10 books to read if you loved Canada Reads winner Five Little Indians
Christian Allaire championed Michelle Good's novel on Canada Reads 2022
The great Canadian book debate has come to an end for another year. What should you read next? CBC Books has some ideas for you.
Christian Allaire championed Five Little Indians by Michelle Good and won Canada Reads 2022.
Five Little Indians follows five characters — Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie — who were taken from their families and sent to a residential school when they were very small. Barely out of childhood, they are released without resources and left to establish adult lives in eastside Vancouver. Haunted by the trauma of their childhood, the five friends cross paths over the decades and struggle with the weight of their shared past.
Five Little Indians is Good's debut novel. It also won the 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.
If you have finished Five Little Indians and are looking for a new read, check out these Canadian books that explore similar themes — including intergenerational trauma, identity, healing and reconciliation.
The Break by Katherena Vermette
Residents of Winnipeg's North End neighbourhood take turns narrating Katherena Vermette's debut novel The Break. The story centres around a terrible trauma and the characters that surround it, including Stella, a Métis mother who witnesses the crime, Scott, a Métis police officer who feels caught between worlds, Phoenix, a homeless teenager recently released from juvenile detention, and many other unforgettable voices.
The Break was championed on Canada Reads 2017 and was a finalist for both the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction. Vermette's follow-up novel, The Strangers, is set in the same world as The Break. It won the 2021 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and was longlisted for the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Vermette is a Métis writer living in Winnipeg. Her other books include the poetry collections North End Love Songs and river woman, and the four-book graphic novel series A Girl Called Echo. North End Love Songs won the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.
Birdie by Tracey Lindberg
Birdie is the story of Bernice, a Cree woman who leaves her home in northern Alberta and travels to British Columbia. On her journey west, she processes earlier tragedies and learns more about her past and her history.
Birdie was championed on Canada Reads 2016.
Tracey Lindberg is a Cree lawyer, professor, activist, blues singer and expert in Indigenous law. Birdie is her debut novel.
Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga
In Seven Fallen Feathers, journalist Tanya Talaga travels to Thunder Bay, Ont., to investigate the deaths of seven Indigenous teenagers: Jordan Wabasse, Kyle Morrisseau, Curran Strang, Robyn Harper, Paul Panacheese, Reggie Bushie and Jethro Anderson. Talaga honours their lives and looks at what their untimely deaths reveal about the injustices faced by Indigenous communities on a daily basis.
Seven Fallen Feathers is a national-bestselling book. It won the RBC Taylor Prize, Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Award in 2017.
Talaga is an award-winning investigative journalist. In 2017, she was named the Atkinson Fellow for public policy. The work produced during this period form the basis of Talaga's 2018 CBC Massey Lectures, All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward.
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
A northern Anishinaabe community loses power just as winter arrives, burying roads and creating panic as the food supply slowly runs out. Newcomers arrive on the reserve, escaping a nearby crisis, and tension builds as disease begins taking lives and chaos unfolds. A small group turns to the land and Anishinaabe tradition to start rebuilding and restoring harmony.
Waubgeshig Rice is an Anishinaabe author, journalist and radio host originally from Wasauksing First Nation. He is also the author of Legacy and Midnight Sweatlodge. He used to be the host of CBC Radio's Up North.
Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson
The novel Probably Ruby is about the life of Ruby, a young girl who grows up knowing very little about her Indigenous heritage. Her parents' separation sparks a chain reaction of events — and her life is beset by alcohol, drugs and bad relationships. Left with no support network, Ruby searches for her unknown roots in the most destructive of places.
Lisa Bird-Wilson is a Saskatchewan Métis and nêhiyaw writer. Her book Just Pretending won four Saskatchewan Book Awards. She is also the author of the poetry collection The Red Files.
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
In the dystopian world of Cherie Dimaline's award-winning The Marrow Thieves, climate change has ravaged the Earth and a continent-wide hunt and slaughter of Indigenous people is underway. Wanted for their bone marrow, which contains the lost ability to dream, a group of Indigenous people seek refuge in the old lands.
In 2017, The Marrow Thieves won the Governor General's Literary Award for Young people's literature — text and the Kirkus Prize for young readers' literature. The national bestselling book is currently being adapted for television. The sequel, Hunting by Stars, was released in 2021.
The Marrow Thieves was championed on Canada Reads 2018.
Dimaline is a Métis author and editor. Her other books include Red Rooms, The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy, A Gentle Habit and Empire of Wild. The Marrow Thieves was named one of Time magazine's top 100 YA novels of all time.
Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi
Butter Honey Pig Bread is a novel about twin sisters Kehinde and Taiye, and their mother, Kambirinachi. Kambirinachi believes she is a spirit who was supposed to die as a small child. By staying alive, she is cursing her family — a fear that appears to come true when Kehinde experiences something that tears the family apart, and divides the twins for years. But when the three women connect years later, they must confront their past and find forgiveness.
Butter Honey Pig Bread was championed on Canada Reads 2021. It was also on the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist and was a finalist for the 2020 Governor General's Literary Prize for fiction.
Francesca Ekwuyasi is a writer, filmmaker and visual artist. Her writing has appeared in the Malahat Review, Guts and Brittle Paper, and she was longlisted for the 2019 Journey Prize. Butter Honey Pig Bread is her first book. She currently lives in Halifax.
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club, Megan Gail Coles's debut novel, revolves around a cast of flawed characters who are implicated in each other's hopes, dreams and pains as they try to survive harsh economic times in Newfoundland & Labrador.
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club was shortlisted for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize and was championed on Canada Reads 2020.
Coles is a playwright from St. John's. She is also the author of the short story collection Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome and the poetry collection Satched. Coles is on the jury panel for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize.
Mamaskatch by Darrel J. McLeod
Darrel J. McLeod's Mamaskatch is a memoir of his upbringing in Smith, Alta., raised by his fierce Cree mother, Bertha. McLeod describes vivid memories of moose stew and wild peppermint tea, surrounded by siblings and cousins. From his mother, McLeod learned to be proud of his heritage and also shares her fractured stories from surviving the residential school system.
Mamaskatch won the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction.
McLeod is a Cree writer from treaty eight territory in Northern Alberta. Mamaskatch is his first book. He is also the author of the follow-up memoir Peyakow.
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese tells the story of Saul Indian Horse, a young Ojibway boy who is ripped from his family and forcibly placed in residential school. Saul, a gifted hockey player, is both victim and witness to the dehumanizing abuse of students at the school. As an adult, Saul becomes dependent on alcohol to cope with the trauma of his childhood.
Indian Horse was championed on Canada Reads 2013.
Wagamese was an award-winning and bestselling Ojibway writer from the Wabaseemoong First Nation in Ontario. His other works include the novels Starlight, Keeper'n Me, Medicine Walk, Ragged Company, Him Standing and Dream Wheel, the poetry book Runaway Dreams and memoirs For Joshua, Embers and One Native Life. He died in 2017.
