Six titles that celebrate Indigenous resistance

Brittany Penner is an author, practicing family physician and a lecturer with the University of Manitoba Max Rady College of Medicine, and has been a keynote speaker at the University of Manitoba.

Her new books is Children Like Us: A Métis Woman's Memoir of Family, Identity and Walking Herself Home.

At Oprah Daily Penner shared "her essential reading list for Native American Heritage Month, including three seminal memoirs, a YA murder mystery, and a picture book packed with wisdom." One title on the list:

The Knowing, by Tanya Talaga

In this urgent book—and its accompanying docuseries adaptation—the acclaimed, bestselling Anishinaabe author investigates a family mystery with national implications: the disappearance of her great-great-grandmother.

Little about this woman was passed down through the family and, despite several members searching for years, little information could be found in the official record. It was believed she’d been taken to Toronto, but as to where she ended up, what her life entailed, and how long she lived, no one knew. It ultimately took Talaga and a team of researchers scouring through historical documents to learn what had happened to her. Weaving skillful reporting with rich personal narrative, Talaga connects the broader history of the cultural disconnection that many Indigenous people experience to her own history as an Indigenous woman with European settler heritage who was raised apart from her culture. There’s hope that by discovering the story of her lost relative, she may better understand herself and help her family members do the same.

What begins as an intimate story of a single ancestor broadens to encompass the disturbing and often overlooked history of government- and church-ordained disappearances and genocide in both the United States and Canada. Talaga dives headfirst into painful subjects, but she leaves enough room to pause and reflect before diving even deeper. Storytelling is a foundational component of most Indigenous cultures, and even when we are raised cut off from our culture, many of us still find that we carry this part of ourselves with us. Talaga is a gifted storyteller, which is undoubtedly connected to her identity as an Anishinaabe woman, as she focuses on themes of resiliency and cultural reclamation for both her family and Indigenous peoples across North America.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue