Showing posts with label #IndigenousCulture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #IndigenousCulture. Show all posts

#IMWAYR February 24, 2015

Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. I'm also connecting up with the Sunday Salon. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.


February has been a challenging month! I haven't been able to get much reading done. I've read a lot of news and magazine articles, but not many books. I did manage to finish up my Valentines day fridge magnets, but the grandkids told me they liked the brownies more. 

 
My Aunty Joan finally passed away so the house was full of people for a while. Isn't it fascinating to learn about early life of someone you only new as an over worked wife and mother? I had no idea that in her teen years she took flying lessons to become a pilot!

Then we headed off to Vancouver where we had tickets to see Ronnie Burkett's Wonderful Joe show. We visited with family and friends and tried to do more in six days than we would have done in a month when we were living there.

Adding to all that, the political upheaval has left me feeling worried and anxious. The following cartoon from the New Yorker describes my feelings completely.


Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book

PREVIOUS BLOG POST
BEGINNING CHAPTER BOOKS

4 stars

The Weird Sisters: A Note, a Goat, and a Casserole by Mark David Smith & Kari Rust (Illustrator) April 15, 2022  🍁

When three witch sisters move to the town of Covenly, not everyone is happy. They open up a pet store, and their first customer is Jessica Nibley, who is missing her pet goat. Together they head off in search of the goat, and whoever is sending nasty messages to the new citizens. Thankfully it all turns out alright in the end.
I really appreciated the humour and Kari Rust's fun illustrations. I'm looking forward to reading more of this series and sharing it with my grandkids.
 
YA GRAPHIC


This is the third book in the Surviving the City series. The teens are forced to address the discovery of children's bodies buried on the grounds of residential schools. 
In the end they conclude that together they can help each other and their people heal from the injustices of the past, as well as those in the present. 
Natasha Donovan's art work is just gorgeous. 

YA/ADULT FICTION


In this third book in the Tiffany Aching series, her new mentor, Miss Treason, takes her to a dark Morris dance - a ceremony where Summer passes the world over to Winter. Unable to stop herself, she joins the dancers and the Wintersmith becomes smitten with her. Because of this, she unwittingly disrupts the passage of the seasons and begins to take on some the characteristics of Summer with greenery sprouting from her feet.
Under the direction of Nanny Ogg the Nac Mac Feegles enlist Roland, Tiffany's childhood friend, to be a hero. Once they've taught him how to use a sword, they descend into the underworld to waken and return the real Lady Summer to the world.
There's another subplot where Miss Treason dies and an incompetent witch, Annagramma, is appointed to take over for her. Tiffany and the other young witches figure out a way to help her.
This time round I was more fascinated by Tiffany's relationship with the Wintersmith, who in his effort to woo her, tries his best to become human. At the same time as he terrifies her, she is also flattered that a god is interested in her. In the end, just in time, she figures out how to stop him. It's all part of how Pratchett messes around with Story and in the process, shows us how we too are capable of disrupting them. 


I listened to this, but think it might have been better to have read it with my eyes. Perhaps it's just that I listened to it in bits and pieces and lost track of the individual stories of these remarkable teens who worked at Bletchley Park.
On a positive note, listening to this against the backdrop of current events I was reminded of the brilliance, bravery, and strength of youth and ordinary people in times of war, conflict, and disaster. It inspired me with hope for the future.


This was a book club book. It's a complicated story about being a Yemeni immigrant in Israel. There are two distinct story lines. One tells the story of a young man and woman, Saida, living in a refuge camp in the 1950's. Although the two fall in love, she is already married. The other story line, set in the 1990's focuses on Zohara, one of the woman's daughters. When her mother dies, she returns  for the funeral. While cleaning up the family home, she learns about her mother's life ends up discovering secrets about her past. In the process, she embraces what it means to be Yemeni. 
There are a lot of characters in this book and at times I got confused. I appreciated learning about what it means to be a minority Jew inside Israeli culture. 


Once a year I spend time with women friends in a cabin on the ocean in what is the traditional territory of the Stz’uminus people. On the edges of the Gary Oak forest are the remains of camas plots originally developed by them. In a small bay just north of the cabin are the remains of oyster and clam beds established by these same people. Learning about this place began to change the way I understood what it meant to live in a hunter gatherer society. 
Jennifer Grenz's book helped me grasp this more fully. It is a book meant to change the way we look at and understand the 'natural' world. She shows us that trying to heal ecosystems in North America, and maybe even the world, without knowing how the Indigenous populations lived on the land, will inevitably fail. Part of this is about realizing that these peoples had an active responsibility for shaping and caring for where they lived, but more than this, it's about how they lived and continue to live, in relationship with their land. 

