3 books by David A. Robertson among those nominated for First Nations Communities Read Awards

Swampy Cree writer and graphic novelist David A. Robertson has three books nominated for the 2023-2024 First Nation Communities Read Awards. 

The First Nation Communities Read Awards are comprised of two $5,000 prizes that celebrate the best of Indigenous literature in Canada. The winning titles are distributed in libraries across Ontario.

There are two categories  — YA/adult and children's books — with some 70 titles on the longlists. The YA/adult list features Robertson's novels The Stone Child and The Theory of Crows and his graphic novel, Version Control.

The Stone Child is the third book in Robertson's Misewa Saga, which is an Indigenous, Narnia-inspired, middle-grade fantasy series.

The Theory of Crows is a novel that follows the story of father and daughter Matthew and Holly as they search for a long-lost cabin on the family trapline. 

• 'Write what you're passionate about.' David A. Robertson's advice for his younger self

Version Control is the second volume in the superhero YA graphic novel series, The Reckoner Rises. It is illustrated by Scott B. Henderson, Donovan Yaciuk and Andrew Thomas.

Based in Winnipeg, Robertson has published over 25 books and is a two-time winner of the Governor General's Literary Award.

LISTEN | David A. Robertson talks about The Theory of Crows: 

The Next Chapter18:51David A. Robertson on The Theory of Crows

David A. Robertson talks to Shelagh Rogers about his novel, The Theory of Crows.

Robertson is not the only celebrated author on these lists  — they bring together some of the most prominent Indigenous writers from Turtle Island, including Harold R. Johnson, Jen Ferguson, Joshua Whitehead and Billy Ray Belcourt.

Johnson's The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era highlights the importance of storytelling in every aspect of human life. Johnson, who died in 2022, was a member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation, a lawyer and writer whose groundbreaking book Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (and Yours) was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction. 

Ferguson's The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, which won the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature for text, is also on the longlist for YA/adult titles. The young adult novel follows the story of a Métis girl living on the Canadian prairies. Ferguson is of Michif/Métis and Canadian settler heritage and her work includes the 2016 novel Border Markers and the essay Off Balance. 

• When it comes to Indigenous resilience, Jen Ferguson says it's OK to go ahead and scream

Another book on the YA/Adult longlist is Whitehead's Making Love with the Land, a personal essay collection about exploring Indigeneity, queerness and identity. Whitehead is an Oji-nêhiyaw, two-spirit writer, poet and Indigiqueer scholar from Peguis First Nation. His novel, Jonny Appleseed, won Canada Reads in 2021.

Belcourt, a scholar and writer from Driftpile Cree Nation in Alberta, is nominated for A Minor Chorus. The novel follows an unnamed author as he returns to Alberta, abandoning his unfinished thesis, as he searches for what is missing in his life. 

Belcourt won the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize for This Wound is a World. The collection also won the 2018 Indigenous Voices Award for most significant work of poetry in English and was a finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. Belcourt's second book, NDN Coping Mechanisms, uses poetry, prose and textual art to explore how Indigenous and queer communities are left out of mainstream media. It was on the Canada Reads 2020 longlist and was shortlisted for the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards.

• Billy-Ray Belcourt's debut novel A Minor Chorus explores sex, love and violence in northern Alberta

Other notable nominees include Candy Palmater and Joseph Kakwinokanasum. 

Writer, actor and comedian Candy Palmater is nominated for her posthumous memoir,  Running Down a Dream, where she recounts the ups and downs of her life journey. 

• Candy Palmater: 5 books that changed my life

A band member of Ugpi'ganjig, a Mi'kmaw First Nation in northern New Brunswick, she became a lawyer but then took a government job so she could pursue comedy at night. And that she did  —  Palmater hosted and created the award-winning The Candy Show on APTN, acted in TV shows, hosted The Candy Palmater Show on CBC Radio One and appeared as a panellist championing The Break by Katherena Vermette on Canada Reads 2017. She died in 2021. 

Kakwinokanasum's My Indian Summer is on the YA/adult longlist as well. The novel, set in the summer of '79, follows 12-year-old Hunter Frank as he navigates the town of Red Rock essentially alone as a young entrepreneur. Kakwinokanasum, an author and member of James Smith Cree Nation, was shortlisted for the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

• 'The book is about truth in reconciliation:' Joseph Kakwinokanasum on his novel My Indian Summer

Also nominated is The Amajurjuk by Levi Illuitok which was illustrated by CBC Radio art director Ben Shannon. 

