Aboriginal Awareness Education Week. To celebrate, we've chosen a couple of fiction works written by Canadian aboriginal authors. The variety here is astounding.
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Keeper ‘n Me by Richard Wagamese

This is the story of Garnet Raven who was taken from his home on an Ojibway Indian reserve and placed in a series of foster homes at the age of thirteen. He finally escapes at the first opportunity only to find himself adrift on the streets of the big city.

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Three-Day Road by Joseph Boyden

The story of two young Cree snipers in the killing fields of Ypres and the Somme in WWI. Vivid war scenes. One of Mr. Yaz’s personal favourites!

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Sketco, the Raven by Robert Ayre

Considered a classic these are the tales of Sketco the Raven—the cunning trickster delivers to the world the moon, the Sun and the stars, gives man fire, helps create the tides and much more.

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Ravensong by Lee Miracle

Set along the Pacific Northwest Coast of the early 1950s, this story unfolds in an urban native community overrun by a flu epidemic. Stacey, seventeen, balances her family's traditional ways against white society's intrusive new values, and knows that her future lies in both. With its terrific humour, this is a drama that turns out to be damning, inspirational, and prophetic.
 
 
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Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
From the man who brought the ‘Uglies’ series. In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker powers who are attempting to take over the world using mechanical machinery armed with ammunition and guns, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn, who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically engineered beasts. Aboard their monstrous airship Leviathan, Alex and Deryn experience a fantastic round-the world adventure.
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Death in the Air by Shane Peacock

Young Sherlock Homes witnesses the fall and death of a trapeze artist--something is afoot—and foul play is suspected. What the young detective doesn't know is that his discovery will set him on a trail leading to a gang of notorious and ruthless criminals.  This is the latest in the Boy Sherlock Holmes Series.
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Juggling Fire by Joanne Bell

Sixteen-year old Rachel embarks on a solo quest to find her father, who disappeared years ago in the Yukon wilderness. As the days pass and her quest leads her deeper into the wilderness, she must confront danger and ensure loneliness and despair before she can unearth the truth about her father.
 
 
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The Middle of Everywhere by Monique Polak

Fifteen year old Noah Thorpe is spending the school term in George River in Quebec Far North. The Inuit kids call him a Qallunaaq—the Inuktitut word for a non-Inuit person and someone ignorant of the customs of the North. Noah thinks that they have strange ways of looking at the world plus they eat raw meat and blubber and there isn’t even a doctor let alone a McDonalds in town.
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Greener Grass by Caroline Pignat

This book was a finalist for the 2009 Governor General’s award, the highest award for recognition in literature in Canada. It’s Ireland 1847 and right in the middle of the great famine. Landlords raise rents and tumble cottages leaving thousands homeless and overcome with hunger and disease. Kit’s family is slated for eviction. She will do anything she can to help. But how far will she go? Stealing? Murder?
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Wave by Eric Walters

The riveting sage of a brother and sister caught in the centre of the 2004 tsunami catastrophe. Told in alternating voices of Sam and Beth this is an unforgettable account of a terrifying and dramatic true event.
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What is Stephen Harper Reading by Yann Martel

Every two weeks since April 2007, Yann Martel (author of The Life of Pi) has mailed Prime Minister Stephen Harper a book along with a letter encouraging the politician to take time to the time to read life-shaping literary works. This book includes his letters to the PM. His list includes many of the books that most of us have read: The Metamorphosis, A Clockwork Orange, To Kill a Mockingbird Le Petit Prince, and Animal Farm.
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Bow Grip by Ivan Coyote

Those that heard Ivan speak are aware that this is her first novel. Joey is a good-hearted mechanic from small-town Alberta whose wife recently left him for another woman. When a stranger named James approaches his shop and agrees to purchase a beat-up blue Volvo in exchange for a beautiful, hand-crafted cello, Joey see it as an opportunity to finally make some overdue changes in his life.

Me, Myself & Ike by K.L. Denman

An eye-awaking story about a teenager coming to grips with his mental illness. Kit Latimer used to be happy. He had a beautiful girlfriend, a few close friends, and a solid family life. Now his only friend is the enigmatic and possibly deranged Ike, who convinces Kit to undertake a secret and very dangerous mission. Increasingly alienated, paranoid, and confused, Kit stands to lose everything—including his life—if Ike has his way.

Seaweed in the Soup by Stanley Evans

The fifth mystery in the popular series, Seaweed in the Soup, combines hard-boiled mystery narrative with the mythology of the Coast Salish people of the west coast. Victoria is known as the garden city, but when a gardener is found dead and a policeman’s wife is killed things begin to smell not so fragrant. Police detective Silas Seaweed begins to suspect that these murders are related to the recent wave of gang-related crime that is sweeping British Columbia. His quest to find the killers leads him from the loud and steamy nightclubs of Victoria to the remote and quiet islands of Desolation Sound.

Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors by Charis Cotter

We all have a story to tell! But these six authors including Phillip Pullman, E.B. White, and C.S Lewis were extraordinary children who transformed their early struggles into spellbinding bedtime reading that have become staples in the literary. Check out their stories!