CURRENTLY 

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer November 19, 2024

2025 READING GOALS

#MustRead2025 9/25

NonFiction 8/30 

Poetry 1/12 

Canadian Authors 15/50

Indigenous Authors 4/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 29/200

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#IMWAYR February 3, 2025

Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. I'm also connecting up with the Sunday Salon. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.


It's been a strange week. Last weekend we had a houseful of people because it looked like my 94 year old aunt was about to shuffle off this mortal coil. She was taken off all her regular medication and given hydromorphone. Our tough old Auntie surprised everyone by rallying! We wait and wonder what will happen next. 

Speaking of waiting and wondering what will happen next, continental politics are also pretty strange these days. Here in Canada, partisan politics had started to divide us, but with the recent election in the USA and subsequent threats, including tariffs that will hurt ordinary people on both sides of the border, we are coming together across provincial and partisan boundaries. I like to think we are also coming together across international borders too. Times are going to be hard for all of us, but I have hope that love and activism in its many formats will get us through this.   

In the last couple of days I've been working on some Valentine's day hearts for my family. I have plans for them to become fridge magnets. Since I took this picture I've created a few more and been attempting to embellish them using gold thread on my sewing machine. It hasn't been as successful as I would like, but I'm sure I'll end up with a few that I can live with.


 
Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book.

PICTURE BOOKS


This Is a Tiny Fragile Snake by Nicholas Ruddock & Ashley Barron (Illustrator) 🍁

In fifteen illustrated poems, tenderness is shown for different kinds of animals. It is all about letting animals we live in proximity with, just be. I get it. 
When our neighbours discovered a six foot long bull snake curled up in their garden, they waited a few days for it to leave on its own, but it seemed to be content to remain in their rock garden. I said I would take it off their hands and put it in mine where it would keep pests under control, but then I learned that if it was a female, she would make a nest and lay up to twenty eggs, I wasn't sure if I wanted that many baby snakes roaming around in our 1/4 acre plot of land. In the end, the snake was moved to a better home in the wild. 
 So, while I understand most of this, I am not so sure about letting those squirrels proliferate. I know a number of people who have had to come up with a lot of money to repair the damage squirrels have caused in their homes. 
Still, I enjoyed the poems and delighted in reading them out loud to myself. Ashley Barron's cut paper collage illustrations are drop dead gorgeous!  

Inside Cat by Brendan Wenzel October 12, 2021

This begins as a fun rhyming picture book showing an inside cat and its world. It lives in a place with lots of windows and that's all it knows about outside. Then we start to see how the cat imagines what's in the spaces between the windows. 
I ended up reading this twice. By the time I got to the last page the first time round, I had to go back and focus on the illustrations. It turns out this is a profound book about perspective, assumption, and lack of background knowledge. 

MG/YA GRAPHIC


The Ribbon Skirt: A Graphic Novel by Cameron Mukwa November 12, 2024

This is the story of Anang, a young Anishinaabe two spirit preteen. At the same time as they want to own and wear their own ribbon skirt, they worry about what other people will think and say. With some friends, and help from the spirit world, they manage to collect the materials needed for a skirt. 
I appreciated the use of Ojibwe in the text with English subtitles at the bottom of the pages. I also like the additional information in the back matter of this book. It includes a glossary, a history of the ribbon skirt and of powwows, and an explanation of what it means to be two spirit. Also included is a recipe for Manoomin, (wild rice and berry salad) and a bibliography if readers want to learn more about the ideas in this graphic novel. 
My only problem with this book was the finding of enough thread in the wild to sew a skirt. I know it's a gift from the spirit world, but coming from my experience as a fabric artist, sewing with that tangled up mess just didn't make sense to me. 
It was interesting to be reading this at the same time as my nonfiction title, Wînipêk, (see below), where Niigaan Sinclair tells us that two spirit people existed traditionally in Indigenous culture, but that it was colonialism and residential schools that changed this. 

