Thirteen-year-old Dale Melnyk finds himself stuck in an iron lung, desperately fighting for breath — and wishing he could die. It is the worst outbreak of polio in the history of Winnipeg, and Dale is one of the many young victims being treated in the early 1950s.
Second Chances follows Dale's slow and often agonizing struggle to regain his life, first of all to breathe on his own and then to regain the use of his limbs. Will he ever be able to play hockey again, he wonders? Dale comes to realize that he is doing better than a number of the other patients including Charlene, a young Métis girl confined to a wheelchair but always trying to help their fellow patients.
When Dale discovers his younger brother Brent is also in the polio ward because their father rejected the school program vaccine, a confrontation with his father becomes inevitable. Brent is not getting better and will be dealing with paralysis indefinitely.
When Dale finally emerges from his recovery he must reassess what is most important in life — a life that has been changed forever.
“I don’t recall seeing books when I was a little boy. But the old people, they grew up listening to stories. And so, every night, when the old people were done their evening prayers, they would sit and they would tell us stories too.”
At the time of the spring thaw, the Rocky Cree fill their canoes with furs, eager to trade with the new visitors in mistiwāsahak (Hudson Bay). But not all of the new visitors are welcome.
When the canoes return home to the shores of the misinipī river, the Rocky Cree begin to collapse one by one, drenched in sweat and slowly slipping into delirium. Kākakiw struggles to help the sick as more and more people pass into the spirit world. Exhausted physically, emotionally and spiritually, he seeks guidance through prayer.
Hope finally comes with a visitor in the night: one of the Little People, small beings who are just like us. If Kākakiw can journey to their home, he will be given the medicine his people need. All he has to do is paddle through a cliff of solid bedrock to get there.
To save his people from certain death, Kākakiw must overcome doubt to follow the traditional teachings of the Asiniskaw Īthiniwak and trust in the gift of the Little People.
In this illustrated short story for all ages, celebrated Rocky Cree storyteller William Dumas shares a teaching about hope in the face of adversity. This book is a companion story to The Six Seasons of the Asiniskaw Īthiniwak series.
On a fictional reservation, 16-year-old Josh “Creeboy” navigates the world of Indigenous gang life. His family members are no strangers to gangs. His dad, the leader of one on his reservation, is in jail, and his older brother Darion has taken his father’s place. Josh is unsure whether gang life is for him. But angry, hurt and frustrated by systemic racism against Indigenous peoples, Josh, now known as Creeboy, starts down the path to becoming a full gang member.
Can his family, and his community, save Josh before his fate becomes that of his father and brother?
Only rarely does a novel offer an inside look at gang life – not only its tension and violence, but its appeal.
Razor looked over the gang and said, “We are Warriors. The best gang for life. You know what it is. Show me your signs.” Some raised shirts and pointed to a W tattoo on the left of their chests. Others pointed to scars from stab and bullet wounds like honor badges.
Winner: Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, Amazon First Novel Awards, Kobo Emerging Author Prize. Finalist: Scotiabank Giller Prize, Atwood Gibson Writers Trust Prize, BC & Yukon Book Prize. Shortlist: Indigenous Voices Awards. Finalist: Kobo Emerging Author Prize. National Bestseller, a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year, a CBC Best Book of the Year, an Apple Best Book of the Year, a Kobo Best Book of the Year, an Indigo Best Book of the Year.
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 they are finally 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.
Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can’t stop running and moves restlessly from job to job—through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps—trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.
With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.
Bugz is caught between two worlds. In the real world, she's a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and life on the Rez. But in the virtual world, her alter ego is not just confident but dominant in a massively multiplayer video game universe.
Feng is a teen boy who has been sent from China to live with his aunt, a doctor on the Rez, after his online activity suggests he may be developing extremist sympathies. Meeting each other in real life, as well as in the virtual world, Bugz and Feng immediately relate to each other as outsiders and as avid gamers. And as their connection is strengthened through their virtual adventures, they find that they have much in common in the real world, too: Both must decide what to do in the face of temptations and pitfalls, and both must grapple with the impacts of family challenges and community trauma.
Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home -- until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom. A portal opens to another reality, Askí, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher). The only hunter supporting his starving community, Misewa, Ochek welcomes the human children, teaching them traditional ways to survive. But as the need for food becomes desperate, they embark on a dangerous mission. Accompanied by Arik, a sassy Squirrel they catch stealing from the trapline, they try to save Misewa before the icy grip of winter freezes everything -- including them.
The Mighty Muskrats are off to the city to have fun at the Exhibition Fair. But when Chickadee learns about Grandpa's little sister, who was scooped up by the government and adopted out to strangers without her parents' permission many years ago, the Mighty Muskrats have a new mystery to solve. Once in the bright lights of the big city, the cousins get distracted, face off with bullies, meet some heroes and unlikely teachers, and learn many of the difficulties of life in the city, as well as hard truths about their country’s treatment of First Nations people.
In what should have been a stellar trip to the big city, a once-in-a-lifetime tween's chance to see a famous rock band and spend some time at the Exhibition Fair, Otter and the other Muskrats find themselves the victims of an old-friend-turned-bully, and in serious trouble. A series of bad choices and mishaps turn a sad situation into something unsalvageable, and the cousins learn the hard way that some things aren't meant to be. However, there are a couple of silver linings in their family vacation that surprise all of them, and reward the Muskrats for all their frustrations, trials and efforts.
During the road trip to their Auntie's place, Otter, Sam, Atim and Chickadee learn about how their great aunt went missing as a child and hasn't been seen since. They are shocked to hear how their beloved grandfather's little sister was taken away during the Sixties Scoop, and adopted out to a non-Indigenous family by Canada's government in the 1960s. After they settle into their cousin's rec room with junk food and plans on how to spend the next several days, it becomes clear to Chickadee that locating their missing auntie needs to become their primary focus.