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- To shape a dragon's breath / by Blackgoose, Moniquill,author.;
- "A young, Indigenous woman enters a colonizer-run dragon academy after bonding with a hatchling-and quickly finds herself at odds with the "approved" way of doing things-in the first book of a brilliant new fantasy series. The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations-until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon's egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered: a Person Who Belongs to a Dragon. Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have a quite different opinion. They have a very specific idea on how a dragon should be raised-and who should be doing the raising-and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, then her dragon will be destroyed. For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land challenges abound-both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart and determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects. For the world needs changing-and Anequs and her dragon are less coming of age in this bold new world than coming to power"--
- Subjects: Fantasy fiction.; Novels.; Dragons; Indigenous women; Schools;
- Birdgirl : looking to the skies in search of a better future / by Craig, Mya-Rose,author.;
- "Birder, environmentalist and activist Mya-Rose Craig is an international force. In her moving memoir, Birdgirl, she chronicles her mother's struggle with mental illness, and shares her passion for social justice and fierce dedication to preserving our planet. Meet Mya-Rose-otherwise known as "Birdgirl." In her words: "Birdwatching has never felt like a hobby, or a pastime I can pick up and put down, but a thread running through the pattern of my life, so tightly woven in that there's no way of pulling it free and leaving the rest of my life intact." Birdgirl follows Mya-Rose and her family as they travel the world in search of rare birds and astonishing landscapes. But a shadow moves with them, too--her mother's deepening mental health crisis. In the face of this struggle, the Craigs turn to nature again and again for comfort and meaning. Each bird they see brings a moment of joy and reflection, instilling in Mya-Rose a deep love of the natural world. But Mya-Rose has also seen first-hand the reckless destruction we are inflicting on our fragile planet, as well as the pervasive racism infecting every corner of the world, leading her to campaign for Black, Indigenous, people of color. Joining the fight of today's young environmental activists, Mya-Rose shares her experiences to advocate for the simple, profound gift of nature, and for making it accessible to all, calling her readers to rediscover the power of our natural world. Birder, activist, daughter: this is her story"--
- Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Craig, Mya-Rose; Craig, Mya-Rose; Craig, Mya-Rose; Bird watchers; Environmentalists;
- And then she fell : a novel / by Elliott, Alicia,author.;
- "From the bestselling author of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, a fierce, gripping novel about Native life, motherhood and mental health that follows a young Mohawk woman who discovers that the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences. On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be in life: she's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her ever-charming husband Steve--a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture--is nothing but supportive; and they've just moved into a new home in a wealthy neighbourhood in Toronto, a generous gift from her in-laws. But Alice could not feel like more of an imposter. She isn't connecting with Dawn, a struggle made even more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother, and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their picture-perfect neighbours, amongst whom she's the sole Indigenous resident. Even when she does have a moment to herself, her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story. At first, Alice is convinced her discomfort is of her own making. She has gotten everything she always dreamed of, after all. But then strange things start happening. She finds herself losing bits of time, hearing voices she can't explain, and speaking with things that should not be talking back to her, all while her neighbours' passive aggression begins to morph into something far more threatening. Though Steve urges her this is all in her head, Alice cannot fight the feeling that something is very, very wrong, and that in her creation story lies the key to her, and Dawn's, survival ... She just has to finish it before it's too late. Told in Alice's raw and darkly funny voice, And Then She Fell is an urgent and unflinching look at inherited trauma, womanhood, denial and false allyship, that speeds to an unpredictable--and unforgettable--climax"--
- Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Creation in literature; Indigenous women; Interracial marriage; Mental health; Mental illness; Mohawk women; Motherhood; Postpartum depression; Psychic trauma; Women authors;
- Children like us : a Métis woman's memoir of family, identity and walking herself home / by Penner, Brittany,author.;
- Includes bibliographical references."A Métis girl is adopted by a Mennonite family in this breathtaking memoir about family lost and found -- for those who loved From the Ashes, Educated and Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. "Such a lucky child, so many remind me. To be unwanted and then adopted, how lucky. To be raised by someone who doesn't have to love you but chooses to love you -- how special." By the time Brittany Penner is seven years old, she has loved and lost twenty-one foster siblings who have come into her family and left -- all of them Indigenous like her. "When will it be my turn?" she asks her mother time and time again. "When will I be taken away?" You won't be, she is told. You're adopted. You're here to stay. You're the lucky one. Brittany was relinquished into care on the day of her birth in 1989 and adopted by a white Mennonite family in a small prairie town. Her name and where she came from are hidden from her; all she is told is that she is part-Métis. Her childhood is shaped by church, family, service and silence. Her family is continuously shapeshifting as siblings enter and leave, one by one. She knows, to stay, she has to force herself into the mould created for her. She must be obedient. Quiet. Good. No matter what. Whenever she looks in the mirror, she searches her features, wondering if they've been passed down to her by her biological mother. She thinks, if she can ever find her mother, she'll find all the answers she's looking for. As Brittany moves into adolescence and then adulthood, she will uncover answers about her roots and her identity -- but they will be more tangled than she could have imagined. Children Like Us asks difficult questions about family, identity, belonging and cultural continuity. What happens when you find what you are looking for, but it can't offer you everything you need? How do you reckon with the truth of your own story when you've always been told you're one of the "lucky ones"? What does it mean to belong when you feel torn between cultures? And how does a person learn to hold the pain and the grief, as well as the triumphs, the joys and the beauty, allowing none to eclipse the other?"--
- Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Penner, Brittany.; Penner, Brittany; Adoptees; Adoptees; Interracial adoption; Métis women; Métis;
- Daughters of the deer / by Daniel, Danielle,author.;
- "In this haunting, groundbreaking, historical novel, Danielle Daniel imagines the lives of her ancestors in the Algonquin territories of the 1600s, a story inspired by her family link to a girl murdered near Trois-Rivières in the early days of French settlement. Marie, an Algonquin woman of the Weskarini Deer Clan, lost her first husband and her children to an Iroquois raid. In the aftermath of another lethal attack, her chief begs her to remarry for the sake of the clan. Marie is a healer who honours the ways of her people, and Pierre, the green-eyed ex-soldier from France who wants her for his bride, is not the man she would choose. But her people are dwindling, wracked by white men's diseases and nearly starving every winter as the game retreats away from the white settlements. If her chief believes such a marriage will cement their alliance with the French against the Iroquois and the British, she feels she has no choice. Though she does it reluctantly, and with some fear--Marie is trading the memory of the man she loved for a man she doesn't understand at all, and whose devout Catholicism blinds him to the ways of her people. This beautiful, powerful novel brings to life women who have literally fallen through the cracks of settler histories. Especially Jeanne, the first child born of the new marriage, neither white nor Weskarini, but caught between worlds. As she reaches adolescence, it becomes clear she is two-spirited. In her mother's culture, she would have been considered blessed, her nature a sign of special wisdom. But to the settlers of New France, and even to her own father, Jeanne is unnatural, sinful--a woman to be shunned, and worse. And so, with the poignant story of Jeanne, Danielle Daniel imagines her way into the heart and mind of a woman at the origin of the long history of violence against Indigenous women and the deliberate, equally violent, disruption of First Nations culture--opening a door long jammed shut, so all of us can enter"--
- Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Arranged marriage; First Nations women; First Nations; Algonquin;
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