MG/YA FICTION


The Wild Robot Protects by Peter Brown & Kathleen Mclnerney (Narrator) September 26, 2023

Roz and her animal friends are living their best lives on their remote island. Brightbill and his new mate, Glimmerwing, are setting up their own nest and laying eggs. Then they get news that a deadly poison is sweeping through the ocean killing everything in its path. When it reaches Roz' home, she tries to help her animal friends remain calm, but as resources dwindle, eventually their small community begins to fall apart. 
Then Roz discovers that she is water proof and further testing shows she is also poison proof. She decides to head off into the world to find and stop whatever is causing the toxin. The creatures she meet along the way help her find the Ancient Shark, who tells her it is coming from a huge mining station situated in the ocean. He wants a war to stop the mining, but Roz convinces him to first give her a chance to settle the problem peacefully. 
What struck me most about this book was the environmental degradation Roz encounters on her journey. It's a story showing the future reality of climate change as well as humankind's propensity to ignore the consequences of our industrial activity. 
I admit to connecting deeply to Roz' instant, deep attachment to her grandgoslings. 


Hidden Truths by Elly Swartz, Jeff Ebner (Narrator) & Emily Eiden (Narrator) October 31, 2023

Dani and Eric have been best friends since they were in second grade. Then when they are on an end of summer camping trip, their camper catches on fire with Dani still in it. While Eric risks his own life to save her, Dani is still badly injured. Prior to the accident, Dani had just made it onto an all boys baseball team as their pitcher. Her injuries make this now impossible.
Eric fears that he might have forgotten to turn off the gas in the camper and be responsible for the accident. In the hospital Dani becomes friends with Meadow, one of the popular girls at school. When Eric shares his worries with Dani, Meadow uses it to drive a wedge between the two friends.
Even when Eric is exonerated and the blame is shown to be a faulty battery in a remote controlled vehicle, it looks like their friendship can't be mended, and Meadow manages to further divide them. 
It seemed obvious to me that Eric, who had a tendency to forget things, probably had ADHD. I liked that this didn't distract him from accomplishing important things, and in the end, was acknowledged as also a source of strength for him. I liked the strong supportive parents. I appreciated that Elly Swartz gives us enough glimpses into the life of Eric's bully, to enable us to see him as a more dimensional character. 


A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall by Jasmine Warga, Matt Rockefeller (Illustrator) & Michael Crouch (Narrator) September 10, 2024

A painting has gone missing from the art gallery where Rami Ahmed's mother works as a cleaner. Even though both of them are considered suspects, for a while he is still permitted to hang out when she works. When Rami sees a floating girl roaming the halls, he realizes she is the person in the missing artwork.
Rami and new his friend, Veda, who can also see the girl, decide to solve the mystery of the missing painting. It involves breaking a lot of family rules and trusting an artistic turtle before they get to the bottom of the crime.
There is a lot in this book about being abandoned by long time friends and what it feels like to lose one's sense of belonging. It's also about building new relationships and finding yourself and your voice.
 

A Hat Full of Sky (Tiffany Aching, #2) by Terry Pratchett & Stephan Briggs (Narrator)  April 29, 2004
 
One of my goals for this year is to reread all of Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series. An important aspect of Tiffany's personality is her ability to see beyond her first impressions by engaging in different levels of thought. It's this profound level of critical thinking that characterizes a witch. It's also something we need more of in our world. 
Three years after The Wee Free Men, Tiffany sets off to be an apprentice to the older witch, Miss Level. In this coming of age tale she starts to come to grips with who she will become. She struggles to fit in with the coven of younger witches led by the bullying leadership of Annagramma Hawkin, and ends up being laughed at.
Tiffany had already learned the trick of stepping outside of her own body to see herself. While doing this, she attracted the attention of a Hiver, a being with no body, who takes over the mind of powerful people. It manages to take control of her body and abuses her power. With the help of the Nac Mac Feegles and Miss Level, they manage to drive the Hiver off.
Afterwards the most powerful witch, Granny Weatherwax, helps her sort herself out but both know that it's not enough. Tiffany realizes that she has to deal with the Hiver on her own. In the end, using compassion and understanding, she is able to help it get what it needs.
This is a book about finding out who you are. It's about taking responsibility for yourself and your actions. It's also about finding fulfillment through helping others.
The Nac Mac Feegles are important characters in these books. These blue, tattooed, six inch tall, red haired men (pictsies) are a kind of fairy men who consider Tiffany their wee big hag. When they are not looking out for Tiffany, and sometimes even when they are, they spend their time drinking, fighting and stealing. 
Terry Pratchett's fantasy novels are full of comic satire. They are also loaded with advice on how to live a rich and meaningful life. 
"Learnin' how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them. Harder maybe."

