The Reconciliation Book Club

Reading, Talking, Learning

The Federation’s Reconciliation Book Club was designed to create an accessible space for staff in member organizations to increase their knowledge of issues related to reconciliation. Book Club members meet regularly to discuss a new book. Federation staff facilitate and make available discussion questions, additional readings and resources, as well as author and publisher information.

Sign up to be a Book Club Member!

Check out our discussion schedule and book list and then sign up to participate using the form below!

No matter where you are in your personal journey, we invite all staff from Federation member organizations to join us. All you have to do is show up and help us create a safe space for learning, asking questions, and being a little uncomfortable. In the words of one Federation member, “the work of reconciliation requires working through discomfort to get to real change.”

Book Club Info

Participants

The Reconciliation Book Club is a benefit of membership in The Federation of Community Social Services of BC. The Book Club is open to: all staff from Federation member organizations; all staff from organizations that have agreements with The Federation; participants in The Federation’s Leadership 2020 or Transformative Reconciliation programs. For more information, please email katherine@fcssbc.ca for assistance.

Titles and Schedule

Here are the books we will be reading in 2024. Click on the title to learn more about each one. Participation information will be emailed to all Book Club members prior to each discussion.

Discussion Date	Book Title	Author
February 28, 2024	From the Ashes	Jesse Thistle
April 24, 2024	I am woman	Lee Maracle
June 26, 2024	Braiding Sweetgrass	Robin Wall Kimmerer
August 28, 2024	Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada	Michelle Good
October 23, 2024	Bone Black	Carol Rose GoldenEagle
December 18, 2024	Fatty Legs (10th Anniversary Edition)	Christy Jordan-Fenton, Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, Liz Amini-Holmes

Support Indigenous-Owned Booksellers

If you already have copies of these books, well done mind-reader! If not, consider ordering them from an Indigenous-owned bookstore.

Massy Books, Vancouver
Iron Dog Books, Vancouver
Strong Nations, Nanaimo

These are three BC-based booksellers owned and run by Indigenous people that also ship across the province! If you know of an Indigenous-owned bookseller in your community, let us know and we’ll add it to the list!

Sign Up for the Book Club

Additional Reading

Do you want to start a book club of your own? Need even more great titles to read? Here is a list of dozens of other excellent reads by Indigenous authors.

Medicine Unbundled

Medicine Unbundled by Gary Geddes

A shocking exposé of the dark history and legacy of segregated Indigenous health care in Canada. The memories recounted by these survivors (from gratuitous drug and surgical experiments to electroshock treatments intended to destroy the memory of sexual abuse) are truly harrowing, and will surely shatter any lingering illusions about the virtues or good intentions of our colonial past. Yet, this is more than just the painful history of a once-so-called vanishing people (a people who have resisted vanishing despite the best efforts of those in charge); it is a testament to survival, perseverance, and the power of memory to keep history alive and promote the idea of a more open and just future.

I am a Métis

I am a Métis by Peter O’Neil

Gerry St. Germain’s story begins in “Petit Canada” on the shores of the Assiniboine, growing up with his two younger sisters, his mother and his father–a shy Metis trapper and construction worker who sometimes struggled to put food on the table. St. Germain was initially troubled in school, scrapping with classmates and often skipping out to shoot pool, but an aunt and uncle with some extra cash paid his tuition to Catholic school, where a nun recognized his aptitude for math and encouraged him to pursue his dreams. He would go on to become an air force pilot, undercover policeman and West Coast chicken farmer. Business gave way to politics, and in 1988 he became one of a tiny number of Aboriginal Canadians named to a federal cabinet. That role reflected St. Germain’s profound determination to help people who are still dealing today the brutal legacy of residential schools and the paternalistic Indian Act. Memories of his humble beginnings and the shame he once felt over his Metis heritage bubbled to the surface in his final address to Canada’s Parliament in 2012, when he said in a voice quaking with emotion: “I am a Metis.”

One Native Life

One Native Life by Richard Wagamese

In 2005, award-winning writer Richard Wagamese moved with his partner to a cabin outside Kamloops, BC. In the crisp mountain air, Wagamese felt a peace he’d seldom known before. Abused and abandoned as a kid, he’d grown up feeling there was nowhere he belonged. For years, only alcohol and moves from town to town seemed to ease the pain. In One Native Life, Wagamese looks back down the road he has travelled in reclaiming his identity and talks about the things he has learned as a human being, a man and an Ojibway in his fifty-two years.

One Story, One Song

One Story, One Song by Richard Wagamese

“The short pieces in One Story, One Song remind us of human beings’ place in the world: We are a part of it, not masters of it. And by sharing our stories we share ourselves. By listening to others’ stories, we share their lives and perhaps gain connections. One Story, One Song is all about connections, something we all need.”

For Joshua

For Joshua by Richard Wagamese

Richard Wagamese stares the modern world in the eye and takes careful note of its snares and perils. He sees people coveting without knowing why, people looking for roots without understanding what might constitute rootedness, people looking for acceptance without offering reciprocal respect, and people longing for love without knowing how to offer it. And underneath all lurks the seductive oblivion of substance abuse. These are the pitfalls of his own life, dangers he hopes his estranged son, Joshua, will be able to navigate with the guidance afforded by this heartfelt memoir.

