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We have always been here: a queer Muslim memoir /
By Samra Habib. 2019
Growing up in Pakistan, Samra Habib lacks a blueprint for the life she wants. She has a mother who gave…
up everything to be a pious, dutiful wife and an overprotective father who seems to conspire against a life of any adventure. Plus, she has to hide the fact that she's Ahmadi to avoid persecution from religious extremists. As the threats against her family increase, they seek refuge in Canada, where new financial and cultural obstacles await them. When Samra discovers that her mother has arranged her marriage, she must again hide a part of herself--the fun-loving, feminist teenager that has begun to bloom--until she simply can't any longer. So begins a journey of self-discovery that takes her to Tokyo, where she comes to terms with her sexuality, and to a queer-friendly mosque in Toronto, where she returns to her faith in the same neighbourhood where she attended her first drag show. Along the way, she learns that the facets of her identity aren't as incompatible as she was led to believe, and that her people had always been there--the world just wasn't ready for them yet. 2019.Dead Mom Walking: A Memoir of Miracle Cures and Other Disasters
By Rachel Matlow. 2020
"A hilarious memoir of effervescent misadventures." --Toronto Star"How am I laughing at someone's mother's cancer? How? We think we can't…
laugh about death, about cancer, about our mothers and their suffering . . . and we can't, but we can. And there's so much relief in that. I laughed, I cried, I laughed and laughed and laughed." --Carolyn Taylor, BARONESS VON SKETCH SHOWA traumedy about life and death (and every cosmic joke in between)When her mother is diagnosed with cancer, Rachel Matlow is concerned but hopeful. It's Stage 1, so her mom will get surgery and everything will go back to normal. But growing up in Rachel's family, there was no normal. Elaine, an alternative school teacher and self-help junkie, was never a capital M "Mommy"--she spent more time meditating than packing lunches--and Rachel, who played hockey with the boys and refused to ever wear a dress, was no ordinary daughter.When Elaine decides to forgo conventional treatment and heal herself naturally, Rachel is forced to ponder whether the very things that made her mom so special--her independent spirit, her belief in being the author of her own story--are what will ultimately kill her. As the cancer progresses, so does Elaine's conviction in doing things her way. She assembles a dream team of alternative healers, gulps down herbal tinctures with every meal, and talks (with respect) to her cancer cells. Anxious and confused, Rachel is torn between indulging her pie-in-the-sky pursuits (ayahuasca and all) and pleading with the person who's taking her mother away.With irreverence and honesty--and a little help from Elaine's journals and self-published dating guide, plus hours of conversations recorded in her dying days--Matlow brings her inimitable mother to life on the page. Dead Mom Walking is the hilarious and heartfelt story of what happens when two people who've always written their own script go head to head with each other, and with life's least forgiving plot device.What Kids Did: Stories of Kindness and Invention In the Time of COVID-19
By Erin Silver. 2020
In the spring of 2020, the Covid-19 virus changed the world and made daily life much more challenging. We had…
to stay apart, away from work, school, and our normal routines. But, all around the world, kids came up with creative and thoughtful ways to help others. From making 3-D printed medical equipment to food bank fundraising to a neighbourhood joke stand, to creating a semi-automatic hand-washing machine, kids made a difference in their communities. Let's celebrate and take inspiration from their stories.A revelatory book about gender, mental illness, parenting, mortality, bike mechanics, work, class, and the task of living in a…
body. Inquisitive and expansive, Like a Boy but Not a Boy explores author andrea bennett's experiences with gender expectations, being a non-binary parent, and the sometimes funny and sometimes difficult task of living in a body. The book's fourteen essays also delve incisively into the interconnected themes of mental illness, mortality, creative work, class, and bike mechanics (apparently you can learn a lot about yourself through trueing a wheel). In "Tomboy," andrea articulates what it means to live in a gender in-between space, and why one might be necessary; "37 Jobs 21 Houses" interrogates the notion that the key to a better life is working hard and moving house. And interspersed throughout the book is "Everyone Is Sober and No One Can Drive," sixteen stories about queer millennials who grew up and came of age in small Canadian communities. With the same poignant spirit as Ivan Coyote's Tomboy Survival Guide, Like a Boy addresses the struggle to find acceptance, and to accept oneself; and how one can find one's place while learning to make space for others. The book also wonders what it means to be an atheist and search for faith that everything will be okay; what it means to learn how to love life even as you obsess over its brevity; and how to give birth, to bring new life, at what feels like the end of the world. With thoughtfulness and acute observation, andrea bennett reveals intimate truths about the human experience, whether one is outside the gender binary or not.Rebent Sinner
By Ivan Coyote. 2019
Ivan Coyote is one of North America's preeminent storytellers and performers, and the author, co-author, or co-editor of eleven previous…
books, all but one of which have been published by Arsenal Pulp Press. Their most recent book, Tomboy Survival Guide, was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, named an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book, and longlisted for Canada Reads. In their latest, Ivan takes on the patriarchy and the political, as well as the intimate and the personal in these beguiling and revealing stories of what it means to be trans and non-binary today, at a time in their life when they must carry the burden of heartbreaking history with them, while combatting those who would misgender them or deny their very existence. These stories span thirty years of tackling TERFs, legislators, and bathroom police, sure, but there is joy and pleasure and triumph to be found here too, as Ivan pays homage to personal heroes like the late Leslie Feinberg while gently guiding younger trans folk to prove to themselves that there is a way out of the darkness. Rebent Sinner is the work of an accomplished artist whose plain truths about their experience will astound readers with their utter, breathtaking humanity.Ours to Share: Coexisting in a Crowded World (Orca Footprints #16)
By Kari Jones. 2019
There are almost eight billion people alive today. Having that many people in the world puts pressure on both social…
and natural resources, and we have to ask ourselves difficult questions like, What is our fair share? And how do we share more equitably? Ours to Share starts by giving an overview of human population growth, from the time when there were only a few hundred thousand people until now. The book goes on to examine some of the inequities that happen between people when natural and social resources are stressed and provides examples of people who have found innovative ways to share more equitably with their neighbors. The book also examines the impact our expanding population has had on other species. Finally, the book offers suggestions for actions kids can take to better the world from their own home, school and community.Blue Sky Kingdom: An Epic Family Journey to the Heart of the Himalaya
By Bruce Kirkby. 2020
One morning at breakfast, while gawking at his phone and feeling increasingly disconnected from family and everything else of importance…
in his world, it strikes writer Bruce Kirkby: this isn’t how he wants to live. Within days, plans begin to take shape. Bruce, his wife Christine, and their two children—seven-year-old Bodi and three-year-old Taj—will cross the Pacific by container ship, then travel onward through South Korea, China, India and Nepal aboard bus, riverboat and train, eventually traversing the Himalaya by foot. Their destination: a thousand-year-old Buddhist monastery in the remote Zanskar valley, one of the last places where Tibetan Buddhism is still practised freely in its original setting. Taken into the mud-brick home of a senior lama, Tsering Wangyal, the family spends the summer absorbed by monastery life. In this refuge, where ancient traditions intersect with the modern world, Bruce discovers ways to slow down, to observe and listen, and ultimately, to better understand his son on the autism spectrum—to surrender all expectations and connect with Bodi exactly as he is. Recounted with wit and humility, Blue Sky Kingdom is an engaging travel memoir as well as a thoughtful exploration of modern distraction, the loss of ancient wisdom, and the challenges and rewards of intercultural friendships.A History of My Brief Body
By Billy-Ray Belcourt. 2020
FINALIST FOR THE 2021 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FOR GAY MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHYFINALIST FOR THE BC AND YUKON BOOK PRIZE, FOR BOTH THE…
HUBERT EVANS NON-FICTION PRIZE AND JIM DEVA PRIZE FOR WRITING THAT PROVOKESNATIONAL BESTSELLERThe youngest ever winner of the Griffin Prize mines his own personal history to reconcile the world he was born into with the world that could be.Billy-Ray Belcourt's debut memoir opens with a tender letter to his kokum and memories of his early life in the hamlet of Joussard, Alberta, and on the Driftpile First Nation. From there, it expands to encompass the big and broken world around him, in all its complexity and contradictions: a legacy of colonial violence and the joy that flourishes in spite of it, first loves and first loves lost, sexual exploration and intimacy, and the act of writing as a survival instinct and a way to grieve. What emerges is not only a profound meditation on memory, gender, anger, shame, and ecstasy, but also the outline of a way forward. With startling honesty, and in a voice distinctly and assuredly his own, Belcourt situates his life experiences within a constellation of seminal queer texts, among which this book is sure to earn its place. Eye-opening, intensely emotional, and excessively quotable, A History of My Brief Body demonstrates over and over again the power of words to both devastate and console us.Finding Home: The Journey of Immigrants and Refugees (Orca Think #1)
By Jen Sookfong Lee, Drew Shannon. 2021
What drives people to search for new homes? From war zones to politics, there are many reasons why people have…