ADULT NON FICTION

Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre by Niigaan Sinclair (Author & Narrator) May 28, 2024 🍁

Niigaan Sinclair is is an Anishinaabe writer, editor, and activist based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is the son of the late and former Canadian Senator Murray Sinclair and and Jeanette Warren.
"In his debut collection of stories, observations, and thoughts about Winnipeg, the place he calls "ground zero" of Canada's future, read about the complex history and contributions of this place alongside the radical solutions to injustice and violence found here, presenting solutions for a country that has forgotten principles of treaty and inclusivity."
This collection of essays will stay with me for a while. Even though I've read a lot of Canadian history with regards to our Indigenous peoples, I still learned more. The essay titled Landfill, is especially poignant as he compares the 'cost and feasibility' of searching the landfill for two murdered Indigenous women to the price of searching for the Titan, an uncertified transport vehicle with white millionaire tourists. "What’s been made evident by this incident though is that some lives are clearly more valuable than others."
On a positive note, since the election of Manitoba's Indigenous premier, Wab Kinew,  the Manitoba government is now searching the Prairie Green Landfill for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, two victims of a convicted serial killer. 

CURRENTLY 

Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett September 21, 2006

How It All Ends by Emma Hunsinger & Tillie Walden August 6, 2024

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond & Dion Graham (narrator) March 1, 2016

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari September 10, 2024

We Are the Medicine (Surviving the City) by Tasha Spillett & Natasha Donovan (illustrator) August 20, 2024 🍁

2025 READING GOALS

#MustRead2025 8/25

NonFiction 6/30 

Poetry 1/12 

Canadian Authors 12/50

Indigenous Authors 2/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 23/200

In January I read 20 different titles. These included: 
5 picture books 
5 graphic novels 
6 1/2 nonfiction titles
8 novels
7 audiobooks

The numbers don't jive because there are crossovers in some of the books. The 1/2 is for a novel that included an integrated nonfiction graphic novel written by the fictional character. 
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#IMWAYR November 25, 2024

Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. I'm also connecting up with the Sunday Salon. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends and family!

Thanks for all your kind words. I am mostly recovered from Covid - just dealing with the leftover exhaustion and asthma that the disease has triggered.

This coming Wednesday we are planning on heading off to Vancouver, BC to visit our sons, their partners, and the grandkids. I'm looking forward to getting together in person with my bookclub people and to meeting with other good friends. I will most likely visit one of my favourite fabric stores and get my hair cut by the person who has been cutting it for the last 40 years. We will return home the following Tuesday. I doubt I will have time to get in a blog post next weekend!

I'm looking for suggestions for books for 4 1/2 year olds. I've got their older siblings covered, but need to figure out what to get for my two youngest grandkids. Both of these two are crazy about dinosaurs, bugs and princesses. I'd like to get them some kind of nonfiction. I'd be really happy if it is a Canadian author, but a good book is the key. Does anyone have any recommendations? 

Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book.

Speaking many languages is a super power!
This is a gorgeous book that celebrates multilingual speakers and honours the author's mother. Uma Menon drafted it when she was only 16! Her mother, who didn't learn to speak English until she was 12, ended up speaking English, Malayalam, and sometimes both of these languages intermixed. Menon learned both languages from her birth and is now fluent in both. 
"Every person has their own accent, but no matter how they speak, every person's voice is unique and important."

5 stars

When We Gather (Ostadahlisiha): A Cherokee Tribal Feast by Andrea L. Rogers & Madelyn Goodnight (Illustrator) May 7, 2024

This book begins with cosy images of people preparing for spring hunting and gathering. Then the narrator and her family head off to their secret spot to harvest wild onions. When the harvest is complete, they all work together to clean and cook these wild onions to take to a community celebration of the coming of spring. 
I liked the ecological focus on not over harvesting so as to leave some for other creatures and to ensure there are onions again the following year. I appreciate that this is an ongoing practice. In the author's note she states that "Churches and community centers host wild onion dinners as fund  raisers and reasons to gather." 
I was excited to find recipes for some of the different foods mentioned in the celebration and would love to try Cherokee eggs and wild onions. I might have to satisfy myself using scallions, but next spring I know of a hike where I can find some wild ones. 

