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Women in Agriculture

03/01/2025
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This Women’s History Month, learn about female farmers here in Vermont and beyond. In collaboration with Fleming Museum’s Vermont Female Farmers exhibit, UVM Libraries is featuring Women in Agriculture. Explore this book display in order to learn more about the history of women farmers, their stories, and how women are leading innovation in the field of agriculture. Find these titles and more by visiting the display located in the Howe Library lobby. 
 

Vermont Female Farmers
On view February 4 – May 17, 2025, at the Fleming Museum of Art

Passion, labor, and grit abound in this striking portrait series from Vermont-based photographer JuanCarlos González. Whether capturing moments of intense concentration or joyous pride, the 45 works are an intimate look at the daily life and livelihoods of the women whose hands shape farming in Vermont.


 

Cover ArtVermont female farmers by González, JuanCarlos

This project focuses on the meaningful and impactful contributions that female farmers are making to Vermont's culture, identity, and economy yet who may be overlooked compared to their male counterparts. For Vermont Female Farmers, I visited 38 farmers and photographed them at work during their daily life on the farm. I attempt to center their livelihood, labor, and passion. Each is different and has a unique story, working with chickens, goats, cows, produce, saffron, flowers, and much more.
 
 
 

Cover ArtWomen in agriculture : professionalizing rural life in North America and Europe, 1880-1965

Women have always been skilled at feeding their families, and historians have often studied the work of rural women on farms and in their homes. However, the stories of women who worked as agricultural researchers, producers, marketers, educators, and community organizers have not been told until now. Taking readers into the rural hinterlands of the rapidly urbanizing societies of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, the essays in Women in Agriculture tell the stories of a cadre of professional women who acted to bridge the growing rift between those who grew food and those who only consumed it. The contributors to Women in Agriculture examine how rural women's expertise was disseminated and how it was received. Through these essays, readers meet subversively lunching ladies in Ontario and African American home demonstration agents in Arkansas. The rural sociologist Emily Hoag made a place for women at the US Department of Agriculture as well as in agricultural research. Canadian rural reformer Madge Watt, British radio broadcaster Mabel Webb, and US ethnobotanists Mary Warren English and Frances Densmore developed new ways to share and preserve rural women's knowledge. These and the other women profiled here updated and expanded rural women's roles in shaping their communities and the broader society. Their stories broaden and complicate the history of agriculture in North America and Western Europe.
 

Cover ArtWomen who dig : farming, feminism, and the fight to feed the world by Moyles, Trina

Weaving together the narratives of female farmers from across three continents, Women Who Dig offers a critical look at how women are responding to and increasingly rising up against the injustices of the global food system. Beautifully written with spectacular photos, it examines gender roles, access to land, domestic violence, maternal health, political and economic marginalization, and a rapidly changing climate. It also shows the power of collective action. With women from Guatemala, Nicaragua, the United States, Canada, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, and Cuba included, this book explores the ways women are responding, both individually and collectively, to the barriers they face in providing the world a healthy diet.
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtOn behalf of the family farm : Iowa farm women's activism since 1945 by Devine, Jenny Barker

In on behalf of the family farm, Jenny Baker Devine demonstrates that in an era where technology, depopulation and rapid economic change dramatically altered rural life, Midwestern women met those challenges with an activism that reflected their own feminine vision of farm life. Focusing on women in four national farm organizations in Iowa -- the Farm Bureau, the Farmers Union, the National Farmers Organization, and the Porkettes -- Devine highlights specific movements in time when farm women had to reassess their roles and strategies for preserving and improving their way of life.
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtWild mares : my lesbian back-to-the-land life by Hunter, Dianna

Dianna Hunter was a softball-loving, working-class tomboy in North Dakota, surviving the threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Mutually Assured Destruction in the shadow of a strategic air command base. Communists and antiwar hippies were the enemy, but lesbians were a threat, too: they were unhealthy, criminal, and downright insane. It took Dianna a while to figure out that she was one, a little longer to discover how she fit in with her new communities in the city and the countryside. This is her story-a frank account by turns comic and painful of a well-behaved Midwestern girl finding her way through polite denial and repression and running head-on into the eye-opening events of the 1960s and '70s before landing on a dairy farm. A bumpy route takes Dianna to the Twin Cities, then to rural Minnesota and Wisconsin as-by way of the antiwar movement, women's liberation, and a dose of lesbian feminism-she and her friends try to establish a rural utopia free of sexual oppression, violence, materialism, environmental degradation-and men. They dream big, love as they see fit, and make do until they don't. Dianna buys a dairy farm and, with it, a new set of problems thanks to the Reagan-era farm crisis. A firsthand account of the lesbian feminist movement at its inception, Wild Mares is a deeply personal, wryly wise, and always engaging view of identity politics lived and learned in real life and, literally, on the ground, flourishing in the fertile soil of a struggling dairy farm in the American heartland.
 
 

Cover ArtPig years by Gaydos, Ellyn

This captivating memoir is a "startling testimony to the glories and sorrows of raising and harvesting plants and animals" (Anthony Doerr, best-selling author of All the Light We Cannot See), as an itinerant farmhand chronicles the wonders hidden within the ever-blooming seasons of life, death, and rebirth. Pig Years catapults American nature writing into the 21st century, and has been hailed by Lydia Davis and Aimee Nezhukumatathil as "engrossing" and "a marvel." As a farmer in Upstate New York and Vermont, Ellyn Gaydos lives on the knife edge between loss and gain. Her debut memoir draws us into this precarious world, conjuring with stark simplicity the lifeblood of the farm: its livestock and stark full moons, the sharp cold days lives near to the land. Joy and tragedy are frequent bedfellows. Fields go barren and animals meet their end too soon, but then their bodies become food in a time-old human ritual. Seasonal hands are ground down by the hard work, but new relationships are formed, love blossoms and Gaydos yearns to become a mother. As winter's dark descends, Pig Years draws us into a violent and gorgeous world where pigs are star-bright symbols of hope and beauty surfaces in the furrows, the sow, even in the slaughter. In hardy, lyrical prose that recalls the agrarian writing of Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry, Gaydos asks us to bear witness to the work that sustains us all and to reconsider what we know of survival and what saves us. Pig Years is a rapturous reckoning of love, labor, and loss within a landscape given to flux.
 