The full list of titles for the YA/adult category are:

• Inuunira: My Story of Survival by Brian Koonoo
• Trees by Lucy Hemphill
• A Blanket of Butterflies by Richard Van Camp and Scott B. Henderson
• The Other Ones by Jamesie Fournier, illustrated by Toma Feizo Gas
• Half-Bads in White Regalia: A Memoir by Cody Caetano
• Ahiahia the Orphan by Levi Illuitok, illustrated by Nate Wells
• The Gift of the Little People by William Dumas, illustrated by Rhian Brynjolson
• Trailer Park Shakes by Justene Dion-Glowa
• Bear Bones and Feathers by Louise Bernice Halfe
• Running Down a Dream by Candy Palmater
• The Stone Child by David A. Robertson
• nēhiyawēwin awāsi-masinahikanis: A Little Plains Cree Book for Children by  Allen Felix, Elmer Ballantyne & Patricia Deiter
• Wabanaki Modern by Emma Hassencahl-Perley
• My Indian Summer by Joseph Kakwinokanasum
• Walking the Red Road for Healing by Marlyn Cook
• Aquariums by J.D. Kurtness
• The Amajurjuk by Levi Illuitok, illustrated by Ben Shannon
• Blood by Tyler Pennock
• The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era by Harold R. Johnson
• The Case of the Rigged Race by Michael Hutchinson
• Indig-Enough by Nikki Soliman
• She Holds up the Stars by Sandra Laronde
• Where the Sea Kuniks the Land by Ashley Qilavaq-Savard
• Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future by Patty Krawec
• The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson
• Through the Eyes of Asunder by Nshannacappo
• Broken Circle: The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools—Commemorative Edition by Theodore Niizhotay Fontaine
• Di-bayn-di-zi-win (To Own Ourselves) by Don McCaskill, Jerry Fontaine
• Rabbit Chase by Elizabeth LaPensee, illustrated by KC Oster
• The Theory of Crows by David A. Robertson
• Making Love with the Land by Joshua Whitehead
• Opimōtēwina wīna kapagamawāt Wītigōwa / Journeys of The One to Strike the Wetigo by Ken Carriere
• Medicine Wheel Workbook: Finding Your Healthy Balance by Carrie, Kelly and River Armstrong, illustrated by Eden Sunflower
• Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation by Andrew Stobo Sniderman, Douglas Sanderson
• Version Control by David A. Robertson, illustrated by Scott B. Henderson, Donovan Yaciuk and Andrew Thomas
• Creeboy by Teresa Wouters
• Silence to Strength – Writings and Reflections on the Sixties Scoop by Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith
• A Minor Chorus by Billy Ray Belcourt
• Serpents and Other Spiritual Beings by Bomgiizhik Isaac Murdoch
• Nii Ndahlohke: Boys' and Girls' Work at Elgin Industrial School by Mary Jane McCallum
• Majagalee:The Language of Seasons by Shawna Davis
• The Missing Caribou Hide by Cecilia Judas, Joan Sherman, Madeline Judas, Wendy Stephenson

The nominated titles for the children's category are:

• Returning to the Yakoun River by Robert Davidson and Sara Davidson, illustrated by Janine Gibbons
• Maakusi Loves Music by Chelsea June and Jaaji, illustrated by Tamara Campeau
• Finding Moose by Sue Farrell Holler, illustrated by Jennifer Faria
• Jordan and Mom by Jerleen Anderson Sullivan
• Benny the Bananasaurus Rex by Sarabeth Holden,  illustrated by Emma Pedersen
• With Our Orange Hearts by Phyllis Webstead, illustrated by Emily Kewageshig 
• Dancing with Our Ancestors by Robert Davidson and Sara Davidson, illustrated by Janine Gibbons
• Beautiful You Beautiful Me by Tasha Spillet Sumner, illustrated by Salini Perera
• Drum from the Heart by Ren Louie, illustrated by Karlene Harvey
• Animals Illustrated: Ringed Seal by William Flaherty, illustrated by Sara Otterstätter
• Niitu and Chips by Babah Kalluk
• Phoenix Gets Greater  by Marty Wilson Trudeau, illustrated by Megan Kyak-Monteith, with Phoenix Wilson
• Muinji'j Asks Why by Shanika and Breighlynn MacEachern, illustrated by Zeta Paul
• Abalone Woman by Teoni Spathelfer, illustrated by Natassia Davies
• The Raven Mother by Brett D. Huson, illustrated by Natasha Donovan
• Amō's Sapotawan by William Dumas, illustrated by Rhian Brynjolson
• Oolichan Moon by Samantha Baynon, illustrated by Lucy Trimble
• Ben the Sealion by Roy Henry Vickers
• To My Panik: To My Daughter by Nadia Sammurtok, illustrated by Pelin Turgut
• Sweetgrass by Theresa Meuse, illustrated by Jessica Jerome
• Una Huna?: Ukpik Learns to Sew by Susan Aglukark, illustrated by Amiel Sandland & Rebecca Brook
• Adventures of the Pugulatmu'j: Giju's Gift by Brandon Mitchell, illustrated by Veronika Barinova and Britt Wilson
• kā-āciwīkicik / The Move by Don K. Philpot and Doris George, illustrated by Alyssa Koski
• The Day I Became Number 54 by Lorre Gallant
• Runs With the Stars by Darcy Whitecrow and Heather M. O'Connor,  illustrated by Lenny Lishchenko
• A Magical Sturgeon by Joseph Dandurand, illustrated by  Elinor Atkins
• I Can See You by Rosemarie Avrana Meyok, illustrated by Michelle Simpson

The winners will be announced during First Nation Public Library Week in October. 

The First Nations Communities Read Awards are sponsored by the Periodical Marketers of Canada.