For the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (and all year long) we've created a booklist to highlight the voices of First Nations, Inuit and Métis writers from across Canada. We believe in the power of storytelling to share important truths and bring people together. Sharing stories can spark meaningful conversations and teach us how to move forward in a good way.
Picture Books
Mii maanda ezhi-gkendmaanh / This Is How I Know
Written by Brittany Luby
Illustrated by Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley
Groundwood Books Ltd., 2021
Ages: 3-7 Grades: p-2
In this lyrical story-poem, written in Anishinaabemowin and English, a child and grandmother explore their surroundings, taking pleasure in the familiar sights that each new season brings. We accompany them through warm summer days full of wildflowers, bees and blueberries, then fall, when bears feast before hibernation and forest mushrooms are ripe for harvest. Winter mornings begin in darkness as deer, mice and other animals search for food, while spring brings green shoots poking through melting snow and the chirping of peepers.
Brittany Luby and Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley have created a book inspired by childhood memories of time spent with Knowledge Keepers, observing and living in relationship with the natural world in the place they call home — the northern reaches of Anishinaabewaking, around the Great Lakes.
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Walking Together
Written by Elder Dr. Albert D. Marshall & Louise Zimanyi
Illustrated by Emily Kewageshig Annick Press, 2023
Ages: 4-7 Grades: 1-2
A poetic, joyful celebration of the Lands and Waters as spring unfolds: we watch for Robin's return, listen for Frog's croaking, and wonder at maple tree's gift of sap. Grounded in Etuaptmumk, also known as Two-Eyed Seeing—which braids together the strengths of Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing—and the Mi’kmaq concept of Netukulimk—meaning to protect Mother Earth for the ancestors, present, and future generations—Walking Together nurtures respectful, reciprocal, responsible relationships with the Land and Water, plant-life, animals and other-than-human beings for the benefit of all.
Dad, I Miss You: A Residential School Story
Ages: 6-8 Grades: 1-3
Told in the voice of a boy and his father by turns, this book takes a thoughtful and heartfelt look at the emotional toll of a child being taken from their family and community to attend residential school. While the child’s internal monologue expresses his fear, confusion, and loss, the father’s monologue conveys his own sadness, fears, and hopes for the future of his child. The narrative gives voice to the things left unsaid between a parent and child experiencing this heart-rending separation. Upon his return to his community, when father and son are reunited, they must start the long process of reconnection.
The Secret Pocket
Junior & Intermediate Fiction
Giju's Gift
The Case of the Pilfered Pin
(A Mighty Muskrats Mystery)
The Kodiaks: Home Ice Advantage
Weird Rules to Follow
Written by Kim Spencer
In the 1980s, the coastal fishing town of Prince Rupert is booming. There is plenty of sockeye salmon in the nearby ocean, which means the fishermen are happy and there is plenty of work at the cannery.
Eleven-year-old Mia and her best friend, Lara, have known each other since kindergarten. Like most tweens, they like to hang out and compare notes on their crushes and dream about their futures. But even though they both live in the same cul-de-sac, Mia’s life is very different from her non-Indigenous, middle-class neighbor. Lara lives with her mom, her dad and her little brother in a big house, with two cars in the drive and a view of the ocean. Mia lives in a shabby wartime house that is full of relatives―her churchgoing grandmother, binge-drinking mother and a rotating number of aunts, uncles and cousins.
Even though their differences never seemed to matter to the two friends, Mia begins to notice how adults treat her differently, just because she is Indigenous. Teachers, shopkeepers, even Lara’s parents―they all seem to have decided who Mia is without getting to know her first.
Young Adult Fiction
Hopeless in Hope
Watch an interview with author Wanda John-Kehewin.
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We Are the Medicine
(Surviving the City)
The Summer of Bitter and Sweet
Bad Medicine
Non-Fiction
The Witness Blanket: Truth, Art and Reconciliation
Written by Carey Newman & Kirstie Hudson
Sky Wolf's Call: The Gift of Indigenous Knowledge
If I Go Missing
Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Drawing from her experiences as an Indigenous scientist, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer demonstrated how all living things—from strawberries and witch hazel to water lilies and lichen—provide us with gifts and lessons every day in her best-selling book Braiding Sweetgrass. Adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith, this new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us. With informative sidebars, reflection questions, and art from illustrator Nicole Neidhardt, Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults brings Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the lessons of plant life to a new generation.
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Written by Spencer Miller