Cover ArtEveryday sustainability : gender justice and fair trade tea in Darjeeling by Sen, Debarati

Everyday Sustainability takes readers to ground zero of market-based sustainability initiatives--Darjeeling, India--where Fair Trade ostensibly promises gender justice to minority Nepali women engaged in organic tea production. These women tea farmers and plantation workers have distinct entrepreneurial strategies and everyday practices of social justice that at times dovetail with and at other times rub against the tenets of the emerging global morality market. The author questions why women beneficiaries of transnational justice-making projects remain skeptical about the potential for economic and social empowerment through Fair Trade while simultaneously seeking to use the movement to give voice to their situated demands for mobility, economic advancement, and community level social justice.
 
 
 

Cover ArtTurn here sweet corn : organic farming works by Diffley, Atina

When the hail starts to fall, Atina Diffley doesn't compare it to golf balls. She's a farmer. It's "as big as a B-size potato." As her bombarded land turns white, she and her husband Martin huddle under a blanket and reminisce: the one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds; the eleven-inch rainfall ("that broccoli turned out gorgeous"); the hail disaster of 1977. The romance of farming washed away a long time ago, but the love? Never. In telling her story of working the land, coaxing good food from the fertile soil, Atina Diffley reminds us of an ultimate truth: we live in relationships--with the earth, plants and animals, families and communities. A memoir of making these essential relationships work in the face of challenges as natural as weather and as unnatural as corporate politics, her book is a firsthand history of getting in at the "ground level" of organic farming. One of the first certified organic produce farms in the Midwest, the Diffleys' Gardens of Eagan helped to usher in a new kind of green revolution in the heart of America's farmland, supplying their roadside stand and a growing number of local food co-ops. This is a story of a world transformed--and reclaimed--one square acre at a time. And yet, after surviving punishing storms and the devastating loss of fifth-generation Diffley family land to suburban development, the Diffleys faced the ultimate challenge: the threat of eminent domain for a crude oil pipeline proposed by one of the largest privately owned companies in the world, notorious polluters Koch Industries. As Atina Diffley tells her David-versus-Goliath tale, she gives readers everything from expert instruction in organic farming to an entrepreneur's manual on how to grow a business to a legal thriller about battling corporate arrogance to a love story about a single mother falling for a good, big-hearted man.
 

Cover ArtBeyond the kitchen table : Black women and global food systems

Over the last decade, there has been an increasing amount of scholarship focused on race and food inequity. Much of this research is focused on the United States and its densely populated urban centers. Looking deeply into Black women?s roles?economically, environmentally, and socially?in food and agriculture systems in the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States, the contributors address the ways Black women, both now and in the past, have used food as a part of community building and sustenance. They also examine matrilineal food-based education; the importance of Black women?s social, cultural, and familial networks in addressing nutrition and food insecurity; the ways gender intersects with class and race globally when thinking about food; and how women-led science and technology initiatives can be used to create healthier and more just food systems. Contributors include Agnes Atia Apusigah, Neela Badrie, Kenia-Rosa Campo, Dara Cooper, Kelsey Emard, Claudia J. Ford, Hanna Garth, Shelene Gomes, Veronica Gordon, Wendy-Ann Isaac, Lydia Kwoyiga, Gloria Sanders McCutcheon, Eveline M. F. W. Sawadogo/Compaore, Ashanté M. Reese, Sakiko Shiratori, shakara tyler, and Marquitta Webb.

Cover ArtThe rise of women farmers and sustainable agriculture by Sachs, Carolyn E.

A profound shift is occurring among women working in agriculture--they are increasingly seeing themselves as farmers, not only as the wives or daughters of farmers. The authors draw on more than a decade of research to document and analyze the reasons for the transformation. As their sense of identity changes, many female farmers are challenging the sexism they face in their chosen profession. In this book, farm women in the northeastern United States describe how they got into farming and became successful entrepreneurs despite the barriers they encountered in agricultural institutions, farming communities, and even their own families. Their strategies for obtaining land and labor and developing successful businesses offer models for other aspiring farmers. Pulling down the barriers that women face requires organizations and institutions to become informed by what the authors call a feminist agrifood systems theory (FAST). This framework values women's ways of knowing and working in agriculture: emphasizing personal, economic, and environmental sustainability, creating connections through the food system, and developing networks that emphasize collaboration and peer-to-peer education. The creation and growth of a specific organization, the Pennsylvania Women's Agricultural Network, offers a blueprint for others seeking to incorporate a feminist agrifood systems approach into agricultural programming. The theory has the potential to shift how farmers, agricultural professionals, and anyone else interested in farming think about gender and sustainability, as well as to change how feminist scholars and theorists think about agriculture. 
 

Cover ArtThe Midwest farmer's daughter : in search of an American icon by Jack, Zachary Michael

The Midwest Farmer's Daughter presents the untold history and renewed cultural currency of an American icon at a time when fully 30 percent of new farms in the United States are woman-owned. It ranges widely from Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning A Thousand Acres to Laura Ingalls Wilder's commentaries for the Missouri Ruralist; from the critical importance of rural girls and young women to organizations such as the Farm Bureau, 4-H, and FFA to the entrepreneurial role today's female agriculturalists and sustainable farm advocates play in farmers' markets, urban farms, and community-supported agriculture.

Cover ArtPutting the barn before the house : women and family farming in early-twentieth-century New York by Osterud, Nancy Grey

Putting the Barn Before the House features the voices and viewpoints of women born before World War I who lived on family farms in south-central New York. As she did in her previous book, Bonds of Community, for an earlier period in history, Grey Osterud explores the flexible and varied ways that families shared labor and highlights the strategies of mutuality that women adopted to ensure they had a say in family decision making. Sharing and exchanging work also linked neighboring households and knit the community together. Indeed, the culture of cooperation that women espoused laid the basis for the formation of cooperatives that enabled these dairy farmers to contest the power of agribusiness and obtain better returns for their labor. Osterud recounts this story through the words of the women and men who lived it and carefully explores their views about gender, labor, and power, which offered an alternative to the ideas that prevailed in American society. Most women saw "putting the barn before the house" - investing capital and labor in productive operations rather than spending money on consumer goods or devoting time to mere housework - as a necessary and rational course for families who were determined to make a living on the land and, if possible, to pass on viable farms to the next generation. Some women preferred working outdoors to what seemed to them the thankless tasks of urban housewives, while others worked off the farm to support the family. Husbands and wives, as well as parents and children, debated what was best and negotiated over how to allocate their limited labor and capital and plan for an uncertain future. Osterud tells the story of an agricultural community in transition amid an industrializing age with care and skill.
 

