Novels

Floyd Twofeathers has always trusted his mom, a traditional healer, and his dad, hereditary chief of their band, to take care of the people on their reserve. But a lack of educational and career opportunities, medical support and counselling has left young people feeling that they have no future. As suicides pile up, Floyd finds that his friends and kids he knows are taking their own lives because they feel that they have no future — but his father refuses to listen to Floyd's attempts to find a realistic solution. When Floyd's father is overwhelmed by the situation and succumbs to alcohol and depression, it is up to Floyd to turn around his community's descent into crisis before it's too late.

Set in a situation of suicide contagion among young people in Aboriginal communities, this novel follows one teenager's determined efforts to help his friends and his community find solutions.

Reviews
"This was an incredibly moving book about the hardships Indigenous people and the increasing amount of suicides happening on reservations."— Amanda Wood,, NetGalley Reviewer, June 2017

"The voice she uses, that of a determined young man who refuses to accept the status quo is believable, direct and engaging."— Chris Benjamin,, Atlantic Books Today, June 2017

"A good opening into Native American reservations and their issues that the federal government needs to address."— Mai Khanh Nguyen,, Educator, NetGalley Reviewer, June 2017

"This is a look at life that few people who don't live it ever get to see. A raw, unapologetic look. It's brilliantly written and heartbreaking, knowing how hopeless these kids feel. "— Liliyana Shadowlyn, Reviewer, NetGalley, October 2017

Educator Information
Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list for grades 8 to 12 for English Language Arts.

Strong language and discussion of suicide within this work may trigger some readers.

Additional Information
176 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

In 1966, twelve-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied.

More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city. Five were found dead in the rivers surrounding Lake Superior, below a sacred Indigenous site. Jordan Wabasse, a gentle boy and star hockey player, disappeared into the minus twenty degrees Celsius night. The body of celebrated artist Norval Morrisseau’s grandson, Kyle, was pulled from a river, as was Curran Strang’s. Robyn Harper died in her boarding-house hallway and Paul Panacheese inexplicably collapsed on his kitchen floor. Reggie Bushie’s death finally prompted an inquest, seven years after the discovery of Jethro Anderson, the first boy whose body was found in the water.

Using a sweeping narrative focusing on the lives of the students, award-winning investigative journalist Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this small northern city that has come to manifest Canada’s long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities.

A portion of each sale of Seven Fallen Feathers will go to the Dennis Franklin Cromarty Memorial Fund, set up in 1994 to financially assist Nishnawbe Aski Nation students’ studies in Thunder Bay and at post-secondary institutions.

Awards
- 2018-2019 First Nation Communities Read
- 2018 RBC Taylor Prize

Reviews
“Talaga has written Canada’s J’Accuse, an open letter to the rest of us about the many ways we contribute — through act or inaction — to suicides and damaged existences in Canada’s Indigenous communities. Tanya Talaga’s account of teen lives and deaths in and near Thunder Bay is detailed, balanced and heart-rending. Talaga describes gaps in the system large enough for beloved children and adults to fall through, endemic indifference, casual racism and a persistent lack of resources. It is impossible to read this book and come away unchanged.” — RBC Taylor Prize Jury Citation

“In Seven Fallen Feathers, Tanya Talaga delves into the lives of seven Indigenous students who died while attending high school in Thunder Bay over the first eleven years of this century. With a narrative voice encompassing lyrical creation myth, razor-sharp reporting, and a searing critique of Canada’s ongoing colonial legacy, Talaga binds these tragedies — and the ambivalent response from police and government — into a compelling tapestry. This vivid, wrenching book shatters the air of abstraction that so often permeates news of the injustices Indigenous communities face every day. It is impossible to read Seven Fallen Feathers and not care about the lives lost, the families thrust into purgatory, while the rest of society looks away.” — Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury Citation

“[A]n urgent and unshakable portrait of the horrors faced by Indigenous teens going to school in Thunder Bay, Ontario, far from their homes and families. . . . Talaga’s incisive research and breathtaking storytelling could bring this community one step closer to the healing it deserves.” — Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

“Seven Fallen Feathers may prove to be the most important book published in Canada in 2017. Tanya Talaga offers well-researched, difficult truths that expose the systemic racism, poverty, and powerlessness that contribute to the ongoing issues facing Indigenous youth, their families, and their communities. It is a call to action that deeply honours the lives of the seven young people; our entire nation should feel their loss profoundly.” — Patti LaBoucane-Benson, author of The Outside Circle

“[W]here Seven Fallen Feathers truly shines is in Talaga’s intimate retellings of what families experience when a loved one goes missing, from filing a missing-persons report with police, to the long and brutal investigation process, to the final visit in the coroner’s office. It’s a heartbreaking portrait of an indifferent and often callous system . . . Seven Fallen Feathers is a must-read for all Canadians. It shows us where we came from, where we’re at, and what we need to do to make the country a better place for us all.” — The Walrus

Educator Information
The Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools list recommends this resource for Grade 12 English Language Arts and Social Studies.