As We Have Always Done

As We Have Always Done by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Indigenous resistance is a radical rejection of contemporary colonialism focused on the refusal of the dispossession of both Indigenous bodies and land. Simpson makes clear that its goal can no longer be cultural resurgence as a mechanism for inclusion in a multicultural mosaic. Instead, she calls for unapologetic, place-based Indigenous alternatives to the destructive logic of the settler colonial state, including heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalist exploitation.

Islands of Decolonial Love

Islands of Decolonial Love by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

In her debut collection of short stories, Islands of Decolonial Love, renowned writer and activist Leanne Simpson vividly explores the lives of contemporary Indigenous Peoples and communities, especially those of her own Nishnaabeg nation. Found on reserves, in cities and small towns, in bars and curling rinks, canoes and community centres, doctors offices and pickup trucks, Simpson’s characters confront the often heartbreaking challenge of pairing the desire to live loving and observant lives with a constant struggle to simply survive the historical and ongoing injustices of racism and colonialism.

This Accident of Being Lost

This Accident of Being Lost by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

This Accident of Being Lost is the knife-sharp new collection of stories and songs from award-winning Nishnaabeg storyteller and writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. These visionary pieces build upon Simpson’s powerful use of the fragment as a tool for intervention in her critically acclaimed collection Islands of Decolonial Love.

Celia’s Song

Celia’s Song by Lee Maracle

Mink is a witness, a shapeshifter, compelled to follow the story that has ensnared Celia and her village, on the West coast of Vancouver Island in Nuu’Chahlnuth territory. Celia is a seer who (despite being convinced she’s a little “off”) must heal her village with the assistance of her sister, her mother and father, and her nephews. While mink is visiting, a double-headed sea serpent falls off the house front during a fierce storm. The old snake, ostracized from the village decades earlier, has left his terrible influence on Amos, a residential school survivor. The occurrence signals the unfolding of an ordeal that pulls Celia out of her reveries and into the tragedy of her cousin’s granddaughter. Each one of Celia’s family becomes involved in creating a greater solution than merely attending to her cousin’s granddaughter. Celia’s Song relates one Nuu’Chahlnuth family’s harrowing experiences over several generations, after the brutality, interference, and neglect resulting from contact with Europeans.

I am Woman

I am Woman by Lee Maracle

“I Am Woman represents my personal struggle with womanhood, culture, traditional spiritual beliefs and political sovereignty, written during a time when that struggle was not over. My original intention was to empower Native women to take to heart their own personal struggle for Native feminist being. The changes made in this second edition of the text do not alter my original intention. It remains my attempt to present a Native woman’s sociological perspective on the impacts of colonialism on us, as women, and on my self personally.”

My Conversations with Canadians

My Conversations with Canadians by Lee Maracle

Harkening back to her first book tour at the age of 26 (for the autobiographical novel Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel), and touching down upon a multitude of experiences she’s had as a Canadian, a First Nations leader, a woman and mother and grandmother over the course of her life, Lee Maracle’s My Conversations with Canadians presents a tour de force exploration into the writer’s own history and a re-imagining of the future of our nation.

The Break

The Break by Katherena Vermette

When Stella, a young Métis mother, looks out her window one evening and spots someone in trouble on the Break—a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house—she calls the police to alert them to a possible crime. In a series of shifting narratives, people who are connected, both directly and indirectly, with the victim—police, family, and friends—tell their personal stories leading up to that fateful night. Lou, a social worker, grapples with the departure of her live-in boyfriend. Cheryl, an artist, mourns the premature death of her sister Rain. Paulina, a single mother, struggles to trust her new partner. Phoenix, a homeless teenager, is released from a youth detention centre. Officer Scott, a Métis policeman, feels caught between two worlds as he patrols the city. Through their various perspectives, a larger, more comprehensive story about the lives of the residents in Winnipeg’s North End is exposed.

When We Were Alone

When We Were Alone by David A. Robertson

Children’s Literature (Kindgerarten to Grade 3). When a young girl helps tend to her grandmother’s garden, she begins to notice things about her grandmother that make her curious. Why does her grandmother have long braided hair and wear beautifully coloured clothing? Why does she speak another language and spend so much time with her family? As she asks her grandmother about these things, she is told about life in a residential school a long time ago, where everything was taken away. When We Were Alone is a story about a difficult time in history and, ultimately, a story of empowerment and strength.

Whistle

Whistle by Richard Van Camp

Youth Literature. Darcy writes letters from a group home to the victim of his bullying. Through his writing, he comes to understand how he can break his cycle of destructive behaviour and bullying.

The Reconciliation Book Club

Reading, Talking, Learning

Sign up to be a Book Club Member!

Book Club Info

Participants

Titles and Schedule

Support Indigenous-Owned Booksellers

Sign Up for the Book Club

Sponsors

Additional Reading

Contact Info

Reconciliation

Resources

About The Federation