14 books to read for National Indigenous History Month

CBC

12 hours ago

June is National Indigenous History Month. This month, add these buzzworthy books by First Nations, Métis and Inuit authors to your reading list.
The Knowing
In her latest book, The Knowing, Tanya Talaga retells her family story to explore Canada's history with an Indigenous lens. The Knowing starts with the life of Talaga's great-great grandmother Annie Carpenter and charts the violence she and her family experienced for decades at the hands of the Church and the government.
The Knowing, shares both a personal and well-researched account of the oppression of Indigenous people and its continued forms and reverberations.
Tanya Talaga is a writer and journalist of Anishinaabe and Polish descent. She is a member of Fort William First Nation. Her book won the RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Award.
In A Two-Spirit Journey, Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian who grew up in a remote northern Ontario community, tells the story of how she overcame experiences with abuse and alcohol addiction to become a counsellor and lead Thunder Bay's first gay pride parade.
The memoir was .
Mary Louisa Plummer is a social scientist whose work focuses on public health and children's rights.
Small Ceremonies by Kyle Edwards
In the city of Winnipeg, two Indigenous boys are on the cusp of adulthood, imagining a future filled with possibility and greatness. In Small Ceremonies, their stories are intertwined with others in the community, who are also searching for purpose, all of which ultimately leads to one fateful and tragic night.
Kyle Edwards is an award-winning Anishinaabe journalist and writer from the Lake Manitoba First Nation and a member of the Ebb and Flow First Nation. His work has appeared in the BBC News World, CBC, Maclean's, Native News Online and the Toronto Star.
He has won two National Magazine Awards in Canada, and he was recognized as an Emerging Indigenous Journalist by the Canadian Association of Journalists. A graduate of Ryerson University, he is currently a Provost Fellow at the University of Southern California, where he is pursuing a PhD in creative writing and literature.
From the Rez to the Runway by Christian Allaire
In From the Rez to the Runway, Christian Allaire shares his journey from growing up on the Nipissing First Nation reserve to breaking into the world of high fashion in New York City, navigating the challenges and realities of the industry. He shares the difficulty of balancing his ambitions with the often-inaccurate perceptions — including his own — of his culture's place in the realm of fashion, offering a powerful story of staying true to yourself while pursuing your dreams.
Christian Allaire is an Ojibway writer from Nipissing First Nation. He earned a Bachelor of Journalism from Ryerson University in 2014, and he has since written for publications such as Footwear News, Refinery29, Elle, Hazlitt, Mr. Porter and The National Post. Currently, he is the senior Fashion and Style Writer for Vogue.
Allaire is also the author of The Power of Style, a YA nonfiction book that highlights the need for diversity and representation in fashion — and examines topics such as cosplay, make up, hijabs, and hair to show the intersection of style, culture and social justice over the years. Allaire won Canada Reads 2022, championing Five Little Indians by Michelle Good.
Theory of Water by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
In Theory of Water, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson discovers, understands and traces the historical and cultural interactions of Indigenous peoples with water in all its forms. She presents water as a catalyst for radical transformation and how it has the potential to heal and reshape the world in response to environmental and social injustice.
Simpson was chosen by Thomas King for the 2014 RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award. was shortlisted for the Rogers Writer's Trust Fiction Prize in 2017 and the 2018 Trillium Book Award.
Her novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the Dublin Literary Prize. Her most recent book, a collaboration with Robyn Maynard titled Rehearsals for Living, was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction.
Soft As Bones by Chyana Marie Sage
Chyana Marie Sage's memoir, Soft As Bones, is her quest to better understand the childhood trauma and abuse that scarred her family. It's also a tapestry of poetry, history, Cree language, traditional ceremony and folklore — and delves into her experiences and those of her family with compassion and strength.
Chyana Marie Sage is a Cree, Métis and Salish writer from Edmonton. Her journalism has appeared in the Toronto Star, Huff Post and the New Quarterly. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Columbia University where she taught as an adjunct professor.
Sage won first place in the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest and silver in the National Magazine Awards for her essay Soar. She teaches Indigenous youth about cultivating self-love and healing through the Connected North program.
When the Pine Needles Fall by Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, with Sean Carleton
When the Pine Needles Fall tells the story of Canada's violent siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke in 1990 from the perspective of Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel who was the Kanien'kehá:ka spokesperson during that time. The book covers her experiences leading up to the siege and her work as an activist for her community since.
Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel is a Kanien'kehá:ka, Wakeniáhton, artist, documentarian and Indigenous human rights and environmental rights activist. She lives in Kanehsatà:ke Kanien'kehá:ka Homelands.
Sean Carleton is a historian and professor in Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba.
REDress is a powerful anthology that brings together the voices of Indigenous women, elders, activists, artists, academics and families affected by the tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people from across Turtle Island.