Curriculum Connections: Indigenous Studies, History, Health

Additional Information
376 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | 8-page colour insert and maps

Shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize: With striking originality and precision, Eden Robinson, the author of the classic Monkey Beach and winner of the Writers’ Trust of Canada Fellowship, blends humour with heartbreak in this compelling coming-of-age novel. Everyday teen existence meets indigenous beliefs, crazy family dynamics, and cannibalistic river otters...The exciting first novel in her trickster trilogy.

Everyone knows a guy like Jared: the burnout kid in high school who sells weed cookies and has a scary mom who's often wasted and wielding some kind of weapon. Jared does smoke and drink too much, and he does make the best cookies in town, and his mom is a mess, but he's also a kid who has an immense capacity for compassion and an impulse to watch over people more than twice his age, and he can't rely on anyone for consistent love and support, except for his flatulent pit bull, Baby Killer (he calls her Baby)--and now she's dead.

Jared can't count on his mom to stay sober and stick around to take care of him. He can't rely on his dad to pay the bills and support his new wife and step-daughter. Jared is only sixteen but feels like he is the one who must stabilize his family's life, even look out for his elderly neighbours. But he struggles to keep everything afloat...and sometimes he blacks out. And he puzzles over why his maternal grandmother has never liked him, why she says he's the son of a trickster, that he isn't human. Mind you, ravens speak to him--even when he's not stoned.

You think you know Jared, but you don't.

Reviews
“Eden Robinson’s Son of a Trickster is a novel that shimmers with magic and vitality, featuring a compelling narrator, somewhere between Holden Caulfield and Harry Potter. Just when you think Jared’s teenage journey couldn’t be more grounded in gritty, grinding reality, his addled perceptions take us into a realm beyond his small-town life, somewhere both seductive and dangerous. Energetic, often darkly funny, sometimes poignant, this is a book that will resonate long after the reader has devoured the final page.” —2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize jury (André Alexis, Anita Rau Badami, Lynn Coady, and Richard Beard)

Educator & Series Information
This is the first book in Eden Robinson's Trickster Trilogy. It is followed by Trickster Drift.

Grades 11-12 BC English First Peoples resource for the unit What Creates Family. 

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

This book is available in French: Le fils du Trickster

Additional Information
336 pages | 5.20" x 8.00" | Paperback

Louis Riel arrives at Batoche in 1884 to help the Métis fight for their lands and discovers that the rebellious outsider Josette Lavoie is a granddaughter of the famous chief Big Bear, whom he needs as an ally. But Josette learns of Riel's hidden agenda - to establish a separate state with his new church at its head - and refuses to help him. Only when the great Gabriel Dumont promises her that he will not let Riel fail does she agree to join the cause. In this raw wilderness on the brink of change, the lives of seven unforgettable characters converge, each one with secrets: Louis Riel and his tortured wife Marguerite; a duplicitous Catholic priest; Gabriel Dumont and his dying wife Madeleine; a Hudson's Bay Company spy; and the enigmatic Josette Lavoie. As the Dominion Army marches on Batoche, Josette and Gabriel must manage Riel's escalating religious fanaticism and a growing attraction to each other. Song of Batoche is a timeless story that traces the borderlines of faith and reason, obsession and madness, betrayal and love.

Awards
2015 Governor General's Award for French-to-English Translation winner

Reviews
"This passionate retelling uses women's eyes to reveal the hidden history behind Riel and Gabriel Dumont. Deeply researched, and rooted in the soil of Batoche." - Marina Endicott, author of the Giller-nominated Close to Hugh

"Combining fine research and engaging storytelling, Song of Batoche is a stirring fictionalized account of events in and around the 1885 North-West Resistance. Josette Lavoie is an intriguing and memorable heroine." - Katherena Vermette, author of the The Break and winner of the Governor General's Award

"Caron weaves a tale of love, betrayal and obsession . . . a vivid and fast-paced retelling of this moment in Canadian history." - Toronto Star