always searched for a place to call home. In Finding Home: The Journey of Immigrants and Refugees we discover how human migration has shaped our world. We explore its origins and the current issues facing immigrants and refugees today, and we hear the first-hand stories of people who have moved across the globe looking for safety, security and happiness. Author Jen Sookfong Lee shares her personal experience of growing up as the child of immigrants and gives a human face to the realities of being an immigrant or refugee today.The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad
By Emily Thomas. 2020
How can we think more deeply about travel? This was the thought that inspired Emily Thomas to journey into the…
philosophy of travel, to explore the places where philosophy and travel intersect. Part philosophical ramble, part memoir, The Meaning of Travel begins in the Age of Discovery in the sixteenth century, when philosophers first began thinking and writing seriously about travel It then meanders forward to encounter the thoughts of Montaigne on otherness, John Locke on cannibals, and Henry Thoreau on wilderness. On our travels with Emily Thomas, we discover the dark side of maps, how the philosophy of space fuelled mountain tourism, and why you should wash underwear in woodland cabins. We also confront profound questions, such as the debate on the ethics of 'doom tourism' (travel to doomed places such as glaciers or coral reefs) and how space travel might come to affect our understanding of human significance in a leviathan universe. The first ever history of the places where history and philosophy meet, this book will reshape your understanding of travel.The Queer Evangelist: A Socialist Clergy's Radically Honest Tale
By Cheri DiNovo. 2021
Cheri DiNovo went from living on the streets as a teenager to performing the first legalized same-sex marriage in Canada…
in 2001. This story of one queer kid will hopefully inspire other young people (queer and not) to resist the system and change it.A Gay Man's Guide to Life: Get Real, Stand Tall, and Take Your Place
By Britt East. 2020
Many gay men find ourselves trapped in a series of no-win situations. If we don't live honestly and openly, we…
won't have the skills, wisdom, or relationships necessary to manifest our dreams. But when we do come out, we must confront the full force of societal homophobia, and consider a variety of questions: Can we create family without mimicking the norms of straight society? How do we cultivate sustainable gay friendships amidst our internalized homophobia? In a world of hook-up apps and disposable relationships, how do we find lasting love? A Gay Man's Guide to Life answers these questions. Britt East presents an approachable, no-nonsense path for gay men, to set down the excuses and get to the business of improving their lives. No new-age mumbo jumbo or wishy washy self-help jargon. Just real work focused on real results to unleash our true selves and unlock our best lives.On Foot to Canterbury: A Son’s Pilgrimage (Wayfarer)
By Ken Haigh. 2021
Gone Viking: A Travel Saga
By Bill Arnott. 2020
Bill Arnott guides readers on an epic literary odyssey following history’s most feared and misunderstood voyageurs: the Vikings!To “go Viking”…
is to embark on an epic journey. For more than eight years, Bill Arnott journeyed throughout the northern hemisphere, discovering sites Scandinavian explorers raided, traded, and settled – finding Viking history in a wider swath of the planet than most anthropologists and historians ever imagined.With a small pack and weatherproof journal, Bill explores and writes with a journalist’s eye, songwriter’s prose, poet’s perspective, and a comedian’s take on everything else. Prepare yourself for an armchair adventure like no other!From Europe to Asia, the Mediterranean to the British Isles, through Scandinavia to Iceland, Greenland, and the New World, with further excursions around Thor Heyerdahl’s Pacific, Roald Amundsen’s Arctic, and Olaf Crowbone’s stormy North Atlantic, Bill takes readers on a mythic personal adventure in real time – a present-day Viking quest.Care Of: Letters, Connections, and Cures
By Ivan Coyote. 2021
Beloved storyteller Ivan Coyote returns with their most intimate and moving book yet. Writer and performer Ivan Coyote has spent…
decades on the road, telling stories around the world. For years, Ivan has kept a file of the most special communications received from readers and audience members—letters, Facebook messages, emails, soggy handwritten notes tucked under the windshield wiper of their truck after a gig. Then came Spring, 2020, and, like artists everywhere, Coyote was grounded by the pandemic, all their planned events cancelled. The energy of a live audience, a performer’s lifeblood, was suddenly gone. But with this loss came an opportunity for a different kind of connection. Those letters that had long piled up could finally begin to be answered. Care Of combines the most powerful of these letters with Ivan’s responses, creating a body of correspondence of startling intimacy, breathtaking beauty, and heartbreaking honesty and openness. Taken together, they become an affirming and joyous reflection on many of the themes central to Coyote’s celebrated work—compassion and empathy, family fragility, non-binary and Trans identity, and the unending beauty of simply being alive, a giant love letter to the idea of human connection, and the power of truly listening to each other.The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs
By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. 2022
