Indigenous writers recommend books to read during Indigenous Book Club Month

Every day during Indigenous Book Club Month, CBC Books published a recommendation from an Indigenous writer to read a book by another Indigenous writer.

CBC Books · CBC · Posted: Jul 07, 2017 12:40 PM EDT | Last Updated: September 11, 2017

Every day during Indigenous Book Club Month, CBC Books published a recommendation from an Indigenous writer to read a book by another Indigenous writer. Check out all the recommendations below!

Gwen Benaway recommends The Break by Katherena Vermette

Gwen Benaway is the author of Passage, a collection of poetry. (Ashley Emma/House of Anansi Press)

Gwen Benaway says: "The Break is a beautiful and rare work of fiction. It explores the legacy of inter-generational violence in the lives of Indigenous women in Winnipeg."

Daniel Heath Justice recommends Writing As Witness by Beth Brant

Daniel Heath Justice is the author of Badger, a book about the global cultural history of the badger. (Daniel Heath Justice/Three O'Clock Press)

Daniel Heath Justice says: "I was a graduate student just coming out of the silence of cultural shame into a deeper sense of belonging when I first read Writing As Witness. This slim volume remains a touchstone text in my personal library."

Shannon Webb-Campbell recommends Memory Serves by Lee Maracle

Shannon Webb-Campbell is the author of Still No Word, a poetry collection. (Meghan Tansey Whitton/NeWest Press)

Shannon Webb-Campbell says: "Coast Salish award-winning author Lee Maracle's Memory Serves gives voice to the living breathing land... This is an offering of consciousness, a journey of awakening."

Richard Van Camp recommends Deadly Loyalties by Jennifer Storm

Richard Van Camp is the author of the novel The Lesser Blessed. (Laughing Dog Photography/Theytus Books)

Richard Van Camp says: "Jennifer Storm came out with Deadly Loyalties, published by Theytus Books, when she was 16. This story is about a young Indigenous woman who wants very much to join a gang in Manitoba so she'll have respect and protection."

Alicia Elliott recommends The Stone Collection by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm

In 2015, Alicia Elliott was selected as an emerging writer by the Banff Centre for the Arts' Indigenous Writing program. (Twitter/Portage & Main Press)

Alicia Elliott says: "The Stone Collection explores the lives and loves of Anishinaabe people with so much care it made me openly and very awkwardly weep basically every place I read it — but it also made me laugh, think and hope."

Gord Grisenthwaite recommends A Short History of Indians in Canada by Thomas King

Gord Grisenthwaite says: "King's 2005 story collection, A Short History of Indians in Canada, remains important to me as the first 'real' evidence I had that Natives wrote and published in Canada. It is also a stellar example of CanLit."

Gloria Mehlmann recommends Treaty Promises, Indian Reality by Harold LeRat with Linda Ungar

Gloria Mehlmann is the author of Gifted to Learn, a memoir about her career in the education system. (Gloria Mehlmann/Purich Publishing Ltd.)

Gloria Mehlmann says: "Stephen Hawking once likened an alien invasion of Earth to the time Europeans arrived and how Native Americans were treated. Harold LeRat's Treaty Promises, Indian Reality: Life on a Reserve, published in 2005, outlines the alien method in stunning detail."

Tanya Roach recommends Life Among the Qallunaat by Mini Aodla Freeman

Life Among the Qallunaat is Tanya Roach's recommendation for Indigenous Book Club Month. (Tanya Roach/University of Manitoba Press)

Tanya Roach says: "Life Among the Qallunaat is a book about Mini Aodla Freeman's journey from her small hometown to a big city for a job. The cultural transition from traditional Inuit lifestyle to modernized cities was interesting, humorous, difficult and downright honest."

Daniel David Moses recommends Burning in this Midnight Dream by Louise Bernice Halfe

Daniel David Moses recommends Burning in this Midnight Dream for Indigenous Book Club Month. (Daniel David Moses)

Daniel David Moses says: "That her subject matter is the now more familiar and familial damage of residential schools, that she renders it in language both simple and deep and enthralling, brings more of the world into our literature and makes it a better place. Burning in this Midnight Dream is a thrilling achievement."

