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The boy from Buzwah : a life in Indian education / by King, Cecil O.,1932-author.;
"Cecil King's remarkable memoir, from humble beginnings on a reservation to his unparalleled legacy to ensure Indian Control of Indian Education in Canada. Cecil King grew up in the small settlement of Buzwah, Ontario, situated on Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island. King shares memories of life on the reserve in the 1930s and '40s and describes his experiences attending Buzwah Indian Day School and St. Charles Garnier Residential School. But after furthering his education, King returned home to Buzwah as a teacher. He quickly became disillusioned with the Ontario curriculum and how inadequately it resonated with on-reserve youth and the realities of Indigenous life. It was then that King began his unparalleled legacy to ensure Indian Control of Indian Education in Canada. Over his sixty-year career in education, he would found the Indian Teacher Education Program at the University of Saskatchewan, become the first director of the Aboriginal Teacher Education Program at Queen's University, and develop Ojibwe language courses across North America."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; King, Cecil O., 1932-; Indigenous peoples; Indigenous peoples; Indigenous peoples; Language teachers; Teachers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Auntie's rez surprise / by O'Watch, Heather.; Arscott, Ellie,1974-;
Auntie always greets Cree in Nehiyaw when she comes for a visit. When Auntie arrives with a surprise gift hidden in her bag, Cree can't wait to discover what it is. The first clue? It's from the rez. As Cree tries to figure out what it might be, the bag starts to move. Cree is thrilled when the bag opens and out jumps a rez puppy! Cree asks Auntie how to take care of the new puppy. Auntie talks to Cree about the importance of dogs in their culture. They are our relatives, she explains, and need to be well taken care of. Cree decides she will name her new puppy "Atim", the Nehiyaw word for dog.
Subjects: Picture books.; Aunts; Indian reservations; Puppies; Cree Indians; Cree language; Indigenous peoples;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The secret pocket / by Janicki, Peggy.; Victor, Carrielynn,1982-;
The true story of how Indigenous girls at a Canadian residential school sewed secret pockets into their dresses to hide food and survive. Mary was four years old when she was first taken away to the Lejac Indian Residential School. It was far away from her home and family. Always hungry and cold, there was little comfort for young Mary. Speaking Dakelh was forbidden and the nuns and priest were always watching, ready to punish. Mary and the other girls had a genius idea: drawing on the knowledge from their mothers, aunts and grandmothers who were all master sewers, the girls would sew hidden pockets in their clothes to hide food. They secretly gathered materials and sewed at nighttime, then used their pockets to hide apples, carrots and pieces of bread to share with the younger girls. Based on the author's mother's experience at residential school, The Secret Pocket is a story of survival and resilience in the face of genocide and cruelty. But it's also a celebration of quiet resistance to the injustice of residential schools and how the sewing skills passed down through generations of Indigenous women gave these girls a future, stitch by stitch.
Subjects: Illustrated works.; Off-reservation boarding schools; Carrier Indians; Carrier Indians; Dakelh; Indigenous students; Indigenous peoples;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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An Anishinaabe Christmas / by Kinew, Wab,1981-; Hill, Erin,(Illustrator);
"Picture book about an Anishinaabe family heading to the reservation to visit the baby's grandparents for Christmas. A story about combining Western and Indigenous celebrations, this book is shared in the hopes of bringing people together to understand and feel good about the Anishinaabe way, however you choose to live it."--
Subjects: Picture books.; Christmas fiction.; Indigenous peoples; Winter solstice; Christmas; Ojibwa Indians; Indian reservations; Families;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Elvis, me, and the postcard winter / by Gentile, Leslie,1959-;
"The winter rains have come to the Eagle Shores Trailer Park on a Reserve on southern Vancouver Island in 1978. Abandoned by her mother last summer, twelve-year-old Truly has settled into her new life living with Andy El, the Salish Elder who runs the trailer park. Truly eagerly awaits the postcards she receives from the King of Rock 'n Roll, Elvis Presley, who now tours as an Elvis Impersonator. When he sends Truly a second-hand guitar as a Christmas gift, she learns to play and discovers that her growing love of music deepens her friendship with twins Agnes and Linda, Andy El's Granddaughters. Truly's new world is shattered with the unexpected return of her mother, Clarice, who wants another shot at being a good mom. Truly is now faced with deciding whether or not she can trust Clarice and must ultimately choose if she is willing to give up the peace and security of her comfortable life with Andy El and her new family to give Clarice a second chance"--
Subjects: Presley, Elvis, 1935-1977; Postcards; Elvis Presley impersonators; Mother and child; Indigenous children; Indian reservations; Dysfunctional families; Mothers and daughters;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A minor chorus : a novel / by Belcourt, Billy-Ray,author.;