Cover ArtVermont farm women by Miller, Peter

Photographs and text of farm women'dairy, pigs, sheep, goats, emus, christmas trees, horses, beef cattle, cheese who work the small farm as owners and are passionate about their responsibility to the land, the animals and their community.

Cover ArtQueen of American agriculture : a biography of Virginia Claypool Meredith by Whitford, Fred

Virginia Claypool Meredith's role in directly managing the affairs of a large and prosperous farm in east-central Indiana opened doors that were often closed to women in late nineteenth century America. Her status allowed her to campaign for the education of women, in general, and rural women, in particular. While striving to change society's expectations for women, she also gave voice to the important role of women in the home. A lifetime of dedication made Virginia Meredith "the most remarkable woman in Indiana" and the "Queen of American Agriculture." Meredith was also an integral part of the history of Purdue University. She was the first woman appointed to serve on the university's board of trustees, had a residence hall named in her honor, and worked with her adopted daughter, Mary L. Matthews, in creating the School of Home Economics, the predecessor of today's College of Consumer and Family Sciences.
 
 

Cover ArtMore than a farmer's wife : voices of American farm women, 1910-1960 by Lauters, Amy Mattson

Examining how women were presented in farming and mainstream magazines over fifty years and interviewing more than 180 women who lived on farms, Lauters reveals that, rather than being victims of patriarchy, most farm women were astute businesswomen, working as partners with their husbands and fundamental to the farming industry.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtFruits of victory : the Woman's Land Army of America in the Great War by Weiss, Elaine F.

Imagine a more controversial Rosie the Riveter--a generation older and more outlandish for her time. She was the "farmerette" of the Woman's Land Army of America (WLA), doing a man's job on the home front during World War I. From 1917 to 1920 the WLA sent more than twenty thousand urban women into rural America to take over farm work after the men went off to war and food shortages threatened the nation. These women, from all social and economic strata, lived together in communal camps and did what was considered "men's work": plowing fields, driving tractors, planting, harvesting, and hauling lumber. The Land Army was a civilian enterprise organized and financed by women. It insisted on fair labor practices and pay equal to male laborers' wages for its workers and taught women not only agricultural skills but also leadership and management techniques. Despite their initial skepticism, farmers became the WLA's loudest champions, and the farmerette was celebrated as an icon of American women's patriotism and pluck.The WLA's short but spirited life foreshadowed some of the most significant social issues of the twentieth century: women's changing roles, the problem of class distinctions in a democracy, and the physiological and psychological differences between men and women. The dramatic story of the WLA is vividly retold here using long-buried archival material, allowing a fascinating chapter of America's World War I experience to be rediscovered.
 

Cover ArtWomen and sustainable agriculture : interviews with 14 agents of change by Anderson, Anna

This book looks deeply into the American food system and closely examines the need for change in the way food is grown and distributed in the United States. It is composed of twelve interviews with dynamic women who work on issues surrounding modern agriculture. These women are producers, academicians, advocates and activists. Some work in agricultural law and policy. All are devoted to changing the current system. Within a framework that offers brief overviews of the development of U.S. agriculture, the interviews allow the reader to hear firsthand what has gone wrong and what we can do about it. Part One focuses on concepts of traditional agriculture, organic growing and market viability. Part Two discusses pioneering agriculture and the process of restoring our farms to thriving habitats of biodiversity with clean water and healthy soil. Part Three considers the issues of industrial agriculture, exploring the controversy of genetically modified foods, farm foreclosures and the 2002 Farm Bill. Part Four returns us to sustainable agriculture and how we can make sustainability work for us. It includes discussions of farmers' markets, co-ops and local food systems.
 

Cover ArtLiving off the land : women farmers of today by Russell, Josephine

Based on extensive interviews with twelve varied and representative women farmers in County Kerry, Josephine Russell's text provides a unique insight into farming women of all ages and types: dairy, sheep, and organic, from the four corners and the three peninsulas of Kerry. Some remember the old life of physical work; others are as familiar with the computer as the animals. All the stories are engaging and entertaining.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtWorking the land : the stories of ranch and farm women in the modern American West by Schackel, Sandra

Helen Tiegs didn't take to driving a tractor when she became a farmer's wife, but after fifty years she considers herself the hub of the family operation. Lila Hill taught piano, then ultimately took a job off the farm to augment the family income during a period of rising costs. From Montana's cattle pastures to New Mexico's sagebrush mesas, women on today's ranches and farms have played a crucial role in a way of life that is slowly disappearing from the western landscape. Recalling her own family-farm ties, Sandra Schackel set out to learn how these women's lives have changed over the second half of the twentieth century. In Working the Land, she collects oral histories from more than forty women--in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, and Texas--recalling their experiences as ranchers and farmers in a modernizing West. Through this diverse group of women-white and Hispanic, rich and poor, ranging in age from 24 to 83--we gain a new perspective on their ties to the land. Although western ranch and farm women have often been portrayed as secondary figures who devoted themselves to housekeeping in support of their husbands' labors, Schackel's interviews reveal that these women have had a much more active role in defining what we know as the modern American West. As Schackel listened to their stories, she found several currents running through their recollections, such as the satisfaction found in living the rural lifestyle and the flexibility of gender roles. She also learned how resourceful women developed new ways to make their farms work--by including tourism, summer camps, and bed-and-breakfast operations--and how many have become activists for land-based issues. And while some like Lila made the difficult decision to work off the farm, such sacrifices have enabled families to hold onto their beloved land. Rich with memory and insight into what makes America's family farms and ranches tick, Working the Land provides a deeper understanding of the West's development over the last fifty years along with new perspectives on shifting attitudes toward women in the workforce. It is both a long-overdue documentation of the lives of hard-working farm women and a celebration of their contributions to a truly American way of life.

