Library and Academic Services: Indigenous Languages: Award Winners

Burt Award for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Young Adult Literature

The Burt Award recognizes excellence in young adult books written, illustrated, and/or translated by First Nations, Inuit, and Métis creators. The Canadian program was developed in partnership with the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami the Métis National Council, the National Association of Friendship Centres, Frontier College, GoodMinds, the Association of Canadian Publishers, the Canada Council, and our newest partner, the National Reading Campaign

As Long as the Rivers Flow by James Bartleman
Location: PS 8603 .A783 A75 2011 (located at NDC)
This story follows one girl, Martha, from the Cat Lake First Nation in Northern Ontario who is "stolen" from her family at the age of six and flown far away to residential school. Ten long years later, Martha finds her way home again, barely able to speak her native tongue. The memories of abuse at the residential school are so strong that she tries to drown her feelings in drink, and when she gives birth to her beloved son, Spider, he is taken away by Children's Aid to Toronto. In time, she has a baby girl, Raven, whom she decides to leave in the care of her mother while she braves the bewildering strangeness of the big city to find her son and bring him home.
The Break by Katherena Vermette
Location: PS 8643 .E74 B74 2016 (located at NDC)
When Stella, a young Metis mother, looks out her window one evening and spots someone in trouble on the Break -- a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house -- she calls the police to alert them to a possible crime. In a series of shifting narratives, people who are connected, both directly and indirectly, with the victim -- police, family, and friends -- tell their personal stories leading up to that fateful night.
The Education of Augie Merasty by Joseph Auguste Merasty; David Carpenter (As told to)
Location: E 96.65 .S27 M47 2017
This memoir offers a courageous and intimate chronicle of life in a residential school. Now a retired fisherman and trapper, the author was one of an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children who were taken from their families and sent to government-funded, church-run schools, where they were subjected to a policy of "aggressive assimilation".
The Inconvenient Indian : a curious account of Native people in North America by Thomas King
Location: E 77 .K566 2017 (located at NDC)
This book has launched a national conversation about what it means to be "Indian" in North America, and the relationship between Natives and non-Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. This new edition reaches further. Through the inclusion of hundreds of images, from art and logos to archival images and monuments, The Inconvenient Indian reveals the evolution of how Native peoples have been seen, understood, represented and propagandized in North America.
Tilly : a story of hope and resilience by Monique Gray Smith
Location: PS 8613 .R3894 T55 2013 (located at NDC)
In this semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel, a young girl discovers that her mother, a Cree, was stolen away from her family as a child. She finds the strength to come to terms with her aboriginal heritage and learns to embrace her identity.

First Nation Communities Read

First Nation Communities Read (FNCR) is an annual reading program (currently in its 15th year) launched by the First Nations public library community in Ontario. Books chosen for this program must be authored and/or illustrated by a First Nation, Métis, or Inuit creator. They must also contain First Nation, Métis, or Inuit content and are published with support or endorsement from Indigenous advisors and consultants. Finally, the titles encourage family literacy and intergenerational storytelling/information sharing.

Bearskin Diary by Carol Daniels
Location: PS 8607.A5567 B43 2015 (located at NDC)
Taken from the arms of her mother as soon as she was born, Sandy was only one of over twenty thousand Aboriginal children scooped up by provincial governments between the 1960s and 1980s. Out of this dreadful period in Canadian history, Sandy overcomes and exposes the discriminations that she suffers every day.
Conversations with Canada by Lee Maracle
Location: PS 8576 .A6175 A6 2017 (located at NDC)
"'My Conversations With Canadians' is the book that "Canada 150" needs. On her first book tour at the age of 26, Lee Maracle was asked a question from the audience, one she couldn't possibly answer at that moment. But she has been thinking about it ever since. As time has passed, she has been asked countless similar questions, all of them too big to answer, but not too large to contemplate. These questions, which touch upon subjects such as citizenship, segregation, labour, law, predjudice and reconcilliation (to name a few), are the heart of 'My Conversations with Canadians'.
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
Location: PS 8607 I53 M37 2017 (located at NDC)
In a future world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's Indigenous population - and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow - and dreams - means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a 15-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones, and take refuge from the "recruiters" who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing 'factories'.
Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga
Location: E 78 .O5 T35 2017 (located at NDC)
Over the span of ten years, seven high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave their reserve because there was no high school there for them to attend. Award-winning journalist Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this northern city that has come to manifest, and struggle with, human rights violations past and present against aboriginal communities.

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