Canada

‘Listen. Can you hear the voices of the Old Ones speaking to you in a language you’ve forgotten?’ An Indigenous child struggles with a school assignment that asks, ‘What makes you proud to be Canadian?’ To find the answer, they call on the strength of their ancestors. The ancestors’ warm presence reminds them that we are in this together and we always have been – ‘every soul that has fallen head over heels in love with the spell of this country.’ This powerful and timeless poem written by Richard Wagamese is seen through the eyes of an Indigenous child in the captivating illustrations by Anishinaabe artist Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley. As the poem speaks to a new generation of Indigenous children, it welcomes everyone to honor the past, find belonging here and now, and look toward the future in this place now called Canada.

Author Biography

RICHARD WAGAMESE was a multi-award-winning Ojibway writer from Wabaseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario, Canada. His bestselling novels include Indian Horse, which was a Canada Reads finalist, winner of the inaugural Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature and made into a feature film; and Medicine Walk. He was also the author of acclaimed memoirs, including For Joshua; One Native Life and One Story, One Song, which won the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature; as well as a collection of personal reflections, Embers, which received the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award. He won the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Media and Communications, the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize, the Canada Reads People’s Choice Award and the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Matt Cohen Award. Richard died on March 10, 2017, in Kamloops, BC.

MANGESHIG PAWIS-STECKLEY is a multidisciplinary Anishinaabe artist and a member of Wasauksing First Nation. He is an award-winning children’s book illustrator and author whose work explores themes of language revitalization, ancestral knowledge sharing and memory. Mangeshig’s books have received a Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award, an Indigenous Voices Award and the Blue Spruce Award, and Miimaanda ezhi-gkendmaanh / This Is How I Know (written by Brittany Luby) was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award.