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Cozy Reads are fiction books with an upbeat, optimistic and light-hearted tone. They often feature a desirable location the reader may like to imagine themselves, hobbies or occupations relatable to the reader, and sometimes romance. Some popular sub-categories include: murder mysteries, craft and hobby mysteries, and culinary mysteries.

Our feature contains perhaps a few books outside this subgenre that we determined complimentary, such as nonfiction works on the Cozy Reads subgenre itself, books on tea, coffee, other new popular fiction titles. Visit the Howe Library Lobby for even more Cozy Reads on display. 


 

Cover ArtVera Wong's unsolicited advice for murderers by Sutanto, Jesse Q.

Knives Out meets Kim's Convenience in this captivating mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties. Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady-ah, lady of a certain age-who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her college-aged son is up to. Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing-a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn't know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of . . . swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer. What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?
 
 

 

Cover ArtReading the cozy mystery : critical essays on an underappreciated subgenre by Betz, Phyllis M. (Editor)

With their intimate settings, subdued action and likeable characters, cozy mysteries are rarely seen as anything more than light entertainment. The cozy, a subgenre of crime fiction, has been historically misunderstood and often overlooked as the subject of serious study. This anthology brings together a groundbreaking collection of essays that examine the cozy mystery from a range of critical viewpoints. The authors engage with the standard classification of a cozy, the characters who appear in its pages, the environment where the crime occurs and how these elements reveal the cozy story's complexity in surprising ways. Essays analyze cozy mysteries to argue that Agatha Christie is actually not a cozy writer; that Columbo fits the mold of the cozy detective; and that the stories' portrayals of settings like the quaint English village reveal a more complicated society than meets the eye.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtThe Christmas jigsaw murders by Benedict, Alexandra

A puzzling new Christmas mystery from USA Today bestselling author Alexandra Benedict! Rest. In. Pieces. On 1st of December, renowned puzzle setter, loner, and Christmas curmudgeon Edie O'Sullivan finds a hand-delivered present on her doorstep. Unwrapping it, she finds a jigsaw box and, inside, six jigsaw pieces. When fitted together, the pieces show part of a crime scene - blood-spattered black and white tiles and part of an outlined body. Included in the parcel is a message: 'Four, maybe more, people will be dead by midnight on Christmas Eve, unless you can put all the pieces together and stop me.' It's signed, Rest In Pieces. Edie contacts her nephew, DI Sean Brand-O'Sullivan, and together they work to solve the clues. But when a man is found near death with a jigsaw piece in his hand, Sean fears that Edie might be in danger and shuts her out of the investigation. As the body count rises, however, Edie knows that only she has the knowledge to put together the killer's murderous puzzle. Only by fitting all the pieces together will Edie be able to stop a killer - and finally lay her past to rest.
 



 
 

Cover ArtKrampus confidential by Sullivan, Kyle

It's almost Christmas, but the nights in Tinseltown are anything but silent. In this hardboiled parody of The Maltese Falcon, Ruprecht, a twelve-year-old krampus and wannabe detective, gets more than he bargained for when he takes the case of a terrified elf. Finding himself at the top of the Tinseltown Police Department's naughty list, Ruprecht is joined by his best friend, a ghost named Marley, to explore the underbelly of this festive but gritty metropolis, solve the mystery, and clear his name for good.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtBefore the coffee gets cold by Kawaguchi, Toshikazu

In a small back alley in Tokyo at a century-old coffee shop rumored to offer patrons the chance to travel back in time, four customers reevaluate their formative life choices.
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers coffee-- and the chance to travel back in time. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. There are rules that must be followed. And the most important one: the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtHeartstopper by Oseman, Alice

Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. A sweet and charming coming-of-age story that explores friendship, love, and coming out. This edition features beautiful two-color artwork. Absolutely delightful. Sweet, romantic, kind. Beautifully paced. I loved this book. -- Rainbow Rowell, author of Carry On. Shy and softhearted Charlie Spring sits next to rugby player Nick Nelson in class one morning. A warm and intimate friendship follows, and that soon develops into something more for Charlie, who doesn't think he has a chance. But Nick is struggling with feelings of his own, and as the two grow closer and take on the ups and downs of high school, they come to understand the surprising and delightful ways in which love works.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtTea : a global history by Saberi, Helen

From chai to oolong to sencha, tea is one of the world's most popular beverages. Perhaps that is because it is a unique and adaptable drink, consumed in many different varieties by cultures across the globe and in many different settings, from the intricate traditions of Japanese teahouses to the elegant tearooms of Britain to the verandas of the deep South. In Tea food historian Helen Saberi explores this rich and fascinating history. Saberi looks at the economic and social uses of tea, such as its use as a currency during the Tang Dynasty and the 1913 creation of a tea dance called "Thé Dansant.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtCoffee : a global history by Morris, Jonathan

Most of us can't make it through morning without our cup (or cups) of joe, and we're not alone. Coffee is a global beverage: it's grown commercially on four continents and consumed enthusiastically on all seven--and there is even an Italian espresso machine on the International Space Station. Coffee's journey has taken it from the forests of Ethiopia to the fincas of Latin America, from Ottoman coffee houses to "Third Wave" cafés, and from the simple coffee pot to the capsule machine. In Coffee: A Global History, Jonathan Morris explains both how the world acquired a taste for this humble bean, and why the beverage tastes so differently throughout the world. Sifting through the grounds of coffee history, Morris discusses the diverse cast of caffeinated characters who drank coffee, why and where they did so, as well as how it was prepared and what it tasted like. He identifies the regions and ways in which coffee has been grown, who worked the farms and who owned them, and how the beans were processed, traded, and transported. Morris also explores the businesses behind coffee--the brokers, roasters, and machine manufacturers--and dissects the geopolitics linking producers to consumers. Written in a style as invigorating as that first cup of Java, and featuring fantastic recipes, images, stories, and surprising facts, Coffee will fascinate foodies, food historians, baristas, and the many people who regard this ancient brew as a staple of modern life.
 
