Book picks similar to
Toronto at Dreamer's Rock - Education Is Our Right by Drew Hayden Taylor
plays
indigenous
canadian
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The Outer Harbour
Wayde Compton - 2014
Moving from 2001 through to 2025, The Outer Harbour is at once a history book and a cautionary tale of the future, condensing and confounding our preconceived ideas around race, migration, gentrification, and home.Wayde Compton is the author of three poetry collections. He is director of the Writer's Studio at Simon Fraser University.
The Comeback
John Ralston Saul - 2014
This is a comeback to a position of power, influence, and creativity in Canadian civilization.John Ralston Saul argues that historic moments are always uncomfortable. The events that began late in 2012 with the Idle No More movement were not just a rough patch in Aboriginal relations with the rest of Canada. What is happening today in Aboriginal-white relations is not about guilt, sympathy, or failure, or romanticizing a view of the past. It is about citizens’ rights. It is about rebuilding relationships that were central to the creation of Canada and, equally important, central to its continued existence. Canadians are faced with the potential for those relationships to open up a more creative and accurate way of imagining ourselves, a different narrative for Canada in which we all share obligations as a society.Wide in scope but piercing in detail, The Comeback presents a powerful portrait of modern Aboriginal life in Canada in contrast to the perceived failings, often portrayed in media, that Canadians have become accustomed to. Once again, Saul presents an unfamiliar story of Canada’s past so that we may better understand its present—and imagine a better future.
Educating Rita
Willy Russell - 1980
It premiered in London, in 1980 and won the Society for West End Theatres (SWET) award for Best Comedy of the Year. It was made into a highly successful film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters and won the 1983 BAFTA award for Best Film.Commentary and notes by Steve Lewis.
A Knock on the Door: The Essential History of Residential Schools from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada - 2015
It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Between 2008 and 2015, the TRC provided opportunities for individuals, families, and communities to share their experiences of residential schools and released several reports based on 7000 survivor statements and five million documents from government, churches, and schools, as well as a solid grounding in secondary sources.A Knock on the Door, published in collaboration with the National Research Centre for Truth & Reconciliation, gathers material from the several reports the TRC has produced to present the essential history and legacy of residential schools in a concise and accessible package that includes new materials to help inform and contextualize the journey to reconciliation that Canadians are now embarked upon.Survivor and former National Chief of the Assembly First Nations, Phil Fontaine, provides a Foreword, and an Afterword introduces the holdings and opportunities of the National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation, home to the archive of recordings, and documents collected by the TRC.As Aimée Craft writes in the Afterword, knowing the historical backdrop of residential schooling and its legacy is essential to the work of reconciliation. In the past, agents of the Canadian state knocked on the doors of Indigenous families to take the children to school. Now, the Survivors have shared their truths and knocked back. It is time for Canadians to open the door to mutual understanding, respect, and reconciliation.
Up Ghost River: A Chief's Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History
Edmund Metatawabin - 2014
St. Anne’s, in northern Ontario, is an institution now notorious for the range of punishments that staff and teachers inflicted on students. Even as Metatawabin built the trappings of a successful life—wife, kids, career—he was tormented by horrific memories. Fuelled by alcohol, the trauma from his past caught up with him, and his family and work lives imploded. In seeking healing, Metatawabin travelled to southern Alberta. There he learned from elders, participated in native cultural training workshops that emphasize the holistic approach to personhood at the heart of Cree culture, and finally faced his alcoholism and PTSD. Metatawabin has since worked tirelessly to expose the wrongdoings of St. Anne’s, culminating in a recent court case demanding that the school records be released to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Now Metatawabin’s mission is to help the next generation of residential school survivors. His story is part of the indigenous resurgence that is happening across Canada and worldwide: after years of oppression, he and others are healing themselves by rediscovering their culture and sharing their knowledge. Coming full circle, Metatawabin’s haunting and brave narrative offers profound lessons on the importance of bearing witness, and the ability to become whole once again.
Red: A Haida Manga
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas - 2009
Consisting of 108 pages of hand-painted illustrations,
Red
is a groundbreaking mix of Haida imagery and Japanese manga. Now available in paperback, the hardcover edition was nominated for the B.C. Bookseller’s Choice Award, a Doug Wright Award for Best Book and a 2010 Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Canadian Cartoonist. It was also an Amazon Top 100 book of 2009.Red is the prideful leader of a small village in the islands off the northwest coast of British Columbia. His sister was abducted years ago by a band of raiders. When news comes that she has been spotted in a nearby village, Red sets out to rescue his sister and exact revenge on her captors. Tragic and time- less, it is reminiscent of such classic stories as Oedipus Rex and Macbeth.