In The Future Is Disabled, Leah Laksmi Piepzna-Samarasinha asks some provocative questions: What if, in the near future, the majority…
of people will be disabled - and what if that's not a bad thing? And what if disability justice and disabled wisdom are crucial to creating a future in which it's possible to survive fascism, climate change, and pandemics and to bring about liberation? Building on the work of their game-changing book Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Piepzna-Samarasinha writes about disability justice at the end of the world, documenting the many ways disabled people kept and are keeping each other - and the rest of the world - alive during Trump, fascism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Other subjects include crip interdependence, care and mutual aid in real life, disabled community building, and disabled art practice as survival and joy. Written over the course of two years of disabled isolation during the pandemic, this is a book of love letters to other disabled QTBIPOC (and those concerned about disability justice, the care crisis, and surviving the apocalypse); honour songs for kin who are gone; recipes for survival; questions and real talk about care, organizing, disabled families, and kin networks and communities; and wild brown disabled femme joy in the face of death. With passion and power, The Future Is Disabled remembers our dead and insists on our future.Sharice’s Big Voice: A Native Kid Becomes a Congresswoman
By Sharice Davids, Nancy K. Mays, Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley. 2021
On Here Wee Read's 2021 Ultimate List of Diverse Children's Books! "Rich, vivid illustrations by Ojibwe Woodland artist Pawis-Steckley are…
delivered in a graphic style that honors Indigenous people. The bold artwork adds impact to the compelling text." (Kirkus starred review)"The prose is reminiscent of an inspirational speech (“Everyone’s path looks different”), with a message of service that includes fun biographical facts, such as her love of Bruce Lee. Pawis-Steckley (who is Ojibwe Woodland) contributes boldly lined and colored digital illustrations, inflected with Native symbols and bold colors. A hopeful and accessible picture book profile." (Publishers Weekly)"Affecting picture-book autobiography" (The Horn Book Review)This picture book autobiography tells the triumphant story of Sharice Davids, one of the first Native American women elected to Congress, and the first LGBTQ congressperson to represent Kansas.When Sharice Davids was young, she never thought she’d be in Congress. And she never thought she’d be one of the first Native American women in Congress. During her campaign, she heard from a lot of doubters. They said she couldn’t win because of how she looked, who she loved, and where she came from. But here’s the thing: Everyone’s path looks different and everyone’s path has obstacles. And this is the remarkable story of Sharice Davids’ path to Congress.Beautifully illustrated by Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley, an Ojibwe Woodland artist, this powerful autobiographical picture book teaches readers to use their big voice and that everyone deserves to be seen—and heard!The back matter includes information about the Ho-Chunk written by former Ho-Chunk President Jon Greendeer, an artist note, and an inspiring letter to children from Sharice Davids.Meet J. Armand Bombardier (Scholastic Canada Biography)
By Elizabeth MacLeod. 2022
Meet Joseph-Armand Bombardier — Canadian inventor, innovator and entrepreneur!Born in 1907, Joseph-Armand grew up in Valcourt, a small village in…
Quebec. Like many places in rural and Northern Canada, it was often cut off from the world after winter snows made the roads impassable. When Armand was a kid, he was already inventing his own toys, including his first attempt at a vehicle that could drive through snow. As an adult, the passion to invent a snow machine became a serious ambition after his 2-year-old son died from appendicitis. It was winter and they could not get him to the hospital.Armand persisted even after many failures — until he did it! His B7 snow machine was used to deliver milk and mail . . . and it saved lives. But Armand didn’t stop there! He continued to invent and innovate his whole life, making contributions to the war effort and developing machines like the Muskeg tractor and the famous Ski-doo. His inventions revolutionized the way people live and work.The award-winning Scholastic Canada Biography series highlights the lives of remarkable Canadians whose achievements have inspired and changed the lives of those who followed.Bloodroot: Tracing the Untelling of Motherloss
By Betsy Warland. 2021
In Bloodroot, Betsy Warland traces how a mother and daughter's shared gender can shape the very anatomy of narrative itself.…
In her mother's final year,Warland quietly discovered how to disentangle a crucial, concealed story that had rendered their relationship disconnected and fraught. Warland weaves a common ground that moves beyond duty and despair, providing both questions and guideposts for readers, particularly those faced with ageing and ill parents and their loss.The 2000 edition of Bloodroot broke new ground in memoir form and uncharted storytelling. The 2021 edition, reprinted by Inanna for the launch of its InannaSignature Feminist Publications series, includes a new foreword by Susan Olding and a new essay by Warland that explores subsequent questions, insights and tenderness only the passage of time can enable.