We invite you to join our Reconciliation Reading Circles, where we will explore Indigenous literature, both fiction and non-fiction, to broaden our understanding of reconciliation.
This month, we will discuss Tommy Orange’s There There.
Each month we will also look at sections of Bob Joseph’s Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation With Indigenous Peoples a Reality.
For this event:
- Copies of the book will be made available to participants so that you may read the book in advance.
- Come with an open mind and a respectful heart.
- Refreshments will be served.
About the Book:
Here is a story of several people, each of whom has private reasons for travelling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honour his uncle’s memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and unspeakable loss. Fierce, angry, funny, and heartbreaking, There There is a relentlessly paced multi-generational story about violence and recovery, memory and identity, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people.
Join us each month as we look at a new book: