I love reading Indigenous and Native American lit any time of year, but I really took advantage of National Indigenous History Month and dove into some books that have been on my list for a while! I was planning on also reading more LGBTQ+ lit, but time ran out - or more accurately, I restarted the process to get my driver’s license so I had to divert fun reading time to study reading time as I reviewed the SAAQ road manuals! (Not reviewing those beyond “please proofread, gouvernement du Québec”.)
Anyway, take a look at what I had my nose stuck in!
Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask: Young Readers Edition by Anton Treuer ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The title says it all! Presented like a Q&A session, the chapters are divided by topic with bite-sized answers that make it very easy to read and reference. This might be why it was considered the “young readers” edition, but otherwise I’m not sure what makes it specific to this age demographic (the regular version was only a third of the length). The amount of information in this book makes it an invaluable resource for anyone in any age group and demographic looking to brush up their knowledge about Native Americans. I especially appreciated the attention to explaining the differences between the Native American experience in the US vs. Canada, which is an area that I’ve always been curious about. My only critique is that though much of it was researched, a notable portion of it relied on secondary sources (such as Charles C. Mann’s 1491) and there were some sections where it was made clear that the answers were personal opinion but that I wished had had some research to explore varying positions on the subject. Still, Treuer did an excellent job mantling the daunting task of consolidating the myriad experiences of native peoples into a digestible primer. This should be essential reading to every person living in the Americas (and beyond!) to better understand the land we live on.
Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism by Noenoe K. Silva ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I put off reading this one for a while because I was afraid it would be so tremendously depressing - and it was, at least in the beginning. As it delved deeper into the history of the Hawaiian resistance however, the fight for cultural, political, and land rights was both enthralling and empowering. The audiobook version was excellent and I loved hearing the language come to life in the many poetry, lyric, and letter excerpts read by Kaipo Schwab. I finished the book with a deep appreciated and respect for the Hawaiian peoples and wish I hadn’t taken so long to get around to it. To be clear, it’s a highly academic read that’s extremely thorough in its research so it might come across as a little dry if that’s not your thing, but this is such an important read and is very much worth taking the time to absorb. At the least, be sure to read up about Queen Lili'uokalani, the last sovereign of Hawaii, who led a truly impressive life of resistance with a dignity we could all learn from.
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson ⭐⭐⭐
The story of a Dakota woman severed from her culture through forceable placement into the foster care system, The Seed Keeper weaves past with present to illustrate the complex damage of intergenerational trauma and broken family lines. I thought the choice to juxtapose industrial farming with traditional seed keeping was very fresh and allowed the book to communicate some heavy critiques of both the way we use our land in agriculture and the fact that it’s stolen land in the first place through the shorthand of this metaphor. The character trajectories also felt very genuine, and I especially liked the way the children were portrayed: trying to assimilate to the dominant white culture around them, yet struggling as they try to reconcile an incongruous but powerful heritage. In terms of the writing, it got the job done, but I did find myself at arm’s length of the story when I wished I was in the thick of the emotion. The plot points to me also felt a little stiff, which made the narrative feel a little clunky as it switched between POVs and time periods. In all though, a good book to read this month and a highly accessible piece of Indigenous literature.
Trigger warnings: Child abuse, suicide, sexual assault, racism, violence against the Indigenous communities.
Night Bus by Zuo Ma (translated by Orion Martin) ⭐⭐
In this collection of graphic comic shorts, Ma blends science fiction with imaginative realism to illustrate story vignettes about life in rural China as an artist swimming against the current. I'll be honest, I didn’t realize these were supposed to be short stories at first and kept trying to fit the chapters together in my head. When I figured it out, it made me appreciate each section more, but at the same time there was something fundamentally missing for me in each piece. I suspect this is in part due to me missing cultural cues and there being some things lost to translation, but the transitions even between individual panels were very jarring and I often felt like the stories ended without any resolution or message. The brief commentaries about each piece by the author at the end of the book was very helpful in situating some of the stories after the fact, but I do feel that they should have been able to stand on their own. I will say that Ma managed to convey surrealism in a way that I’ve only ever seen in a Franz Kafka or David Lynch narrative, and I was very into those parts. I just wish I’d been into each piece as a whole, but it was simply too inaccessible for me to say I enjoyed. Also while I loved a large portion of the illustrations, some of them were so heavily rendered with ink that it was hard to make out what I was looking at. This did add to the surrealist experience, but it also added an extra layer of challenge. Not my cup of tea, but I can appreciate that someone else would get a lot more out of it than I did.
And that’s a wrap on June! Thought these reviews were on point? Don’t agree with something I said? Let me know in the comments below! I am but a humble reader whose opinions can’t possibly represent the myriad complexities of these books and would to hear your own thoughts.
Happy reading!
Tags: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Book Reviews, Audiobooks, BIPOC Authors, LGBTQ+, Horror, Sci-Fi, Speculative Fiction, Social Sciences
0 Likes
