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Mamaskatch : a Cree coming of age / by McLeod, Darrel,1957-author.;
"A powerful story of resilience-a must-read for all Canadians. Growing up in the tiny village of Smith, Alberta, Darrel J. 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. Darrel 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 older brother'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 stay with him to build the foundation of what would come to be a very fulfilling and adventurous life."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; McLeod, Darrel, 1957-; McLeod, Darrel, 1957-; Cree Indians; Native men;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Alice Austen lived here / by Gino, Alex.;
Middle school student Sam is comfortable with their nonbinary identity, and their family has accepted it too (as long as they do their homework and chores), so when their history teacher assigns as a project coming up with a proposal for the new statue honoring a historical Staten Islander (there is a contest involved) they and their friend TJ decide to focus on Alice Austen, a lesbian photographer, whose house on Staten Island is a museum--but they have to overcome the presumption on the part of their teacher that only straight males are eligible.Ages 9-12.Grades 4-6.LSC
Subjects: Austen, Alice, 1866-1952; Gender-nonconforming people; Sexual minorities; Monuments; Contests; Middle schools;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The LGBTQ+ history book / by Astbury, Jon,author.; Astbury, Jon,author.; Ayres, Hannah,author.; Bronski, Michael,editor.; Cherryman, Nick,author.; Heyam, Kit,1990-editor.; Martin, Melissa,author.; Mitchell, Abigail,author.; Traub, Valerie,1958-editor.; Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc.,publisher.;
Showcasing the breadth of the LGBTQ+ experience, this diverse, global account explores the most important moments, movements, and phenomena, celebrating the victories and untold triumphs of LGBTQ+ people throughout history as well as commemorating moments of tragedy and persecution.
Subjects: Gender-nonconforming people; Sexual minorities; Sexual minority culture;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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It gets better ... except when it gets worse : and other unsolicited truths I wish someone had told me / by Maines, Nicole,1997-author.;
"Nicole Maines knows a little something about a "happily-ever-after." Not just because she's a self-professed expert in the Disney princess canon (Ariel's flowing orange hair? ICONIC). But also, she's lived it. After coming out at the age of three, her family had not only come to terms with her transgender identity and accepted her, but they won a landmark court case in the Maine Supreme Court. She graduated high school and got into college. She got her first gender-affirming surgery at eighteen and a boyfriend. She achieved her lifelong goal of becoming an actress when she landed a major role in CW's Supergirl, based on the comics she had always loved. Cue sappy music and sunsets, because we've got ourselves a happy ending, right? Ha! Please! Life isn't actually like that! For the first time, in her own words, Nicole tells her story, bringing us on her journey from her childhood in rural Maine to the spotlights of Hollywood, sharing the lessons she's learned along the way. With clever wit and unflinching honesty, she tackles some of the most insidious messaging absorbed by queer kids and all young women, from the idea that any one thing can (or should) ever really "fix" you, to wondering what's wrong with you when things don't always feel better, and reminding us that, sometimes, a happy ending is only the beginning of the story"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Maines, Nicole, 1997-; Actresses; Transgender people;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Mrs. Fletcher : a novel / by Perrotta, Tom,1961-author.;
"From one of the most popular and bestselling authors of our time, a penetrating and hilarious new novel about sex, love, and identity on the frontlines of America's culture wars. Eve Fletcher is trying to figure out what comes next. A forty-six-year-old divorcee whose beloved only child has just left for college, Eve is struggling to adjust to her empty nest when one night her phone lights up with a text message. Sent from an anonymous number, the mysterious sender tells Eve, "U R my MILF!" Over the months that follow, that message comes to obsess Eve. While leading her all-too-placid life--serving as Executive Director of the local senior center by day and taking a community college course on Gender and Society at night--Eve can't curtail her own interest in a porn website called MILFateria.com, which features the erotic exploits of ordinary, middle-aged women like herself. Before long, Eve's online fixations begin to spill over into real life, revealing new romantic possibilities that threaten to upend her quiet suburban existence. Meanwhile, miles away at the state college, Eve's son Brendan--a jock and aspiring frat boy--discovers that his new campus isn't nearly as welcoming to his hard-partying lifestyle as he had imagined. Only a few weeks into his freshman year, Brendan is floundering in a college environment that challenges his white-dude privilege and shames him for his outmoded, chauvinistic ideas of sex. As the New England autumn turns cold, both mother and son find themselves enmeshed in morally fraught situations that come to a head on one fateful November night. Sharp, witty, and provocative, Mrs. Fletcher is a timeless examination of sexuality, identity, parenthood, and the big clarifying mistakes people can make when they're no longer sure of who they are or where they belong"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Humorous fiction.; College students; Middle-aged women; Mothers and sons;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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I'm laughing because I'm crying : a memoir / by Mayer, Youngmi,author.;
""Do you know what happens if you laugh while crying? Hair grows out of your butthole." So went the saying Youngmi Mayer's mother would recite-a saying Youngmi didn't take to but lived through in every situation: laughing and crying at a funeral, laughing and crying at her family's traumatic history, even laughing and crying as her mother berated her for taking too long to put her socks back on. And it is with her mother's words and Youngmi's brash wit and irreverence that takes readers through I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying and into the complexities of her identity as an offbeat biracial kid in Saipan, a place next to a place that Americans might know. It takes us through an adolescence where she has to parent her own parents: a mother who married her husband because he looked like Jesus and also The Bee Gees (all of them). And, she takes us through a century of colonialism and war in Korea and how that has shaped her family and now, a hundred years later, still affects her in New York City as a queer single mom, all the while interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality. And she may make you cry, but most of all, she wants you to laugh. Because one cannot exist without the other. And like a yin and yang, this duality is reflected in this whip-smart, heart-wrenching, and disarmingly funny memoir. So, here it is. She hopes it makes you laugh while crying. And she hopes it makes you grow hair out of your butthole"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Mayer, Youngmi; Mayer, Youngmi.; Comedians; Korean