"A fascinating and beautifully written account of Louis Riel and the months preceding the Battle of Batoche, as seen through the eyes of the Métis women. This is a perspective we've not seen before, and Caron handles it with compassion and depth." Lauren B. Davis, author of the Giller-nominated Our Daily Bread

Additional Information
372 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

When Cole Harper is compelled to return to Wounded Sky First Nation, he finds his community in chaos: a series of shocking murders, a mysterious illness ravaging the residents, and reemerging questions about Cole’s role in the tragedy that drove him away 10 years ago. With the aid of an unhelpful spirit, a disfigured ghost, and his two oldest friends, Cole tries to figure out his purpose, and unravel the mysteries he left behind a decade ago. Will he find the answers in time to save his community?

Reviews
"Within the very opening pages of Strangers, Cole Harper had already burrowed his way deep into my heart. I raced through the chapters, fearing for this young hero, his friends, and his wider community. David Robertson has written a riveting story of a young man burdened with adult responsibilities. Robertson’s true skill, though, comes in the way he balances the intense peril with humour and magic and love and resilience. Teachers, get this novel into your classrooms. I want everyone to read Strangers." — Angie Abdou, author of In Case I Go 

Educator & Series Information
Strangers is the first novel in The Reckoner trilogy, followed by Monsters and then Ghosts.

The Reckoner series is recommended for ages 12 to 18.

The Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools list recommends this resource for Grades 9-12 English Language Arts.

This book is available in French: La trilogie Reckoner - Tome 1: Étrangers

Additional Information
233 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

A work of historical fiction about Sequoyah and the creation of the Cherokee alphabet, from the acclaimed author of Code Talker

Thirteen-year-old Uwohali has not seen his father, Sequoyah, for many years. So when Sequoyah returns to the village, Uwohali is eager to reconnect. But Sequoyah’s new obsession with making strange markings causes friends and neighbors in their tribe to wonder whether he is crazy, or worse—practicing witchcraft. What they don’t know, and what Uwohali discovers, is that Sequoyah is a genius and his strange markings are actually an alphabet representing the sounds of the Cherokee language.

The story of one of the most important figures in Native American history is brought to life for middle grade readers. This text includes a note about the historical Sequoyah, the Cherokee syllabary, a glossary of Cherokee words, and suggestions for further reading in the back matter.

Reviews
* “Bruchac has crafted a tale of depth and universal humanity in this fictionalized account of Sequoyah, the creator of the Cherokee syllabary, and his son, Jesse." —School Library Journal, starred review

“Although the particulars of the novel occur two hundred years ago, the universality of fitting into a blended family and looking for love and acceptance from a once-absent father feel strikingly contemporary." —Horn Book

"A vivid retelling of a pivotal time for the Cherokee nation.” —Kirkus Reviews

Additional Information
288 pages | 5.19" x 7.81"

While everyone is busy preparing for the coming winter, two girls wander away from their camp, following a path of strange, beautiful stones. Each stone is lovelier than the last, and the trail leads them farther and farther away from camp. But what starts out as a peaceful afternoon on the tundra quickly turns dangerous when the girls find themselves trapped in the cave of Mangittatuarjuk—the Gnawer of Rocks! Based on a traditional Inuit story, this graphic novel introduces readers to a dark and twisted creature that haunts the Arctic landscape and preys on unsuspecting children…

Educator Information
Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list as being useful for grades 6-9 in these subject areas: English Language Arts.

Gory details, often found in Inuit stories, may be disturbing for some readers.

Additional Information
56 pages | 10.25" x 8.25"

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Reviews
“Beautifully written in Starr’s authentic first-person voice, this is a marvel of verisimilitude as it insightfully examines two worlds in collision. An inarguably important book that demands the widest possible readership.”— Booklist

“In her debut novel, Angie Thomas creates what might be one of the decade’s most vivid voices in YA fiction. Though the appalling scenario depicted here is sadly familiar, Thomas’s clear and honest writing moves beyond sound bites to represent the real people and communities behind the headlines.” — Shelf Awareness 

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 14+

Additional Information
464 pages | 5.50" x 8.25" | Hardcover 

Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden - but what they don't know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.

Awards

• Winner of 2017 Governor General's Literary Award
• Winner of 2017 Kirkus Prize
• Winner of the 2018 Burt Literary Award for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Young Adult Literature.  

