A young girl delights in a visit to her grandpa’s farm. She and her cousins run through the fields, explore the root cellar where the smoked salmon and jars of fruit are stored, swing on a rope out the barn loft window, visit the appaloosa in the corral and tease the neighbor’s pig. The visit is also an opportunity for this child to ask Grandpa what her grandmother, Yahyah, was like, and explore the “secret room,” with its old wooden box of ribbons, medals and photos of Grandpa in uniform.
The year is 1959, and fifteen-year-old Nipishish returns to his reserve in northern Quebec after being kicked out of residential school, where the principal tells him he can look forward, like all Native Americans, to a life of drunkenness, prison, and despair. But despite his new freedom, the reserve offers little to a young Métis man. Both his parents are dead, his father Shipu, a respected leader, dying mysteriously at a young age. When Nipishish is sent to a strange town to live with a white family and attend high school, he hopes for the new life the change promises. But despite some bright spots, the adjustments prove overwhelming. Forced to return to his people, he must try to rediscover the old ways, face the officials who find him a threat, and learn the truth about his father’s death.
Leo Yerxa, an artist of Ojibway ancestry, brings us an art book in which he celebrates wild horses and the natural world in which they lived in harmony.
A Suquamish Indian chief describes his people’s respect and love for the earth, and concern for its destruction.
Young George Johnson lives in extraordinary times. His father is Sir William Johnson, one of the richest and most powerful men in colonial New York. His mother is Molly Brant, step-daughter of a Mohawk chief and sister of Iroquois leader Joseph Brant. George spends his early years in a grand mansion. Johnson Hall is a place where Native American culture comfortably mingles with European customs. But George’s life changes as the War for American Independence looms. Peter goes off to fight for the king against the rebel Americans, and the allegiance of the families of the Mohawk Valley are torn. After William Johnson’s death in 1774, Molly and Joseph urge the Iroquois nations to support the Loyalists. As rebel forces take over the valley, George and his family are forced to flee. Molly sends George to boarding school in Montreal, where he spends three miserable years. Finally, he persuades his mother to allow him to join in a last raid on Mohawk Valley. In a riveting climax, he experiences first-hand the inglorious brutality and futility of war, and struggles with what it means to be half Mohawk. And at last he learns the truth about his brother’s fate.
When Matt’s online friend, Free Throw, finally comes to Bragg Creek for a visit, the first thing they do is get a team together for the summer basketball league. Unfortunately, Matt’s archenemy has had the same idea.
Traditional ways of life, including social structure, homes, food, art, clothing, and more are covered.
“I am a child of Changing Woman.” That is a line in a Navajo prayer spoken by medicine men on behalf of patients, and in the old days it was symbolic and spiritual. Today, it is real. Navajo women, once relegated to bearing children, caring for the home, and raising livestock in a matrilineal society, have transformed themselves into businesswomen, attorneys, truck drivers, pilots, nurses, artists, presidential candidates, and more. Who is the Navajo woman and what drives her in 2007? Join Navajo writer Betty Reid and photographer Kenji Kawano on a journey through the cycle of a Navajo woman’s life, from east (birth and youth) to south (teenager and young adult) to west (adult) to north (elder).
A collection of Robert Ingpen’s illustrations throughout his career.
A renowned activist recalls his childhood years in an Indian boarding school