 

 

Cover ArtThe Kamogawa food detectives by Kashiwai, Hisashi ; Kirkwood, Jesse (Translator)

What's the one dish you'd do anything to taste just one more time? Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that's not the main reason customers stop by . . . The father-daughter duo are 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person's treasured memories - dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility. A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtSomeone you can build a nest in by Wiswell, John

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body using a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth. However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she's found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warmhearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent coparent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen's eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don't think about love that way. Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she's about to confess, Homily reveals why she's in the area: she's hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Shesheshen didn't curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily's twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk. And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.
 

Cover ArtThe great when by Moore, Alan

The year is 1949, the city London. Amidst the smog of the capital stumbles Dennis Knuckleyard, a hapless eighteen year-old employed by a second-hand bookshop. One day, on an errand to acquire books for sale, Dennis discovers a novel that simply does not exist. It is a fictitious book, a figment from another novel. Yet it is physically there in his hands. How? Dennis has stumbled on a book from the Great When, a magical version of London beyond time and space, where reality blurs with fiction and concepts such as Crime and Poetry are incarnated as wondrous, terrible beings. But this other, magical London must remain a secret: if Dennis cannot find a way to return this book to where it belongs, he risks repercussions, such as his body being turned inside out (or worse). So begins a journey delving deep into the city's occult underbelly and tarrying with an eccentric cast of sorcerers, gangsters, and murderers - some from legend, some all too real, and all with plans of their own. Soon Dennis finds himself at the centre of an explosive series of events that may alter and endanger both Londons forever...
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtWriting the cozy mystery : authors' perspectives on their craft by Betz, Phyllis M.

This book brings together essays written by a number of well-known writers of cozy mysteries, including Sherry Harris, Amanda Flower, Leslie Budewitz, and Edith Maxwell, among others, who provide insight into their approaches to writing. Topics covered include how they work with the form, develop characters and settings, and utilize the particular hook, skill or business that establishes the protagonist's ability to solve crimes. In addition to discussing these traditional aspects of writing, several authors focus on how they have expanded the direction the contemporary cozy mystery has taken with the inclusion of more diverse characters and social issues.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtHow to write a mystery : a handbook from Mystery Writers of America by Mystery Writers of America; Child, Lee (Editor); King, Laurie R. (Editor)

From some of the most successful mystery writers in the business, an invaluable guide to crafting mysteries, from character development and plot to procedurals and thrillers.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtThe book of tea by Okakura, Kakuzō

A description of the Japanese tea ceremony that evokes Eastern culture as a whole.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtThe book that wouldn't burn by Lawrence, Mark

Two strangers find themselves connected by a mysterious and vast library, which contains many wonders and even more secrets, in the powerfully moving first book in a new series from the international bestselling author of Red Sister and Prince of Thorns. On a used-up world where civilisations have risen and retreated in an endless tide, leaving a dusty wasteland in their wake, there is one constant: an ancient library, the repository of all knowledge and art. It also contains a multitude of lives, including those of Evar and Livira.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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This month we are highlighting new graphic novels in Howe Library! Check out our latest additions in fictional and non-fictional graphic novels.


 

Cover ArtHuda F cares? by Fahmy, Huda

This summer's exercise in Fahmy family sisterly bonding involves a trip to Disney World--which seems like it is headed for disaster when Huda gets into a fight with a boy making fun of her hijab.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtStamped from the beginning : a graphic history of racist ideas in America by Gill, Joel Christian

A comprehensive history of anti-black racism in graphic-novel format focuses on the lives of five major players in American history and highlights the debates that took place between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and anti-racists.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtThe great turkey walk by Bischoff, Léonie

Kathleen Karr's classic American story of grit, friendship, and turkeys finally reimagined as a sensational graphic novel. Missouri 1860: Simon Green is a bad student. His mother is dead and his father has disappeared. But he's daring, and so when he hears that turkeys fetch a higher price in Denver, he borrows his teacher's life savings and buys a herd of a thousand birds. Then he sets off on the thousand-mile trek with his dog and a pair of mules. To survive the odyssey that follows, Simon will need grit, luck, and smarts--and a colorful cast of friends.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtThe mythmakers by Hendrix, John

The rich worlds of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have enchanted readers both young and old for generations. But before they created these literary landmarks, Lewis and Tolkien were simply two friends who shared a love of stories. The Mythmakers chronicles their lives, from their horrific tour in the trenches of World War I, their first meeting at Oxford in 1929, and the literary discussions of the Inklings, to World War II, the publications of their works, and their legacies. Their personal stories are so intertwined that neither can be easily told without the other....The Mythmakers reveals how these remarkably creative minds influenced each other--their world-building philosophies, their ideas of mythology and faith, and their belief in the truth behind the human imagination. The Mythmakers is a masterful work capturing the extraordinary lives and literary contributions of Liews and Tolkien, two of the most important and influential writers of the 20th century.
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtToxic : a tour of the Ecuadorian Amazon by Fiske, Amelia

This graphic novel ethnography takes the reader on a "toxic tour" of the Ecuadorian Amazon and reveals the struggles for environmental justice in everyday life.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtZodiac : a graphic memoir by Ai, Weiwei

As a child living in exile during the Cultural Revolution, Ai Weiwei often found himself with nothing to read but government-approved comic books. Although they were restricted by the confines of political propaganda, Ai Weiwei was struck by the artists' ability to express their thoughts on art and humanity through graphic storytelling. Now, decades later, Ai Weiwei and Italian comic artist Gianluca Costantini present Zodiac, Ai Weiwei's first graphic memoir. Inspired by the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac and their associated human characteristics, Ai Weiwei masterfully interweaves ancient Chinese folklore with stories of his life, family, and career. The narrative shifts back and forth through the years--at once in the past, present, and future--mirroring memory and our relationship to time. As readers delve deeper into the beautifully illustrated pages of Zodiac, they will find not only a personal history of Ai Weiwei and an examination of the sociopolitical climate in which he makes his art, but a philosophical exploration of what it means to find oneself through art and freedom of expression.
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtThe Puerto Rican War : a graphic history by Mejias, John Vasquez

Rendered in gorgeously carved wood blocks and buffeted with historical supplemental material, John Vasquez Mejias's The Puerto Rican War tells the story of the the 1950 insurrection on the island that resulted in 38 deaths and a failed assassination attempt against President Harry S. Truman. Told as a fable, in which the leaders of the movement are visited by the ghosts of Michael Collins and Gandhi, this book showcases an important and often overlooked moment in American history and a historical touchstone for the Puerto Rican independence movement.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtLies my teacher told me : a graphic adaptation by Loewen, James W.