GRAPHIC NOVELS


This graphic novel series is targeted for readers from grade two to grade four. It tells the adventures of Ollie, Jenna, Sleeves and Kay, a diverse group of children who live on an island off the coast of Vancouver. When Ollie's grandfather becomes ill and is sent by ambulance to the mainland, the children go in search of a mythical crystal that is supposed to have healing powers. The series is loaded with humour, magic, a collection of delightful characters and intergenerational friendships. Some parts of this one are so suspenseful that I was creeped out a bit. The west coast northern rain forest setting is absolutely gorgeously illustrated.
I'm wondering if my seven year old grandson has read this series yet. If not, the first couple will be going into his Christmas stocking this year.

I adore this book. It’s beautiful, zany, and chock full of all kinds of information about color. The narrator/author comes across as a little bit hyperactive, but also screamingly hilarious and brilliant as he breaks through the fourth wall.
Right from the start, you know things are going to be interesting when you see this.

Then instead of having a table of contents it has a wheel of contents representing the colour wheel. The first chapter is a basic introduction to color. Each following chapter highlights a specific color. These include the primary and secondary colors, white, black, and pink. Within each chapter, we learn how different colours are made, important artists who used these different pigments, and a lot of science behind behind them. The final chapter has directions for how you can create your own pigments as well as other activities for messing around with color.
The book is loaded loaded with text features. Yellow text boxes highlight additional information connected to the main content of the page. Speech bubbles and cartoonish illustrations add a graphic novel/comic book quality. There are charts and maps. There are images of important paintings and even pages where the background is itself a painting. At the end of each chapter, Weinberg asks a big question connected to art. He begins with what is art? and ends with Does art last forever?
The back matter contains a color toolbox that has directions for how to make different kinds of colors, what plants to plant in a garden to create your own pigments, a map of the world showing where all the different colors in the books come from, a Periodic table of elements, a recommended reading list, a bibliography, a glossary, an index and acknowledgments.The end papers have brief biographies of all the artists mentioned in the book. 
The target audience for this book is children and teens. If I was still working in my elementary library, I’d buy at least two copies. I'm certain that adults (especially artists) will enjoy it too. I sure did! If you’re wondering what to buy for that creative friend of yours for Christmas, this would make a great gift! Heck it would make a great gift for just about anyone of any age.


This is the sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea. If you've read it, and are like me, you have been wondering how Arthur Parnassus, Linus Baker, and their magical children are faring. That first book gave us Linus' perspective. This one gives us Arthur's. We learn about his early life and abuse in an orphanage run by DICOMY ( The Department In Charge of Magical Youth.) 
It begins with Arthur and Linus heading off to a hearing about the upper management of DICOMY. The investigation was co-opted by an anti-magical people faction. Even though they were warned prior to entering, it was intense, and despite Arthur's attempt to control the narrative, the negative faction achieved their goal. When the two of them return home to Marsyas Island, things seem to return to normal, but everyone, maybe even the children, know it's just a matter of time before danger arrives at their door. Soon a new inspector from the department shows up. She arrives with an agenda to find fault with them and remove the children from Arthur and Linus' care. When Arthur overhears her in a zoom call with her boss, he discovers that they have even more nefarious plans. 
This is fiction, but it's an allegory for how all kinds of people are "othered" by power hungry politicians the world round. It's really about accepting and celebrating our differences. Occasionally it felt a bit didactic, but it is still a delightful cosy fantasy.

I usually have a fiction and nonfiction book on the go at the same time. It was serendipitous that I was reading this at the same time as I was reading the following memoir, which is essentially about the reality of living in a world where you are hated, feared, and shunned for being who you are. 


Ent
ADULT/YA NON FICTION


I was a fan of Danny Ramadan even before I read his memoir. Now I adore him. He is the author of adult and children's fiction. I have read almost all of his Salma books, but none of his adult work. Reading his memoir has been like getting to know a friend even better. Sometimes I had to put the book down because I was terrified of what was going to happen to him next. 
Reading this helped me understand the importance of found family and finding belonging in safe spaces. I'm thankful Danny Ramadan made it to Canada and has become a citizen. We are very lucky to have him.

CURRENTLY 

A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver January 1, 1994

The Hotel Balzaar by Kate DiCamillo, Júlia Sardà (Illustrator) & Allan Corduner (Narrator) October 1, 2024

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny 

Homelands by Timothy Garton Ash

READING GOALS 

#MustRead2024 18/25 

NonFiction 35/24

Canadian Authors 68/50

Indigenous Authors 29/25 

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 198/200    

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