Today, talk of six books by Indigenous writers, including a novel, an illustrated children’s book, two books of poetry, and two books of non-fiction. These are works by Binnizá & Maya Ch’orti’, Cree-Métis, Kanien’kehá:ka Ahkwesáhsne /Mohawk St. Regis, Kanien’kehá:ka, Wakeniáhton (Turtle Clan), and Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara/Tsimshian writers.

Aaron John Curtis’ Old School Indian (2025) begins with a clenched jaw, night sweats during the day, online searches for putrefacient flesh and necrotic tissue, and a deservedly resentful receptionist—in response to Abe.

When Great Uncle Budge comes on the scene, he says: “Some people say touchin’ me is like leanin’ against a transformer.”

But that only sounds bad: actually, his Great Uncle’s shamanic touch makes Abe want to make that face the GIF-baby makes when she tastes cake for the first time.

This is where the story lives: at the intersection of a smile and a wince. Because there is a lot of personal and cultural grief here, but this storyteller’s wit and a sly-glancedness percolates beneath the surface of this story from beginning to end.

And Curtis directs the action, through shifts in time and space, clearly and authoritatively; there are references to contemporary poets and TV (like Ross Gay, “Gray’s Anatomy”), quick historical catch-ups on key issues, excerpts of creative writing by one ‘Dominick Deer Woods’ and, in the background, a whiff of home-cooking.

If you are looking for a fun way to engage with decolonisation: this is your cake. [Kanien’kehá:ka/Mohawk, Ahkwesáhsne/St. Regis]

  “First season, they’re all living together in one house,” Budge says. “When they eat, they talk about their mystery patients. They argue over who has the right diagnosis. Sometimes they make bets, even though they know it’s wrong.”
“Then yeah, that’s exactly what I picture. A little pasta, a bottle of wine, and let’s play ‘what’s wrong with the Mohawk dude.’ Abe leans his face over the pot [of veggies cooking], inhaling deeply.”

It would be reductive to say that the boldly drawn eyebrows in Laurel Goodluck’s Too Much (2024) are what really made the book for me, but that’s partly true. Because the characters in this story have an individuality conveyed by these quirks, even though the overarching message is what’s important…that an Indigenous family is always there for you—if it’s not always in the way that a young child might hope. Russell really wants relatives to pay more attention to him when he’s talking about his upcoming role in a school play, but in all the bustle of a busy group, his comments are often overlooked (at least it feels this way to him). Even worse, when he needs to practice his lines, other events are prioritised. And all of this stretches further than some storybooks would allow, which creates a satisfying amount of tension, just in the nick of time for a resolution of contentment and security: exactly the feeling captured in the cover illustration. Extending the concept of family to include intertribal relationships reflects many young Indigenous peoples’ personal experiences on the page, and invites everyone to more broadly understand kinship. [Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara/Tsimshian, author; Anishnaabe, illustrator]

Cree-Métis poet Tyler Pennock’s debut collection Bones (2020) is the kind that has a strong throughline so that, even though there are linebreaks, and even though the language is elevated and lyrical, I read it straight through.

In the afterword, they explain their decision to learn Severin Ojibwe at U of T in preparation to study other languages (including Cree). “Each Ojibwe phrase used in this book infers its own story, telling of a moment I was able to spend with—and learn from—my teacher, my friend.” For such an extended process of inquiry, a sprawling sense of quiet reflection, it’s a compelling piece. The description of lights at night particularly appealed to me, the attention to detail in these passages both relatable and just-unexpected-enough to provoke.

If the body is a collection
of continuously dying cells
then I am memory
each destruction of me
refolded into me

more than scars bursting
pain and harm
memory passed to new, stronger cells
A reprint—
each armed with knowing
and stronger than the last

In both that collection, and in their 2022 collection, Blood, elements of repetition offered respite and an amorphous sense of security as I read on. I’m not a very confident poetry reader, but at times this felt more like prose than verse to me.

Connecting
should be easier

Shouldn’t come with this much resistance
and pain

Connecting to Pennock’s writing, though, did feel easy. And, in the end, I was left feeling as though I might want to reread after some time has passed. (I often feel as though a few poems in a collection really speak to me, and I imagine rereading only specific verses.)

Watching Ellen Gabriel (Katsi’tsakwas) in the media during the “Oka Crisis” in 1990 (how it was reported: the  Kanehsatà:ke Resistance as she viewed it)… it was one of the main reasons I started reading about Indigenous history and culture.

Such leadership, such strength, such presence. I was overwhelmed.

Written with Sean Carleton, When the Pine Needles Fall (2024) is written like an extended conversation. Audra Simpson contributes the Afterword and describes the book as a “window into all those ways that Haudenosaunee people have remembered who they are, where they are, and what they have to do to protect their relations” while also chronicling the ongoing process of dispossession and the impact of settler capitalism.

But the conversations themselves root these issues in the everyday and then provide context so that eavesdroppers can understand and follow easily.

Of particular interest to me is the eighth chapter, about the Wet’suwet’en land defenders (in what’s British Columbia today), and how this is all part of the same story—which reveals that this is part of an overarching framework and system, rather than a series of isolated and disconnected attacks.

Subtitle: Indigenous Acts of Resistance [Kanien’kehá:ka, Wakeniáhton (Turtle Clan)]

Jessica Hernandez’s Fresh Banana Leaves (2022) begins with her father’s story about “volunteering” to join the fighting forces in El Salvador, when he was eleven years old, because he had no choice. Ultimately he’s left to die with a fellow “soldier”, and he escapes into the forest where he is protected (in various ways) by the banana trees.

Ironically, these trees aren’t native to El Salvador, so colonialism is at the root of the war he’s caught up in, but also at the root of the plantation crop which offers him shelter. This is how Hernandez reminds us of the unbreakable bond between the personal and the political. Simple and powerful.

The chapter titles here sound academic, but the narrative itself feels familiar and comfortable; she writes in the first person and centres references her personal experiences (with interviews, events, and research along the way). Subheadings, indented interview excerpts, and photographs all add to this sense.

At the forefront are movements to highlight Indigenous peoples’ expertise regarding stewardship of their homelands (their original homelands, or the homeland they have resettled—Hernandez reminds us that one can be Latino and oppressed, can be Latino and an oppressor) and the collective work required to decolonize to counter the devastation wrecked by the climate crisis.

“May this book inspire you to plant seeds that will one day blossom into flowers of change. Decolonize. Revolutionize. Indigenize.”

Subtitle: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science [Binnizá & Maya Ch’orti’]

ICYMI: I started this Indigenous History Month with talk of Thomas King’s latest Thumps Dreadfulwater mysteries, then shared my Indigenous reading plans for this year’s Toronto Public Library Reading Challenge, as well as seven books by Indigenous writers that align with challenge themes. Then, on the other side of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wrote about six other books.

On Monday, I’ll share more about the seven books that fit various challenge themes.

But before you go, which of these would most readily slip into your stack?