Dawn Dumont recommends The Education of Augie Merasty by Joseph Merasty with David Carpenter

Dawn Dumont is the author of the books Glass Beads, Nobody Cries at Bingo and Rose's Run. (Thistledown Press)

Dawn Dumont says: "Merasty depicts the [residential school] abuse gently, as if trying to protect the reader. It worries me that sharing it hurt him and that he had no one there to protect him from this second level of abuse. Merasty made huge sacrifices to write The Education of Augie Merasty, and I believe Canada owes him the obligation to read and learn from it."

Monique Gray Smith recommends Islands of Decolonial Love by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Monique Gray Smith is the author of the award-winning novel Tilly. (Centric Photography/Orca Books)

Monique Gray Smith says: "Each and every story in Islands of Decolonial Love stirred something deep within me. Depending on the story, Leanne's words are either like a healing salve gathered and prepared by a loving Auntie or like ocean water slowly dropped on an open wound."

Harold R. Johnson recommends Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson

Harold R. Johnson is the author of Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (and Yours). (Thistledown Press/Knopf Canada)

Harold R. Johnson says: "Eden Robinson's Son of a Trickster... employs word craft so precise that every word bead is sewn in the exact right position to create a piece of art that allows me to see as well as feel the story."

Cherie Dimaline recommends Witness, I Am by Gregory Scofield

Cherie Dimaline is the author of the YA novel The Girl Who Grew A Galaxy. (Cherie Dimaline/Nightwood Editions)

Cherie Dimaline says: "In Witness, I Am, Scofield gives us ceremony in his words, love in his images, belonging in his ache... I am grateful every time I hear Gregory speak or read the genius in his poems, because each time I remember how privileged I am to be Indigenous, to be Métis, to be a part of the community he refuses to compromise on, that he carries with him through each word and every line."

Francine Cunningham recommends Shadows Cast by Stars by Catherine Knutsson

Francine Cunningham's writing has appeared in the Malahat Review and the Puritan. (Simon & Schuster Canada)

Francine Cunningham says: "Shadows Cast by Stars by Catherine Knutsson is a thrilling young adult dystopian novel that explores the ideas behind blood quantum, Métis identity and the future of our planet where the supernatural come out to play."

Rita Bouvier recommends A Really Good Brown Girl by Marilyn Dumont

Rita Bouvier has published the poetry collections Blueberry Clouds and papîyâhtak. (Thistledown Press/Bricks Books Classics)

Rita Bouvier says: "A Really Good Brown Girl by Marilyn Dumont, published in 1996, winner of the Gerald Lampert Award, is a seminal work that should be read by every Canadian. In 2017, the poems still resonate with a life lived in a context and the fallout of a colonialized, racialized and sexualized world."

Billy-Ray Belcourt recommends Passage by Gwen Benaway

Billy-Ray Belcourt is the author of The Wound is a World, a poetry collection. (Aboriginal Professional Association of Canada/Kegedonce Press)

Billy-Ray Belcourt says: "In Passage, Benaway takes to nature imagery because she knows that to think with the trees, the clouds and the lake is to think the thorny cages of the semantic. She knows that we are all at the mercy of the sky, for better or for worse."

Jessie MacKenzie recommends Walking the Clouds edited by Grace L. Dillon

Jessie MacKenzie is an author and a poet from Windsor, Ontario. (Jessie MacKenzie/The University of Arizona Press)

Jessie MacKenzie says: "Walking The Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction is a must-read for those who wish to explore far-off galaxies and alternate histories. These powerful stories provide vital life lessons in the age of reconciliation and technocracy. Canada, prepare yourself for a metaphysical experience that is out of this world."

Carol Rose Daniels recommends Angel Wing Splash Pattern by Richard Van Camp

Carol Rose Daniels is the author of the novel Bearskin Diary. (Harbour Publishing/Kegedonce Press)

Carol Rose Daniels says: "I remember reading one of Richard's short stories while in flight from Yellowknife to Edmonton a few years ago... I started sobbing on the airplane. Angel Wing Splash Pattern is beautifully written. The depth of Richard's writing is phenomenal."

