Pretty in Pink comes to the South Bronx in this romantic coming-of-age novel about dysfunctional families, good and bad choices, and finding the courage to question everything you ever thought you wanted.
Americas
Materials from the Americas
When Dimple Met Rishi
Eleanor and Park meets Bollywood in this hilarious and heartfelt novel about two Indian-American teens whose parents conspire to arrange their marriage. Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers… right? Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself. The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?
WOW Recommends: Book of the Month, September, 2017
Featured in WOW Currents (February, 2018) around the theme of women in STEM.
Two perspectives were offered in My Take/Your Take (March, 2018).
This Accident Of Being Lost
A collection of stories and songs by Nishnaabeg storyteller and writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Blending elements of Nishnaabeg storytelling, science fiction, contemporary realism, and lyric voice, this collection encompasses broad and imaginative themes.
Good For Nothing
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.
Sometimes I Feel Like A Fox
Ancient Thunder
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.
Missing Nimâmâ
A young mother, one of the many missing indigenous women, watches over her small daughter as she grows up without her nimama, experiencing important milestones – her first day of school, first dance, first date, wedding, first child – from afar.
Brother Eagle, Sister Sky
A Suquamish Indian chief describes his people’s respect and love for the earth, and concern for its destruction.
The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative (Massey Lectures)
“Stories are wondrous things,” award-winning Canadian author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. “And they are dangerous.” Stories assert tremendous control over our lives, informing who we are and how we treat one another as friends, family and citizens. With keen perception and wit, king illustrates that stories are the key to, and the only hope for, human understanding, He compels us to listen well.
George Johnson’s War
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.