A graphic adaptation of the bestselling book about what most American history textbooks get wrong.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtComics and modernism : history, form, and culture by Najarian, Jonathan (Editor)

Since the early 1990s, cartoonist Art Spiegelman has made the case that comics are the natural inheritor of the aesthetic tradition associated with the modernist movement of the early twentieth century. In recent years, scholars have begun to place greater import on the shared historical circumstances of early comics and literary and artistic modernism. Comics and Modernism: History, Form, and Culture is an interdisciplinary consideration of myriad social, cultural, and aesthetic connections. Filling a gap in current scholarship, an impressively diverse group of scholars approaches the topic from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and methodologies. Drawing on work in literary studies, art history, film studies, philosophy, and material culture studies, contributors attend to the dynamic relationship between avant-garde art, literature, and comics. Essays by both established and emerging voices examine topics as divergent as early twentieth-century film, museum exhibitions, newspaper journalism, magazine illustration, and transnational literary circulation. In presenting varied critical approaches, this book highlights important interpretive questions for the field. Contributors sometimes arrive at thoughtful consensus and at other times settle on productive disagreements. Ultimately, this collection aims to extend traditional lines of inquiry in both comics studies and modernist studies and to reveal overlaps between ostensibly disparate artistic practices and
 movements.
 
 

Cover ArtForecasts by Schuster, Caroline; Bernardou, Enrique (Illustrator); Bueno, David (Illustrator)

Based in the agrarian world of commercial sesame farming in northern Paraguay, Forecasts tells a story about what happens when global insurance companies promise financial safety nets to local farmers struggling with the effects of climate change. This striking graphic novel brings together original ethnographic research and Paraguayan gothic art to confront the limitations of finance to respond to a deteriorating environment. Taking a human-centered approach to complex weather and financial models, Forecasts offers new ways of looking at overlapping speculative futures in a more-than-human landscape. Based on more than a year of fieldwork in Paraguay, the book follows one man's possible journeys through a season of planting and harvesting, buffeted by losses and sustained by the hope that he can cultivate conditions that will help his family thrive. Forecasts makes a sweeping account of environmental and financial risk accessible through the intimate story of one family's triumphs, heartbreaks, and hopes for the future. The graphic novel is followed by appendices that provide historical, anthropological, and methodological insights, as well as classroom guides, exercises, and questions that make this book ideal for teaching.
 
 
 

Cover ArtUndesirables by Boum, Aomar; Berber, Nadjib (Illustrator)

In this gripping graphic novel, a Jewish journalist encounters an extension of the horrors of the Holocaust in North Africa. In the lead-up to World War II, the rising tide of fascism and antisemitism in Europe foreshadowed Hitler's genocidal campaign against Jews. But the horrors of the Holocaust were not limited to the concentration camps of Europe: antisemitic terror spread through Vichy French imperial channels to France's colonies in North Africa, where in the forced labor camps of Algeria and Morocco, Jews and other "undesirables" faced brutal conditions and struggled to survive in an unforgiving landscape quite unlike Europe. In this richly historical graphic novel, historian Aomar Boum and illustrator Nadjib Berber take us inside this lesser-known side of the traumas wrought by the Holocaust by following one man's journey as a Holocaust refugee. Hans Frank is a Jewish journalist covering politics in Berlin, who grows increasingly uneasy as he witnesses the Nazi Party consolidate power and decides to flee Germany. Through connections with a transnational network of activists organizing against fascism and anti-Semitism, Hans ultimately lands in French Algeria, where days after his arrival, the Vichy regime designates all foreign Jews as "undesirables" and calls for their internment. On his way to Morocco, he is detained by Vichy authorities and interned first at Le Vernet, then later transported to different camps in the deserts of Morocco and Algeria. With memories of his former life as a political journalist receding like a dream, Hans spends the next year and a half in forced labor camps, hearing the stories of others whose lives have been upended by violence and war. Through bold, historically inflected illustrations that convey the tension of the coming war and the grimness of the Vichy camps, Aomar Boum and Nadjib Berber capture the experiences of thousands of refugees through the fictional Hans, chronicling how the traumas of the Holocaust extended far beyond the borders of Europe.
 
 

Cover ArtVisions of the crow by John-Kehewin, Wanda

A new girl at school. A mysterious crow. Weird visions he can't explain. Grade 12 just got a lot more complicated for Damon Quinn... "Your ancestors have called us to help you." "I think you have the wrong number." Damon Quinn just wants to get through his senior year unscathed. His mom struggles with alcohol and is barely coping with the day-to-day. Marcus and his cronies at school are forever causing him trouble. The new girl, Journey, won't mind her own business. To make matters worse, now a mysterious crow is following him everywhere. After he is seized by a waking dream in the middle of a busy street, he's forced to confront his mom with some hard questions: Why haven't I met my dad? Where did we come from? Who am I? Damon must look within himself, mend the bond with his mother, and rely on new friends to find the answers he so desperately needs. Travelling through time and space, Damon will have to go back before he can move forward. The Dreams series of graphic novels explores cultural connection as a path to healing. Volume 1, Visions of the Crow, explores urban Indigenous experiences through the eyes of a Cree-Métis teen as he learns about his identity and finding home. Ultimately, Damon will learn what it takes to be a good leader for his people.
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtA first time for everything : a true story by Santat, Dan

Dan is used to feeling invisible. After being bullied in middle school, Dan has low expectations about everything, including the class trip to Europe with the same girls who love to make fun of him. But during his travels, a series of firsts begin to change him -- first Fanta, first fondue, and maybe even... first girlfriend? Funny, heartfelt, and embarrassingly true, this graphic novel memoir is based on Caldecott Medal Winner Dan Santat's most awkward middle school memories.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Join UVM Libraries as we celebrate Native American Heritage Month (November) with our latest New Books Spotlight. Check-out print and eBooks available through the Library featuring indigenous perspectives, stories, and activism. 