Patti LaBoucane-Benson recommends Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan by Harold Cardinal and Walter Hildebrandt

Patti LaBoucane-Benson is the author of the graphic novel The Outside Circle. (Patti LaBoucane-Benson/University of Calgary Press)

Patti LaBoucane-Benson says: "At the core of Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan are instructions for being a good human — a guide to seeking miyo-pimatisiwin (the good, healthy life) — and the cornerstones to truth and reconciliation."

Jennifer Storm recommends The Evolution of Alice by David Robertson

Jennifer Storm is the author of the novel Deadly Loyalties. (Portage & Main Press)

Jennifer Storm says: "The Evolution of Alice is heartbreaking but also a story of healing, community and love, and we can always use more of that."

Joshua Whitehead recommends Totem Poles & Railroads by Janet Rogers

Joshua Whitehead's first book of poetry will debut fall 2017. (Joshua Whitehead/ARP Books)

Joshua Whitehead says: "I think of Totem Poles & Railroads as if she was my kokum: I listen fiercely, learn wisely and leave with a belly full of story."

Carleigh Baker recommends A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby

Carleigh Baker is the author of the short story collection Bad Endings. (Callan Field/University of Manitoba Press)

Carleigh Baker says: "A Two-Spirit Journey is a story about resilience, told with striking honesty and unadorned simplicity. The particulars of Chacaby's life, as well as the social and cultural context she provides, gives readers a nuanced look into Canada's recent past."

Niigaanwewidam Sinclair recommends Read, Listen, Tell, edited by Sophie McCall et al.

Niigaanwewidam Sinclair is the co-author of the graphic novel The Loxleys and Confederation. (Niigaanwewidam Sinclair/WLU Press)

Niigaanwewidam Sinclair says: "If you want a primer on Indigenous cultural expressions, Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories From Turtle Island is for you. If you want deft, detailed stories in Indigenous written, oral and graphic traditions, these will expand your thinking."

Chantal Fiola recommends Firewater by Harold R. Johnson

Chantal Fiola is author of Rekindling the Sacred Fire: Métis Ancestry and Anishinaabe Spirituality. (University of Regina Press/Chantal Fiola)

Chantal Fiola says: "In Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (and Yours), Johnson, a Crown prosecutor, uses conversational narrative, Trickster stories, research and statistics to discuss the relationship between the Cree and alcohol — and how that story can be changed."

Janet Rogers recommends Burning in This Midnight Dream by Louise Bernice Halfe

Janet Rogers is the author of the poetry collection Totem Poles & Railroads. (Janet Rogers/Coteau Books)

Janet Rogers says: "In Burning in This Midnight Dream, Halfe shares with us her bravest work to date. She has dug out, from deep inside herself, the cancerous and disturbing tissue from where her dysfunctional realities are born."

Lisa Bird-Wilson recommends Passage by Gwen Benaway

Lisa Bird-Wilson is the author of the poetry collection The Red Files. (Kegedonce Press)

Lisa Bird-Wilson says: "Passage is raw and engaging and relatable. To my fellow book club members I say, drop everything and read this book now."

Waubgeshig Rice recommends The Lesser Blessed by Richard Van Camp

Waubgeshig Rice is the author of the novel Legacy. (Douglas & McIntyre/Waubgeshig Rice)

Waubgeshig Rice says: "When I first read it, Richard Van Camp's The Lesser Blessed struck me as a quintessential telling of the young Indigenous experience. All these years later, I still believe that."

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm recommends The Way of Thorn and Thunder by Daniel Heath Justice

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is the author of the novel The Stone Collection. (Portage & Main Press)

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm says: "The Way of Thorn and Thunder cleverly confronts and deconstructs the fantasy genre to tell an action-packed story of exploration and dislocation from the perspective of the Kyn, the Indigenous peoples of this lush and balanced world whose lives and homelands are threatened with conquest and exploitation."