10 Indigenous Authors to Read

Happy Tuesday y’all! Over at That Artsy Reader Girl, Jana has dubbed this week’s Top Ten Tuesday a Freebie. What, I can pick out my out topic? I struggled with this. Should I do books with autumn covers? Or maybe focus on books that are banned and challenged, as it’s Banned Book Week? Then I decided to focus on some other special books in honor of the new holiday in Canada on September 30. So this week, I am showcasing 10 Indigenous Authors to Read.

The creation of Orange Shirt Day was to honor the survivors of the residential schools. Celebrated on September 30, it has also been a way to open the door for meaningful discussions. For more information on the history of Orange Shirt Day, please visit Orange Shirt Day Society.

In June 2021, the federal government of Canada created the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The day honors the lost children and survivors of residential schools, their families, and communities. One way to honor the lost children and the survivors is to explore the rich and diverse cultures, voices, experiences, and stories of the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.

Some of the books and authors I included here are ones that I have read this year. Others are ones I hope to read soon. All synopsis are from Goodreads.

Book 1: Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

“You’re gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine” is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling novel. Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishizes himself to make a living.

Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the “rez,” and his former life, to attend his stepfather’s funeral. The next seven days are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother).

Jonny’s world is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages–and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life. Jonny Appleseed is a unique, shattering vision of Indigenous life, full of grit, glitter, and dreams.

Book 2: Indians on Vacation by Thomas King

Inspired by a handful of old postcards sent by Uncle Leroy nearly a hundred years earlier, Bird and Mimi attempt to trace Mimi’s long-lost uncle and the family medicine bundle he took with him to Europe.

By turns witty, sly, and poignant, this is the unforgettable tale of one couple’s holiday trip to Europe, where their wanderings through its famous capitals reveal a complicated history, both personal and political.

Book 3: Five Little Indians by Michelle Good

Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie, and Maisie are barely out of childhood when released after years of detention.

Alone and without any skills, support, or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.

Book 4: The Strangers by Katherena Vermette

After time spent in foster homes, Cedar goes to live with her estranged father. Although she grapples with the pain of being separated from her mother and sister, Cedar’s hoping for a new chapter in her life, only to find herself once again in a strange house surrounded by strangers.

From a youth detention center, Phoenix gives birth to a baby she’ll never get to raise and tries to forgive herself for all the harm she’s caused (while wondering if she even should). Elsie, struggling with addiction and determined to turn her life around, is buoyed by the idea of being reunited with her daughters and strives to be someone they can depend on, unlike her distant mother. These are the Strangers, each haunted in her own way. Between flickering moments of warmth and support, the women diverge and reconnect, fighting to survive in a fractured system that pretends to offer success but expects them to fail. Facing the distinct blade of racism from those they trusted most, they urge one another to move through the darkness, all the while wondering if they’ll ever emerge safely on the other side.

Book 5: Call Me Indian: From the Trauma of Residential School to Becoming the NHL’s First Treaty Indigenous Player by Fred Sasakamoose

Fred Sasakamoose, torn from his home at the age of seven, endured the horrors of residential school for a decade before becoming one of 120 players in the most elite hockey league in the world. He has been heralded as the first Indigenous player with Treaty status in the NHL, making his official debut as a 1954 Chicago Black Hawks player on Hockey Night in Canada and teaching Foster Hewitt how to pronounce his name. Sasakamoose played against such legends as Gordie Howe, Jean Beliveau, and Maurice Richard. After twelve games, he returned home.

Sasakamoose’s story was far from over once his NHL days concluded. He continued to play for another decade in leagues around Western Canada. Then, he became a band councilor, served as Chief, and established athletic programs for kids. He paved the way for youth to find solace and meaning in sports for generations to come. Yet, threaded through these impressive accomplishments were periods of heartbreak and unimaginable tragedy–as well moments of passion and great joy.

