Hello everyone!
Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Bionic Bookworm, and it’s now hosted by Meeghan Reads. If you’re interested in participating, check out their wonderful blog to get the details and the prompts for each week!
This week’s Top 5 Tuesday topic is Top 5 Books Celebrating Indigenous Heritage. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, I haven’t read any books by Indigenous authors, which I need to fix. This realization led me to do some research, and I’ve compiled a list of five books that I want to read that are by Indigenous authors.
This Place: 150 Years Retold by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Sonny Assu, Brandon Mitchell, et al. – This graphic novel anthology explores 150 years of history through the eyes of different indigenous creators. It looks like some of the stories in this book have a magical element to them, which sounds kind of cool. I’m also interested in this book because it is a graphic novel, which is a format that I’m trying to read more of.
The Red Chesterfield by Wayne Arthurson – I stumbled upon this book on the CBC website, and it sounds delightfully strange. The main character discovers an illegally dumped red chesterfield and a severed foot, which leads to a murder investigation. I like books that are a bit weird, and I like murder investigations, so I’m curious about this book.
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good– This book is about five children who were taken away from their families, sent to a residential school, and then sent out on their own as teenagers. The book follows the five characters as their lives intersect over the years and their struggles. This book looks like it deals with some heavy topics, but it sounds excellent, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson – This book was one of the 2020 Canada Reads finalists, and it was on the shortlist for the 2017 Giller Prize, and it looks fantastic. This book follows Jared, a teenager who appears to be your typical burnout kid, who is struggling to keep himself and his family afloat. I’m interested in the trickster element to this book, because according to an interview with the author that I read, the trickster has a specific role in her culture, and I’m interested in learning more about different Indigenous cultures.
Sugar Falls by David Alexander Robertson – This graphic novel is about the horrors of the residential school system. This book is based on a true story, and it deals with some very heavy subject matter. This is definitely one of those books that will be difficult to get through, but based on the description, I think it’s an important book to read because the residential school system was a horrific thing.