"An urgent first novel about breaching the prisons we live inside from one of Canada's most daring literary talents. An unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him: the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness. What ensues is a series of conversations, connections, and disconnections that reveals the texture of life in a town literature has left unexplored, where the friction between possibility and constraint provides an insistent background score. Whether he's meeting with an auntie distraught over the imprisonment of her grandson, engaging in rez gossip with his cousin at a pow wow, or lingering in bed with a married man after a hotel room hookup, the narrator makes space for those in his orbit to divulge their private joys and miseries, testing the theory that storytelling can make us feel less lonely. Populated by characters as alive and vast as the boreal forest, and culminating in a breathtaking crescendo, A Minor Chorus is a novel about how deeply entangled the sayable and unsayable can become--and about how ordinary life, when pressed, can produce hauntingly beautiful music."--
Subjects: Novels.; Authors; Families; Gay men; Homecoming; Indigenous peoples; Small cities; Storytelling; First Nations reserves;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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Medicine river : a story of survival and the legacy of Indian boarding schools / by Pember, Mary Annette,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A sweeping and trenchant exploration of the history of Native American boarding schools in the U.S., and the legacy of abuse wrought by systemic attempts to use education as a tool through which to destroy Native culture. From the mid-19th century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their families to attend boarding schools that claimed to help create opportunity for these children to pursue professions outside their communities and otherwise "assimilate" into American life. In reality, these boarding schools -- sponsored by the US Government but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation -- were an insidious attempt to destroy tribes, break up families, and stamp out the traditions of generations of Native people. Children were beaten for speaking their native languages, forced to complete menial tasks in terrible conditions, and utterly deprived of love and affection. Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother was forced to attend one of these institutions -- a seminary in Wisconsin, and the impacts of her experience have cast a pall over Mary's own childhood, and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark portrait of communities still reckoning with the legacy of acculturation that has affected generations of Native communities. Through searing interviews and assiduous historical reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of a culture whose country has been seemingly intent upon destroying it"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Pember, Bernice Rabideaux, 1925-2011.; Pember, Mary Annette; Robidou family.; St. Mary's Indian Boarding School (Odanah, Wis.); Indigenous children; Ojibwe; Ojibwe women; Residential schools;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Kukum / by Jean, Michel,1960-author.; Ouriou, Susan,translator.; translation of:Jean, Michel,1960-Kukum.English.;
"A Quebec bestseller based on the life of Michel Jean's great-grandmother that delivers an empathetic portrait of drastic change in an Innu community. Kukum recounts the story of Almanda Siméon, an orphan raised by her aunt and uncle, who falls in love with a young Innu man despite their cultural differences and goes on to share her life with the Pekuakami Innu community. They accept her as one of their own: Almanda learns their language, how to live a nomadic existence, and begins to break down the barriers imposed on Indigenous women. Unfolding over the course of a century, the novel details the end of traditional ways of life for the Innu, as Almanda and her family face the loss of their land and confinement to reserves, and the enduring violence of residential schools. Kukum intimately expresses the importance of Innu ancestral values and the need for freedom nomadic peoples feel to this day"--
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Jean, Michel, 1960-; French-Canadian women; Great-grandmothers; Indigenous women; Orphans; First Nations; First Nations; Innu; Innu; Residential schools;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Development of the reserve system / by Rose, Simon,1961-; Corrigan, Kathleen.;
Includes bibliographical references, Internet addresses, and index.Examines the history of the reserve system in Canada.LSC
Subjects: Native peoples; Native peoples; Land use; Native peoples; Native peoples; Native peoples;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Two tricksters find friendship / by Aitken, Johnny.; Willows, Jess.; Koski, Alyssa.;
In this partially illustrated early chapter book, Jessie moves to a small coastal community and befriends Johnny, a local Indigenous boy from the reserve. The new school year gets off to a rocky start, and the two must lean on each other through family troubles and cultural differences.
Subjects: Indigenous children; Friendship;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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