Reviews
“Miigwans is a true hero; in him Dimaline creates a character of tremendous emotional depth and tenderness, connecting readers with the complexity and compassion of Indigenous people. A dystopian world that is all too real and that has much to say about our own.”— Kirkus Reviews

"There's a quality in Dimaline's writing that reached from the page, into my being ... That's a specific reference to the residential schools of the past, where so much was taken from Native children. It is one of many points in The Marrow Thieves where - painfully or with exquisite beauty - Dimaline's story resonates with me. It will resonate with other Native readers, too, especially those who are Anishinabe. Several tribal nations are mentioned in here, too ... There's so much more to say ... about Miggs and Isaac, about Ri, about Minerva, about French. But I'll stop and let you be with these achingly dear characters. I highly recommend The Marrow Thieves." — Debbie Reese, American Indians in Children's Literature

"In The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline creates a near-future world which distinctly echoes our own, current and past traumas that have come back to repeat themselves, fiction with a basis in reality that gives the narrative a sheen of hard truths, following the trials and tribulations of a relatable cast of characters and their struggles to survive, and live their lives with the love and safety denied to them. The high-stakes tension of each scene pulls the reader along through the story, with a core message about our dreams and culture, which despite losses, has the potential to heal, and the power to restore." — Trillium Book Award Jury Citation, June 2018

"[The Marrow Thieves] brilliantly connects the legacy of residential schools to a dystopian post-climate-change future where only Indigenous people are able to dream. Dimaline’s novel reminds us of the power of storytelling and the importance of community, reinforced for the disenfranchised children by the wisdom of the heroic elder, Miigwans. The writing is painful yet beautiful, bleak but ultimately hopeful. In this era of reconciliation, Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves is a work of speculative fiction that resonates and stays with the reader long past the last page." — Sunburst Award Jury Citation, October 2018

Educator & Series Information
Recommended Ages: 13+ 

Recommended English First Peoples resource for grades 11-12.

This book is part of the Marrow Thieves series.

The Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools list recommends this resource for Grades 9-12 English Language Arts.

Caution: This book touches on physical and sexual violence.

DCB Young Readers has created a Teacher's Guide for this resource, which can be downloaded here: Teachers Guide - The Marrow Thieves

This resource is also available in French: Pilleurs de rêves

Additional Information
180 pages | 5.00" x 8.00"

Everyone knows everyone's business in the small fishing community of Kitsum. So when young Brenda Joe fears she might be pregnant, she also worries that rumours will spread quickly. Things look up when Brenda's favourite aunt, Monica returns to Kitsum for Christmas, although she is preoccupied with her own relationship problems. It's become clear to her that the white man she's been living with in Vancouver sees her as his "Indian Princess," his own exotic arm candy, and she's had enough. When she learns about Brenda's secret relationship with a local man, Monica is appalled and goes to set him straight. But is there more to this attractive loner and his hard-partying relations than meets the eye? Come spring, amid their secrets and betrayals, each family member will be tempted down to the water to collect herring eggs from artfully placed hemlock branches. The question is, will they be able to face one another?

Educator Information
Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list for grades 9 to 12 for English Language Arts.

This work contains topics of substance abuse, sexuality, adultery, and child neglect that are not the focus of the story but still a part of it.

Additional Information
288 pages | 5.25" x 8.00"

Authenticity Note: Karen Charleson is a member of the House of Kinquashtakumlth and the Hesquiaht First Nation through marriage.  We have applied the Authentic Indigenous Text label for this reason; however, readers will need to determine if this work is authentic for their purposes.

May, a young teenage girl, traverses the city streets, finding keepsakes in different places along her journey. When May and her kookum make these keepsakes into a necklace, it opens a world of danger and fantasy. While May fights against a terrible reality, she learns that there is strength in the spirit of those that have passed. But will that strength be able to save her? A story of tragedy and beauty, Will I See illuminates the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Additional Information
54 pages | 6.50" x 10.00"

This is the fifth book in the Stories of Our People series.

Educator & Series Information
Stories of Our People/Lii zistwayr di la naasyoon di Michif Series is a departure from other books about Aboriginal or traditional stories. It includes five stories. As readers go through the series, they will notice that the narrative and artwork gets progressively darker. The series starts with trickster stories, then moves to a Whiitigo and Paakuk story, then jumps to a story about selling one’s soul and personal redemption, and finally to a Roogaroo story.

This project came to life from the stories of our Elders, and as such, original transcripts of the stories, prose renditions by Janice DePeel, and biographies of the storytellers and project team are available on the Virtual Museum of Métis History and Culture: www.metismuseum.ca/browse/index.php?id=13100

Based on stories by Norman Fleury, Gilbert Pelletier, Jeanne Pelletier, Joe Welsh, and Norma Welsh.

