All ages can read this, but I definitely think this book is a primer for young feminists!
Vivian Carter is a high school student tired of the toxic masculinity, sexist dress codes and sexual harassment that happens in her Texas high school. She finds an unlikely inspiration in her mother's old feminist zines from the 1990s riot grrrl movement. She starts her own zine, Moxie, to call the girls to action.
Despite the challenges, fear and threats, Vivian persists. In the end, she finds her voice.
Being treated fairly, being safe in your school, friendship, allyship and using your voice is what this book is all about.
Dimaline has written a post-apocalyptic novel where the Indigenous peoples of North America are the only ones left with the ability to dream. Everyone else has lost the ability. Life has completely degraded and people need dreams to live—so Indigenous peoples are being hunted to extract their dreams from their bone marrow.
Frenchie and his comrades are on the run from Recruiters—those seeking to get the dreams from their marrow. Dimaline's characters have both resilience and rage—there is much to be angry about when reflecting on Canada's treatment of Indigenous peoples.
I couldn't help but think of Canada's Residential Schools where Indigenous children were taken from their homes, families and communities to be stripped of their culture and identities. I was also reminded of the many environmental catastrophes that have ravaged Indigenous land—the mining companies seizing sacred land, the violence toward so many missing and murdered Indigenous women. We can do better.
"In the last 150 years, virtually every aspect of [the Canadian] state's relationship with Indigenous peoples has been marked by a profound level of violence. While there have been times where the state has lulled us into believing that the hostility is over…Canada's history clearly demonstrates that it will do whatever it takes to access territory and resources."
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip
This book won the Governor General's Award and was the finalist in Canada Reads. I see why.
Another YA with an innovative narrative structure featuring a fictional podcast investigating the disappearance of 13-year-old Mattie from the small town of Cold Creek, Colorado. The narrative flips between the podcast and Sadie's perspective as she tries to find answers about her sister's death. You can actually listen to the fictional podcast as you read!
Without her younger sister, Sadie is lost. She grieves her death, grapples with a mother who doesn't care, and escapes to confront the men who have ruined her life. As the podcast tries to unravel Sadie's story they discover:
"But love is complicated, it's messy. It can inspire selflessness, selfishness, our greatest accomplishments and our hardest mistakes. It brings us together and it can just as easily drive us apart."
The Girls, from Sadie (p. 215)
I'm a sucker for this type of narrative: part mystery, part true-crime investigation, part social commentary on our penchant for consuming tragic stories. Good stuff!
I love CBC's Canada Reads and this was one of the five 2019 books featured. Brother is David Chariandy's second novel.
The novel is set in Scarborough in the 1990s, with teenage brothers trying to come of age. They struggle to find their place, and as brown boys they face immense prejudice and stereotypes. Vincent is shy and protective of his mother. Michael is hardened: he walks the line of violent confrontation.
It's a beautiful book, with lovely prose that illuminates the prejudices immigrants face. The boys feel under constant suspicion, and are told by adults to have low expectations for their future. A tragic shooting of a young man at a neighbourhood barbeque changes their lives forever.
Okay, so you all KNOW that I had to read Angie Thomas's sophomore YA novel right away. I had already fallen in love with The Hate U Give.
But I felt old and unhip and a little disengaged for this. Why? All. That. Rap.
It's not that I don't love the soulful lyrics that are so much of Black culture. I do. But there was so much of it, and I wanted the prose. I definitely think this book will hit better for the students it's meant for.
Bri is 16 and a rapper. She finds success in the ring and in a music studio. But the pressure's on with her father, a murdered underground hip hop legend. She's torn between staying true to herself or becoming the rapper the music industry wants her to be.
Thomas examines race, prejudice, code-switching and staying true to yourself. She shows us that words have power.
"But it also makes me think about how people act like how you respond to a situation is more of a problem than the situation itself. Folks kill us and then have the nerve to blame us for our own deaths. But nah, we won't stop saying your names… I get why Tupac said Thug Life stood for The Hate You Give Little Infants F***s Everybody. When you hate us, you get everybody. It's like everybody's been given hate toward us, and now we're giving it back to them.
My hate probably won't help anything, but it's mine. They gave it to me, and I wanna give it right back… They've controlled what I see. What I do, where I go, who I am. I wanna take my power back. Make them regret they made my life this way."