 

Cover ArtWe Will Be Jaguars by Nemonte Nenquimo; Mitch Anderson

From a fearless, internationally acclaimed activist comes an impassioned memoir about an indigenous childhood, a clash of cultures, and the fight to save the Amazon rainforest We Will Be Jaguars is an astonishing memoir by an equally astonishing woman. Nenquimo is a winner of TIME magazine's Earth Award, and MS. magazine named this book among the Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2024. Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest--one of the last to be contacted by missionaries in the 1950s--Nemonte Nenquimo had a singular upbringing. She was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. At age fourteen, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture. She listened. Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate change activism. She has spearheaded the alliance of indigenous nations across the Upper Amazon and led her people to a landmark victory against Big Oil, protecting over a half million acres of primary rainforest. Her message is as sharp as a spear--honed by her experiences battling loggers, miners, oil companies and missionaries. In We Will Be Jaguars, she partners with her husband, Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, digging into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, hacking away at racist notions of indigenous peoples, and ultimately revealing a life story as rich, harsh, and vital as the Amazon rainforest herself.
 

Cover ArtBirds Through Indigenous Eyes by Dennis Gaffin

An intimate and personal account of the profound roles birds play in the lives of some Indigenous people For many hours over a period of years, white anthropologist Dennis Gaffin and two Indigenous friends, Michael Bastine and John Volpe, recorded their conversations about a shared passion: the birds of upstate New York and southern Ontario. In these lively, informal talks, Bastine (a healer and naturalist of Algonquin descent) and Volpe (a naturalist and animal rehabilitator of Ojibwe and Métis descent) shared their experiences of, and beliefs about, birds, describing the profound spiritual, psychological, and social roles of birds in the lives of some Indigenous people. Birds through Indigenous Eyes presents highlights of these conversations, placing them in context and showing how Native understandings of birds contrast with conventional Western views. Bastine and Volpe bring to life Algonquin, Ojibwe, and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) beliefs about birds. They reveal how specific birds and bird species are seamlessly integrated into spirituality and everyday thought and action, how birds bring important messages to individual people, how a bird species can become associated with a person, and how birds provide warnings about our endangered environment. Over the course of the book, birds such as the house sparrow, Eastern phoebe, Northern flicker, belted kingfisher, gray catbird, cedar waxwing, and black-capped chickadee are shown in a new light--as spiritual and practical helpers that can teach humans how to live well. An original work of ethno-ornithology that offers a rare close-up look at some Native views on birds, Birds through Indigenous Eyes opens rich new perspectives on the deep connections between birds and humans.
 
 

Cover ArtWarrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley

Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she's stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep. Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn't feel so lost after all. But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the "Warrior Girl", an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors' remains, and Perry and the Misfits won't let it go on any longer. Using all of their skills and resources, the Misfits realize a heist is the only way to bring back the stolen artifacts and remains for good. But there is more to this repatriation than meets the eye as more women disappear and Pauline's perfectionism takes a turn for the worse. As secrets and mysteries unfurl, Perry and the Misfits must fight to find a way to make things right--for the ancestors and for their community
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtWandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Colorado, 1864, Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison-castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star's son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father's jailer. Under Pratt's harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines. In a novel that is by turns shattering and wondrous, Tommy Orange has conjured the ancestors of the family readers first fell in love with in 'There There' -- warriors, drunks, outlaws, addicts -- asking what it means to be the children and grandchildren of massacre. 'Wandering Stars' is a novel about epigenetic and generational trauma that has the force and vision of a modern epic, an exceptionally powerful new book from one of the most exciting writers at work today and soaring confirmation of Tommy Orange's monumental gifts.
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtBeing Indian and walking proud : American Indian identity and reality. by Fixico, Donald L.

This book explores the identity of American Indians from an Indigenous perspective and how outside influences throughout history, from the arrival of Columbus in 1492 to the twenty-first century, have affected Native people. Non-Native writers, boarding school teachers, movie directors, bureaucrats, churches, and television have all heavily impacted how Indians are viewed in the United States. Drawing on the life experiences of many American Indian men and women, this volume reveals how American Indian identity comprises multiple identities, including the noble savage, wild savage, Hollywood Indian, church-going Indian, rez Indian, urban Indian, Native woman, Indian activist, casino Indian, and tribal leader. Indigenous people, in their own voices, share their experiences of discrimination, being treated as outsiders in their own country, and the intersections of gender, culture, and politics in Indian-white relations. Yet the book also highlights the resilience of being Indian and the pride felt from being a member of a tribe(s), knowing your relatives, and feeling connected to the earth. Being Indian and Walking Proud is a compelling resource for any reader interested in Indigenous history, including students and scholars in Native American and Indigenous studies, anthropology, and American history.
 
 

Cover ArtAmerican Indian women of proud nations by Jolivette, Andrew (Series edited by); Wiethaus, Ulrike (Editor); Beasley, Cherry Maynor (Editor); Jacobs, Mary Ann (Editor)

At its onset, the American Indian Women of Proud Nations Organization set out to create a space that would uplift Native American women, children, and families because of their central roles in the continuation of Native communities. The contributors to the second edition continue to document and reflect on the organization's initiative and the efforts of Southeastern Native women and their allies to center women, children and families in protecting and strengthening kinship, land, and language as enduring aspects of Native American cultures. The second edition offers updated research on language revitalization, adolescents and their parental caregivers, Indigenous issues in higher education, and new work on matrilineality, the Missing and Murdered People crisis, and the continuation of healing traditions in a contemporary context.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtInvisible no more by Foxworth, Raymond (Editor); Dubb, Steve (Editor)

For too long, Native American people in the United States have been stereotyped as vestiges of the past, invisible citizens in their own land obliged to remind others, “We are still here!” Yet today, Native leaders are at the center of social change, challenging philanthropic organizations that have historically excluded Native people, and fighting for economic and environmental justice. Edited by Raymond Foxworth of First Nations Development Institute and Steve Dubb of The Nonprofit Quarterly, Invisible No More is a groundbreaking collection of stories by Native American leaders, many of them women, who are leading the way through cultural grounding and nation-building in the areas of community, environmental justice, and economic justice. Authors in the collection come from over a dozen Native nations, including communities in Alaska and Hawaiʻi. Chapters are grouped by themes of challenging philanthropy, protecting community resources, environmental justice, and economic justice. While telling their stories, authors excavate the history and ongoing effects of genocide and colonialism, reminding readers how philanthropic wealth often stems from the theft of Native land and resources, as well as how major national parks such as Yosemite were “conserved” by forcibly expelling Native residents. At the same time, the authors detail ways that readers might imagine the world differently, presenting stories of Native community building that offer benefits for all. Accepting this invitation to reset assumptions can be at once profound and pragmatic. For instance, wildfires in large measure result from recent Western land mismanagement; Native techniques practiced for thousands of years can help manage fire for everyone's benefit. In a world facing a mounting climate crisis and record economic inequality, Invisible No More exposes the deep wounds of a racist past while offering a powerful call to care for one another and the planet. Indigenous communities have much to offer, not the least of which are solutions gleaned from cultural knowledge developed over generations.
 