Stories of Our People/Lii zistwayr di la naasyoon di Michif Series:
Book 1: How Michif was Lost
Book 2: Chi-Jean and the Red Willows
Book 3: Whistle for Protection
Book 4: Sins of the Righteous
Book 5: Attack of the Roogaroos!

A dramatic and lyrical coming-of-age novel about a young Blackfoot girl who grows up in the residential school system on the Canadian prairies.

Torn from her home and delivered to St. Mark’s Residential School for Girls by government decree, young Rose Marie finds herself in an alien universe where nothing of her previous life is tolerated, not even her Blackfoot name. For she has entered into the world of the Sisters of Brotherly Love, an order of nuns dedicated to saving the Indigenous children from damnation. Life under the sharp eye of Mother Grace, the Mother General, becomes an endless series of torments, from daily recitations and obligations to chronic sickness and inedible food. And then there are the beatings. All the feisty Rose Marie wants to do is escape from St. Mark’s. How her imagination soars as she dreams about her lost family on the Reserve, finding in her visions a healing spirit that touches her heart. But all too soon she starts to see other shapes in her dreams as well, shapes that warn her of unspoken dangers and mysteries that threaten to engulf her. And she has seen the rows of plain wooden crosses behind the school, reminding her that many students have never left here alive.

Set during the Second World War and the 1950s, Black Apple is an unforgettable, vividly rendered novel about two very different women whose worlds collide: an irrepressible young Blackfoot girl whose spirit cannot be destroyed, and an aging yet powerful nun who increasingly doubts the value of her life. It captures brilliantly the strange mix of cruelty and compassion in the residential schools, where young children are forbidden to speak their own languages and given Christian names. As Rose Marie matures, she finds increasingly that she knows only the life of the nuns, with its piety, hard work and self-denial. Why is it, then, that she is haunted by secret visions—of past crimes in the school that terrify her, of her dead mother, of the Indigenous life on the plains that has long vanished? Even the kind-hearted Sister Cilla is unable to calm her fears. And then, there is a miracle, or so Mother Grace says. Now Rose is thrust back into the outside world with only her wits to save her.

With a poet’s eye, Joan Crate creates brilliantly the many shadings of this heartbreaking novel, rendering perfectly the inner voices of Rose Marie and Mother Grace, and exploring the larger themes of belief and belonging, of faith and forgiveness.

This is the second book in the Stories of Our People series.

Educator & Series Information
Stories of Our People/Lii zistwayr di la naasyoon di Michif Series is a departure from other books about Aboriginal or traditional stories. It includes five stories. As readers go through the series, they will notice that the narrative and artwork gets progressively darker. The series starts with trickster stories, then moves to a Whiitigo and Paakuk story, then jumps to a story about selling one’s soul and personal redemption, and finally to a Roogaroo story.

This project came to life from the stories of our Elders, and as such, original transcripts of the stories, prose renditions by Janice DePeel, and biographies of the storytellers and project team are available on the Virtual Museum of Métis History and Culture: www.metismuseum.ca/browse/index.php?id=13100

Based on stories by Norman Fleury, Gilbert Pelletier, Jeanne Pelletier, Joe Welsh, and Norma Welsh.

Stories of Our People/Lii zistwayr di la naasyoon di Michif Series:
Book 1: How Michif was Lost
Book 2: Chi-Jean and the Red Willows
Book 3: Whistle for Protection
Book 4: Sins of the Righteous
Book 5: Attack of the Roogaroos!

Acclaimed author Ruby Slipperjack delivers a haunting novel about a 12-year-old girl's experience at a residential school in 1966.

Violet Pesheens is struggling to adjust to her new life at residential school. She misses her Grandma; she has run-ins with Cree girls; at her "white" school, everyone just stares; and everything she brought has been taken from her, including her name-she is now just a number. But worst of all, she has a fear. A fear of forgetting the things she treasures most: her Anishnabe language; the names of those she knew before; and her traditional customs. A fear of forgetting who she was.

Her notebook is the one place she can record all of her worries, and heartbreaks, and memories. And maybe, just maybe there will be hope at the end of the tunnel.

Drawing from her own experiences at residential school, Ruby Slipperjack creates a brave, yet heartbreaking heroine in Violet, and lets young readers glimpse into an all-too important chapter in our nation's history.

Educator Information
Find the French translation of this resource here: Cher journal: Les mots qu'il me reste

Additional Information
192 pages | 5.54" x 7.66"