Americans; Multiracial people; Multiracial people; Podcasters; Women comedians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Canada's place names and how to change them / by Beck, Lauren,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The first book to demonstrate how inadequately place names and visual emblems represent the presence of women, people of colour, and people living with disabilities, Canada's Place Names and How to Change Them provides an illuminating overview of where these names came from and what they reflect. This book disentangles the distinct cultural, religious, and historical naming practices and visual emblems in Canada's First Nations, provinces, territories, municipalities, and federal lands. Starting with a discussion of Indigenous place knowledge and naming practices from several Indigenous and Inuit groups spanning the country, it foregrounds the breadth of possible ways to name places. Lauren Beck then illustrates the naming practices introduced by Europeans and how they misunderstood, mis-rendered, and appropriated Indigenous place names, while scrutinizing the histories of Columbian names, missionary names, and the secular and commemorative names of the last two centuries. She studies key symbols and emblems such as maps, flags, and coats of arms as visual equivalents of place names to show whose identities powerfully inform Canada's place nomenclature. This book also documents the policies and authorities that have traditionally governed the creation and modification of names and examines case studies of institutions and communities who have changed their names to demonstrate pathways to change."--
Subjects: Emblems; Names, Geographical; Names, Geographical; Names, Geographical;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Second life : having a child in the digital age / by Hess, Amanda(Journalist),author.;
Includes bibliographical references.""Before I was pregnant, I was a person." The long awaited debut memoir about the convergence of parenthood and technology from the beloved New York Times critic. In 2016, when Amanda arrived at the New York Times to become its correspondent for internet culture, a colleague asked her a question that sounded like a riddle: "On the internet, how do you know what's really real?" He had been looking for a literal answer, but Amanda recognized the question as something more profound, an irresolvable provocation that defines the experience of life in the digital age. For more than a decade, Amanda has been on the reality beat, living the contradictions of the internet even as she has tried to make sense of them. But when she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, who later received a prenatal diagnosis of Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome -- a genetic disorder -- she was unexpectedly rattled by a digital identity crisis all her own, vulnerable to the world of apps, gadgets, bloggers, online forums, and advertisers, all closing in, telling her what to do and how to feel. They promised that her new life -- and by extension, her child's -- would be so much better if she bought this or that, tried this or that. As the internet sought to remap her body and her mind, Amanda's guiding question became ever more urgent: what is "real life" when creating a life? Second Life is a trenchant look at parenting in early 21st-century America, when humans stopped being raised by villages or even families but rather by a constant onslaught of information. It is a funny, heartbreaking, and surreal examination of fertility apps, the history of ultrasound technologies, prenatal genetic testing, rare disease Facebook groups, baby memes, cultural representations of parenting, gender reveal videos, trendy sleep gurus, "freebirth" influencers, mommy marketers, culminating in a polemic on how to conceive of a real life in the digital age. Page by page, Amanda reveals the unspoken ways that our lives are being fractured and reconstituted by technology, all through the exacting lens of her intensely personal story"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Hess, Amanda (Journalist); Information society.; Motherhood.; Internet; Pregnant women;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Somewhere : stories of migration by women from around the world / by Clark, Helen,1950-writer of foreword.; Harvey, Lorna Jane,1977-editor.;
Somewhere is an inspiring collection of stories about migration. Written from twenty women's perspectives, it brings a refreshing and uniting voice to this compelling and trending topic. More people are likely to be migrating now than at any other time in history, and this is set to increase as climate change and political unrest pushes even more people to relocate. The implications of migration, especially for women, are often unknown, unheard, unspoken. From the fleeing refugee to the political and economic migrant, a broad range of migration by people of many cultures, ethnicities, and beliefs is shared in this book. Identity, belonging, assimilation and alienation are some of the key topics in this sometimes sad but also joyful book. Treasures of wisdom and heartfelt honesty are found in the stories. The book will give the reader hope, encouragement, or insight into a globally relevant subject on a personal level rather than through distant, abstract news stories. Somewhere encourages open-mindedness and is filled with stories that will likely have a strong impact on the reader.
Subjects: Women immigrants; Emigration and immigration.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Spitfires : the American women who flew in the face of danger during World War ll / by Aikman, Becky,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The heart-pounding true story of the daring American women who piloted the world's most dangerous aircraft through the treacherous skies of Britain during World War II. In 1942, a few months after the United States entered the second world war, a trailblazing band of 25 American women traveled to England to ferry planes for the British Royal Air Force. Despite their skill, these women were not permitted to fly for the United States military. But Great Britain, desperate for a steady supply of warplanes in a fight for survival, accepted ferry pilots regardless of gender, race, or nationality. These "spitfires" were risking their lives in one of the deadliest jobs of the war. They flew new, barely tested fighters and bombers to air bases and shot-up planes back for repair, never knowing what might go wrong until they were high in the sky. Many died in crashes or made spectacular saves. But ferrying was also the women's opportunity do their patriotic duty, excel, and revel in adventure. Before the war, they were crop dusters or debutantes, college girls or performers in flying circuses. But in wartime they lived like women decades ahead of their time, choosing the identities they wanted. Some shocked their British hosts with their thoroughly modern behavior. With cinematic sweep, Becky Aikman follows the stories of nine of the captivating women who served, drawing on intimate unpublished diaries, letters, and records, along with her own interviews, to bring these forgotten heroines fully to life. Spitfires is a vivid, richly detailed account of war, ambition, and a group of remarkable women whose lives were as unconventional as their dreams"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Great Britain. Air Transport Auxiliary; Spitfire (Fighter plane); Women air pilots; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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