-12 and does not contain the graphic scene that is contained in the original version, In Search of April Raintree.

Grades 10-12 English First Peoples resource.

Find a teacher guide for In Search of April Raintree and April Raintree here: Teacher Guide for In Search of April Raintree and April Raintree: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Stories of Indigenous Survivance, Family Separation, and the Child Welfare System

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

The captivating story of Mary John (who passed away in 2004), a pioneering Carrier Native whose life on the Stoney Creek reserve in central BC is a capsule history of First Nations life from a unique woman's perspective.

A mother of twelve, Mary endured much tragedy and heartbreak the pangs of racism, poverty, and the deaths of six children but lived her life with extraordinary grace and courage. Years after her death, she continues to be a positive role model for Aboriginals across Canada. In 1997 she received the Order of Canada. This edition of Stoney Creek Woman, one of Arsenal's all-time bestsellers, includes a new preface by author Bridget Moran, and new photographs.

Shortlisted for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize

Now in its 14th printing.