Boy, Snow, Bird By Helen Oyeyemi (Grade 10+)

Helen Oyeyemi is a Nigerian-born British novelist whose writing career began while she was still in secondary school. She has won multiple awards for her writing, including a Somerset Maughm Award and the PEN Open Book Award. Boy, Snow,Bird is the tale of a strange and fateful connection between three women in Flax Hill, Massachusetts. It's themes of race, passing and the mythologies of modern life are woven into a captivating tale of complex relationships.

Walking in Two Worlds By Wab Kinew (Grades 7-9)

In the real world, Bugz is a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and reserve life. 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 reserve, 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 impact of family and community trauma.

But betrayal threatens everything Bugz has built in the virtual world, as well as her relationships in the real world, and it will take all her newfound strength to restore her friendship with Feng and reconcile the parallel aspects of her life: the traditional and the mainstream, the east and the west, the real and the virtual.

Lost at Windy River By Trina Rathgeber, Alina Pete and Jillian Dolan (Grades 4-6)

It takes courage and bravery to survive in the barrens

In 1944, thirteen-year-old Ilse Schweder got lost in a snowstorm while checking her family's trapline in northern Canada. This is the harrowing story of how a young Indigenous girl defies the odds and endures nine days alone in the unforgiving barrens. Ilse faces many challenges, including freezing temperatures, wild animals, snow blindness and frostbite. With no food or supplies, she relies on Traditional Indigenous Knowledge passed down from her family. Ilse uses her connection to the land and animals, wilderness skills and resilience to find her way home.

This powerful tale of survival is written by Ilse Schweder's granddaughter.

When We Gather (Ostadahlisiha): A Cherokee Tribal Feast By Andrea L. Rogers (Grades 1-3)

Andrea L. Rogers is an award-winning Cherokee author of historical and contemporary fiction who grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. When We Gather (Ostadahlisiha): A Cherokee Tribal Feast talks about a Cherokee girl who hunts for green onions with her family in preperation for a feast to welcome spring.

The Ballad of Black Tom By Victor LaValle (Grades 10+)

The dedication to Victor LaValle's Shirley Jackson Award-winning novella The Ballad of Black Tom reads, "For H.P. Lovecraft, with all my conflicted feelings". Lovecraft casts a long shadow over horror and fantasy literature, influencing nearly every genre writer that came after him. He was also a white-supremacist, a fact that infects all of his work, and his writing has faced something a reckoning in recent years. Some of this response has been in the form of other novels, as in Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country and in this novel, which interrogates Lovecraft's racism and inverts those tropes, all while capturing the eerie awfulness of his horrifying imagination.

The Everlasting Road By Wab Kinew (Grades 7-9)

Devastated by the loss of her older brother to cancer, Bugz returns to the place where she can always find solace and strength: the Floraverse. Over the past year, she has regained her position of power in that virtual world, and while the remaining Clan:LESS members still plot against her, she is easily able to overcome their attacks. Even better, she's been secretly working on a bot that will be both an incredible weapon and a source of comfort: Waawaate.

With the Waawaate bot looking exactly like the brother she misses so much — even acting like him — Bugz feels ready to show him off to Feng, who has become a constant companion in the 'Verse. She cannot wait to team up with both friend and bot to secure her dominance once and for all. But Feng has his own issues to deal with, especially when news that his parents are alive and want to contact him threatens to send his new life on the Rez into upheaval.

As they work through their complicated feelings of grief and loss, Feng and Bugz find themselves becoming ever closer. But disturbances in the Floraverse cannot be ignored, especially when Bugz realizes that her Waawaate bot is growing in powers beyond her control . . .

Indigenous Ingenuity By Deidre Havrelock, Edward Kay (Grades 4-6)

Corn. Chocolate. Fishing hooks. Boats that float. Insulated double-walled construction. Recorded history and folklore. Life-saving disinfectant. Forest fire management. Our lives would be unrecognizable without these, and countless other, scientific discoveries and technological inventions from Indigenous North Americans. Spanning topics from transportation to civil engineering, hunting technologies, astronomy, brain surgery, architecture, and agriculture, Indigenous Ingenuity is a wide-ranging STEM offering that answers the call for Indigenous nonfiction by reappropriating hidden history. The book includes fun, simple activities and experiments that kids can do to better understand and enjoy the principles used by Indigenous inventors. Readers of all ages are invited to celebrate traditional North American Indigenous innovation, and to embrace the mindset of reciprocity, environmental responsibility, and the interconnectedness of all life.

So Loud By Sahar Golshan (Grades 1-3)

A wonderful story about a young girl discovering the power of her voice, and how it's alright for girls to be SO LOUD! like howling huskies and roaring lions. In this moment, we see the girl comparing her voice to a river on Norooz, the Irānian New Year, celebrated on the first day of Spring.

Sahar Golshan is a writer based in Mississauga, Ontario. She is the 2022 winner of the Marina Nemat Award for Creative Writing in Non-Fiction and received the 2019 Air Canada Short Film Award for her short documentary KAR.

A Litany for Survival By Audre Lorde (Grades 10+)

Audre Lorde is an African American writer, professor, philosopher, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She describes herself as "Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet." With the effective use of anaphora and parallelism, "A Litany for Survival" depicts those who live and struggle on the edge of society. These individuals constantly live under fear and opression. However, the speaker suggests that silence perpetuates the cycle of oppression. Thus, it is important to speak up even one was "never meant to survive," just like how Lorde did in this poem.