Red
is an action-packed and dazzling graphic novel that is also a cautionary tale about the devastating effects of rage and retribution.
My Name Is Seepeetza
Shirley Sterling - 1992
Life at the school is not easy, but Seepeetza still manages to find some bright spots. Always, thoughts of home make her school life bearable.An honest, inside look at life in an Indian residential school in the 1950s, and how one indomitable young spirit survived it.
Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age
Darrel J. McLeod - 2018
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. McLeod 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. Bertha taught him to be fiercely proud of his heritage and to listen to the birds that would return to watch over and guide him at key junctures of his life.However, in a spiral of events, Darrel’s mother turned wild and unstable, and their home life became chaotic. Sweet and innocent by nature, Darrel struggled to maintain his grades and pursue an interest in music while changing homes many times, witnessing violence, caring for his younger siblings and suffering abuse at the hands of his surrogate father. Meanwhile, his sibling’s gender transition provoked Darrel to deeply question his own sexual identity.The fractured narrative of Mamaskatch mirrors Bertha’s attempts to reckon with the trauma and abuse she faced in her own life, and captures an intensely moving portrait of a family of strong personalities, deep ties and the shared history that both binds and haunts them.Beautifully written, honest and thought-provoking, Mamaskatch—named for the Cree word used as a response to dreams shared—is ultimately an uplifting account of overcoming personal and societal obstacles. 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 stayed with him to build the foundation of what would come to be a very fulfilling and adventurous life.
Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States
Audra Simpson - 2014
Combining political theory with ethnographic research among the Mohawks of Kahnawà:ke, a reserve community in what is now southwestern Quebec, Audra Simpson examines their struggles to articulate and maintain political sovereignty through centuries of settler colonialism. The Kahnawà:ke Mohawks are part of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy. Like many Iroquois peoples, they insist on the integrity of Haudenosaunee governance and refuse American or Canadian citizenship. Audra Simpson thinks through this politics of refusal, which stands in stark contrast to the politics of cultural recognition. Tracing the implications of refusal, Simpson argues that one sovereign political order can exist nested within a sovereign state, albeit with enormous tension around issues of jurisdiction and legitimacy. Finally, Simpson critiques anthropologists and political scientists, whom, she argues, have too readily accepted the assumption that the colonial project is complete. Belying that notion, Mohawk Interruptus calls for and demonstrates more robust and evenhanded forms of inquiry into indigenous politics in the teeth of settler governance.
The Way of the World
William Congreve - 1700
With Mirabell? You call my blood into my face with mentioning that traitor. She durst not have the confidence. I sent her to negotiate an affair, in which if I'm detected I'm undone. If that wheedling villain has wrought upon Foible to detect me, I'm ruined. O my dear friend, I'm a wretch of wretches if I'm detected.
When The Legends Die
Hal Borland - 1963
There they took up life as it had been in the old days, hunting and fishing, battling for survival. But an accident claimed the father's life and the grieving mother died shortly afterward. Left alone, the young Indian boy vowed never to retum to the white man's world, to the alien laws that had condemned his father.
Billy Bishop Goes to War
John MacLachlan Gray - 1982
The Governor General’s Award-winning musical documents the glorious World War I exploits of Canadian flying ace Billy Bishop.
East of Berlin
Hannah Moscovitch - 2009
It has been seven years since he stood in that same spot; seven years since he left his family and their history behind him.As a teenager, Rudi discovered that his father was a doctor at Auschwitz. Trying to reconcile his inherited guilt, Rudi lashed out against his family and his friends, and eventually fled to Germany. While there, he follows in his father's footsteps by studying medicine, and falls in love with Sarah, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.Questioning redemption, love, guilt, and the sins of the father, East of Berlin is a tour de force that follows Rudi's emotional upheaval as he comes to terms with a frightening past that was never his own.
Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake
Charlotte Gray - 2002
Uncovering Pauline Johnson’s complex and dramatic personality, Flint & Feather is studded with triumph and tragedy, mystery and romance—a first-rate biography blending turn-of-the-century Canadian history and the vibrant story of a woman whose unforgettable voice still echoes through the years.