Through personal stories and reflections on the REDress Project — an art installation featuring red dresses placed in public spaces as a call for justice — the book emphasizes the ongoing call for action and honours the vital role of Indigenous women as keepers and protectors of land, culture and community.
Jaime Black-Morsette is a Red River Métis artist and activist. Founder of The REDress project in 2010, Jaime has used their art to foster community and drive change against the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women and girls across Turtle Island for over a decade.
Their interdisciplinary art practice spans immersive film, video, installation, photography, and performance, exploring themes of memory, identity, place, and resistance.
All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain by Sarain Frank Soonias
All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain is a collection of poems that searches through family history and sheds light on intergenerational trauma and how it impacts Indigenous voices. Bringing together fragmented memories, All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain invites strength, beauty and intensity.
Sarain Frank Soonias is a Cree/Ojibwe writer and artist. His work has appeared in ARC Poetry Magazine, Canadian Literature Review, Carousel, Carte Blanche and Filling Station, among others. All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain is Soonias's debut poetry book. He currently lives in Red Deer, Alta.
Born Sacred by Smokii Sumac
Through 100 poems, Born Sacred reflects on colonial violence past and present through honouring the shared histories of Indigenous peoples of North America and of the people in Palestine.
Smokii Sumac is a Ktunaxa two-spirit poet and emerging playwright. Their debut poetry collection you are enough: love poems for the end of the world won the Indigenous Voices Award, and they hosted The ʔasqanaki Podcast, interviewing Indigenous musicians and writers. They reside in their home territories of ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa, near the Kootenay River in B.C.
WATCH | Smokii Sumac reflects on the wisdom and strength of bereaved mothers:
There Are Hierarchies of Grief | How to Lose Everything – Episode 4
3 months ago
Duration 5:35
real ones by katherena vermette
Following two Michif sisters, lyn and June, real ones examines what happens when their estranged and white mother gets called out as a pretendian. Going by the name Raven Bearclaw, she's seen success for her art that draws on Indigenous style.
As the media hones in on the story, the sisters, whose childhood trauma manifests in different ways, are pulled into their mother's web of lies and the painful past resurfaces. real ones was on the longlist for the 2024 Giller Prize.
North End Love Songs and river woman and the four-book graphic novel series A Girl Called Echo. Her novels are The Break, The Strangers, The Circle.
Murray Sinclair made his mark on Canadian society as a judge, activist, senator, the chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry — and now he writes all about it in his memoir Who We Are.
The book answers the four guiding questions of Sinclair's life — Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Who am I? — through stories about his remarkable career and trailblazing advocacy for Indigenous peoples' rights and freedoms.
Murray Sinclair was a former judge and senator. Anishinaabe and a member of the Peguis First Nation, Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge appointed in Manitoba and the second appointed in Canada. He served as Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in Manitoba and as Chief Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He won awards including the National Aboriginal Achievement Award, the Manitoba Bar Association's Equality Award and its Distinguished Service Award (2016) and received Honorary Doctorates from 14 Canadian universities.
Sara Sinclair is an oral historian of Cree-Ojibwa and mixed settler descent. She teaches at Columbia University and is currently co-editing two anthologies of Indigenous letters.
Niigaan Sinclair is a writer, editor, activist and the head of the Department of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba. He is the co-editor of Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water and Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories. He won the 2019 Peace Educator of the Year award in 2019.
Andrea Currie is a writer, healer and activist. She lives in Cape Breton where she works as a psychotherapist in Indigenous mental health.
The Liturgy of Savage No. 82 by Maya Cousineau Mollen, translated by Adam Haiun
As an Innu woman Maya Cousineau-Mollen grew up outside of the Ekuanitshit (Mingan) community she was born in. In her poetry collection The Liturgy of Savage No. 82, Cousineau-Mollen reflects on connecting with her biological family and culture after being adopted into another family as part of the Sixties Scoop.
From childhood and onwards, Cousineau-Mollen's poems bring attention to the complex realities of Indigenous women in Canada and the Indigenous homeless population in Montreal as she draws on her own relationships to identity and systemic racism.
Maya Cousineau Mollen is an Innu poet based in Quebec. Her poetry collection Bréviaire du matricule 082 won the Indigenous Voices Award for French Poetry. Cousineau Mollen also served as an executive assistant to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Adam Haiun is a writer and poet from Montreal. Haiun's work was a finalist for the Malahat Review's Open Season Award for fiction and for the Far Horizons Contest for poetry in 2020.
She Falls Again by Rosanna Deerchild
She Falls Again follows the voice of a poet attempting to survive as an Indigenous person in Winnipeg when so many are disappearing. Riddled with uncertainties, like if the crow she speaks to is a trickster, the poet hears the message of the Sky Woman who is set on dismantling the patriarchy.
Through short poems and prose this collection calls for reclamation and matriarchal power.
Rosanna Deerchild has been storytelling for more than twenty years, currently as host of CBC's Unreserved. Deerchild also developed and hosted This Place, a podcast series for CBC Books around the Indigenous anthology This Place: 150 Years Retold. Her book, calling down the sky, is her mother's Residential School survivor story. Deerchild is currently based in Winnipeg.