Book 6: Permanent Astonishment: A Memoir by Tomson Highway

Tomson Highway was born in a snowbank on an island in the sub-Arctic, the eleventh of twelve children in a nomadic, caribou-hunting Cree family. Growing up in a land of ten thousand lakes and islands, Tomson relished being pulled by dogsled beneath a night sky alive with stars, sucking the juices from roasted muskrat tails, and singing country music songs with his impossibly beautiful older sister and her friends.

Surrounded by the love of his family and the vast, mesmerizing landscape they called home, his was in many ways an idyllic far-north childhood. But five of Tomson’s siblings died in childhood, and Balazee and Joe Highway wanted their two youngest sons to enjoy opportunities as big as the world. And so, when Tomson was six, he was flown south by floatplane to attend a residential school. A year later, Rene joined him to begin the rest of their education. In 1990 Rene Highway, a world-renowned dancer died of an AIDS-related illness. Permanent Astonishment: Growing Up in the Land of Snow and Sky is Tomson’s extravagant embrace of his younger brother’s final words: Don’t mourn me, be joyful. His memoir offers both hilarious and profound insights into the Cree experience of culture, conquest, and survival.

Book 8: Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson

Everyone knows a guy like Jared: the burnout kid in high school who sells weed cookies and has a scary mom who’s often wasted and wielding some kind of weapon. Jared does smoke and drink too much. He does make the best cookies in town, and his mom is a mess. Still, Jared’s also a kid who has an immense capacity for compassion and an impulse to watch over people more than twice his age. He can’t rely on anyone for consistent love and support, except for his flatulent pit bull–and now she’s dead.

Jared can’t count on his mom to stay sober and stick around to take care of him. He can’t rely on his dad to pay the bills and support his new wife and step-daughter. Jared is only sixteen but feels like he is the one who must stabilize his family’s life, even look out for his elderly neighbors. But he struggles to keep everything afloat…and sometimes he blacks out. And he puzzles over why his maternal grandmother has never liked him. Why she says, he’s the son of a trickster, that he isn’t human. Mind you, ravens speak to him–even when he’s not stoned.

You think you know Jared, but you don’t.

Book 9: The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

In a futuristic 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 people, 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 fifteen-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.”

Book 10: Surviving the City by Tasha Spillett and Illustated by Natasha Donovan

Miikwan and Dez are best friends. Miikwan is Anishinaabe; Dez is Inninew. Together, the teens navigate the challenges of growing up in an urban landscape – they’re so close, they even completed their Berry Fast together. However, when Dez’s grandmother becomes too sick, Dez is told she can’t stay with her anymore. With the threat of a group home looming, Dez can’t bring herself to go home and disappears. Miikwan is devastated, and the wound of her missing mother resurfaces. Will Dez’s community find her before it’s too late? Will Miikwan be able to cope if they don’t?

This list of 10 Indigenous Authors to Read is just a small sampling. Some of these works are based on the author’s experiences with the residential schools themselves. In contrast, others are based on the after-effects of the schools on the communities and the country.

I decided to add a bonus book to my list. Written by Gord Downie, lead singer of The Tragically Hip, this is the story of a twelve-year-old boy trying to return home. For more information visit The Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack Fund.

Bonus Book: Secret Path by Gord Downie and Illustrated by Jeff Lemire

Secret Path is a ten-song album by Gord Downie with a graphic novel by illustrator Jeff Lemire that tells the story of Chanie “Charlie” Wenjack, a twelve-year-old boy who died in flight from the Residential School fifty years ago.

Chanie, misnamed Charlie by his teachers, was a young boy who died on October 22, 1966. He was walking the railroad tracks, trying to escape from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School to return home. Chanie’s home was 400 miles away. He didn’t know that. He didn’t know where it was, nor how to find it, but, like so many kids—more than anyone will be able to imagine—he tried.

Looking for some more ideas to read? Check out my monthly reading wrap-ups.