Incident By Countee Cullen (Grades 7-9)

***TRIGGER WARNING - RACIALLY SENSITIVE LANGUAGE***

Words matter. What they are, how they are said, and what they mean, matters. In this poem, Countee Cullen uses a harsh and racist word, highlighting it's intent in order to give context to the impact of that single word. This poem is powerful example of the ability of poetry to share experience and encourge reflection.

Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion By K. Tempest Bradford (Grades 4-6)

In this fun, fast-paced chapter book, Ruby Finley is scientifically-minded kid who finds a strange, unidentifiable bug in her neighbourhood. When it escapes before she can show the world, strange things start happening, and it's up to Ruby and her friends to figure out why. K. Tempest Bradford is an African-American writer of of science fiction and fantasy, and Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion is her first middle-grade novel. It won the Andre Norton award in 2023.

Because You Are By Jael Richardson (Grades 1-3)

Jael Richardson is a Canadian writer and advocate for diverse voices, particularly Black Canadian experiences. Her children's picture book Because You Are celebrates the unique qualities of young children, with a focus on affirming messages for Black children. The book, illustrated by Michaela Goade, an Indigenous artist, combines vibrant artwork and themes of love, self-acceptance, and identity, creating an empowering experience for young readers.

Until We Break By Matthew Dawkins (Grades 10+)

Born and raised in Jamaica, Matthew Dawkins's work explores subject matters including adolescence, race, and mental health. In Until We Break, Naomi Morgan is the only Black student at her ballet academy, and knows she has to sacrifice her feelings of isolation to win the most prestigious dance competition. But when Naomi’s instructor assigns her a challenging dance, her doubts as well as an injury start to deteriorate her mental health. However, one night, she meets Saint, who spends his nights creating beautiful messages of social change.Together, she and Saint will shine and everything will be different in the best possible way.

Frederick Douglass By Robert Hayden (Grades 7-9)

Robert Hayden’s poem "Frederick Douglass" is a tribute to the abolitionist and statesman, and envisions a future where freedom is fully realized, not just in words but in the lived experiences of people. Hayden describes Douglass’s struggle and sacrifice, portraying him as a symbol of justice and resilience whose true remembrance lies not in statues or memorials but in a society that upholds the ideals he fought for.

Poetry for Young People By Langston Hughes (Grades 4-6)

James Mercer Langston Hughes, an acomplished poet, novelist, fictional writer, and playwright, was born and raised in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes is most well known for his role of artistic contributions in the Harlem Renaissance. However what serperates Hughes from the rest of other black poets at the time is he is known to mix between his personal experieces and his common experiences as a black American in the 1920s. Hughes was able to capture and reflect the soul of his people and put it into a book with wonderful poetry, as well as illustrations from the brilliant Benny Andrews. In this work he is able to simplify his big ideas to the point where youth can absorb the messages he wishes to convey. This book contains many poems highlighting the highs and lows of black childhood and is a wonderful read for young readers.

My Soca Birthday Party: With Jollof Rice and Steel Pans By Yolanda T. Marshall (Grades 1-3)

Yolanda T. Marshall is a multi-award winning Canadian author and storywriter, renowned for her diverse, inclusive, and festive childrens literature. In this book she writes of a birthday party organized by Anne's friends depicting the music and foods from Caribbean and African countries. It really highlights how similar but diverse both Caribbean and African culture can be and explores it aptly through the illustrations in the book.

The Fifth Season By N.K Jemisin (Grade 10+)

The Fifth Season is the first entry in N.K. Jemisin's stellar Broken Earth trilogy, followed by The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky. All three of the novels won the Hugo award for best novel, a first in the history of the award, and were heralded by critics and fans alike for complex and exciting storytelling. Jemisin herself grew up in NYC and Alabama, and worked as a psychologist before becoming well known enough as a writer to make the latter her full-time job. She has been heralded as one of the great voices in modern science fiction, and was inlcluded in 2021 on Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. LINK TO EXCERPT

Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood By James Baldwin (Grades 7-9)

James Baldwin, one of America's most important writers, is known for his powerful books about race and identity. In his only children’s book, Little Man, Little Man, Baldwin tells the story of four-year-old TJ, who lives in Harlem. Through TJ’s fun adventures with his friends and his growing understanding of the world, Baldwin shows the joys and challenges of Black childhood. The book celebrates friendship, family, and community, with Baldwin’s warm and thoughtful writing making it a timeless story for readers of all ages.

The Crossover By by Kwame Alexander (Grade 4-6)

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander is a heartfelt story with a handful of twists and turns, jumps and duck - all puns intended. It is a coming of age story in a unique setting of poetry. The stand alone poems are refresihng and the overall story is a slice of life from the basketball court.
One of the poems - Questions

Hair Love By Matthew A. Cherry (Grades 1-3)

Matthew A. Cherry is an African-American film director, writer, producer, and former American football player. He is best known for his award-winning animated short film and book Hair Love. Hair Love shows the relationship between an African-American father and daughter. Zuri's father has to step in for her mother to do her hair for a special ocassion and it turns out to be more difficult than expected.