 

Cover ArtCarving space : a collection of prose and poetry from emerging indigenous writers in lands claimed by Canada.

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Indigenous Voices Awards, an anthology consisting of selected works by finalists over the past five years, edited by Jordan Abel, Carleigh Baker, and Madeleine Reddon. Established in 2017, the Indigenous Voices Awards honour the sovereignty of Indigenous creative voices and nurture the work of emerging Indigenous writers in lands claimed by Canada. Through generous support from hundreds of Canadians and organizations such as Penguin Random House Canada, Scholastic Canada, Douglas & McIntyre, Pamela Dillon and Family Gift Fund, the awards have ushered in a new and dynamic generation of Indigenous writers. Past IVAs recipients include Billy-Ray Belcourt and Tanya Tagaq. The IVAs also promote the works of unpublished writers, helping to launch the careers of Smokii Sumac, Cody Caetano, and Samantha Martin-Bird. This anthology gathers together a selection of the finalists over the past five years, highlighting some of the most pathbreaking Indigenous writing across poetry, prose, and theatre in English, French, and Indigenous languages. Curated by award-winning and critically acclaimed writers Jordan Abel (Nisga'a) and Carleigh Baker (Métis), and scholar Madeleine Reddon (Métis), this anthology is a celebration of Indigenous storytelling that both introduces readers to emerging luminaries and returns them to treasured favorites.
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtRise up! : Indigenous music in North America by Harris, Craig

Music historian Craig Harris explores more than five hundred years of Indigenous history, religion, and cultural evolution in Rise Up! Indigenous Music in North America. More than powwow drums and wooden flutes, Indigenous music intersects with rock, blues, jazz, folk music, reggae, hip-hop, classical music, and more. Combining deep research with personal stories by nearly four dozen award-winning Indigenous musicians, Harris offers an eye-opening look at the growth of Indigenous music. Among a host of North America's most vital Indigenous musicians, the biographical narratives include new and well-established figures such as Mildred Bailey, Louis W. Ballard, Cody Blackbird, Donna Coane (Spirit of Thunderheart), Theresa "Bear" Fox, Robbie Robertson, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joanne Shenandoah, DJ Shub (Dan General), Maria Tallchief, John Trudell, and Fawn Wood.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtBuffalo dreamer by Duncan, Violet

When twelve-year-old Summer visits her family on a reservation in Alberta, Canada, she begins experiencing vivid dreams of running away from a residential school like the one her grandfather attended as a child and learns about unmarked children's graves, prompting her to seek answers about her community's painful past.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtFuneral songs for dying girls by Dimaline, Cherie

Winifred has lived in the apartment above the cemetery office with her father, who works in the crematorium all her life, close to her mother's grave. With her sixteenth birthday only days away, Winifred has settled into a lazy summer schedule, lugging her obese Chihuahua around the grounds in a squeaky red wagon to visit the neglected gravesides and nursing a serious crush on her best friend, Jack. Her habit of wandering the graveyard at all hours has started a rumor that Winterson Cemetery might be haunted. It's welcome news since the crematorium is on the verge of closure and her father's job being outsourced. Now that the ghost tours have started, Winifred just might be able to save her father's job and the only home she's ever known, not to mention being able to stay close to where her mother is buried. All she has to do is get help from her con-artist cousin to keep up the rouse and somehow manage to stop her father from believing his wife has returned from the grave. But when an actual ghost of a teen girl, Phil, who lived and died in the ravine next to the cemetery, starts showing up, Winifred begins to question everything she believes about life, love and death--and, most importantly, love.
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtIwigara by Salmon, Enrique

Tap into Thousands of Years of Plant Knowledge The belief that all life-forms are interconnected and share the same breath'known in the RarAmuri tribe as iwigara'has resulted in a treasury of knowledge about the natural world, passed down for millennia by native cultures. Ethnobotanist Enrique SalmOn builds on this concept of connection and highlights 80 plants revered by North America's indigenous peoples. SalmOn teaches us the ways plants are used as food and medicine, the details of their identification and harvest, their important health benefits, plus their role in traditional stories and myths. Discover in these pages how the timeless wisdom of iwigara can enhance your own kinship with the natural world.
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtBecoming kin an indigenous call to unforgetting the past and reimagining our future by Krawec, Patty

Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps readers see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer. Settler colonialism tried to force us into one particular way of living, but the old ways of kinship can help us imagine a different future. Krawec asks, What would it look like to remember that we are all related? How might we become better relatives to the land, to one another, and to Indigenous movements for solidarity? Braiding together historical, scientific, and cultural analysis, Indigenous ways of knowing, and the vivid threads of communal memory, Krawec crafts a stunning, forceful call to 'unforget' our history.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtTo shape a dragon's breath by Blackgoose, Moniquill

A young, Indigenous woman enters a colonizer-run dragon academy after bonding with a hatchling--and quickly finds herself at odds with the "approved" way of doing things--in the first book of a brilliant new fantasy series. The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations--until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon's egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered: a Person Who Belongs to a Dragon. Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have a quite different opinion. They have a very specific idea on how a dragon should be raised--and who should be doing the raising--and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, then her dragon will be destroyed. For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land challenges abound--both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart and determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects. For the world needs changing--and Anequs and her dragon are less coming of age in this bold new world than coming to power
 
 
 

Cover ArtBerry song by Goade, Michaela

Caldecott Medalist Michaela Goade's first self-authored picture book is a gorgeous celebration of the land she knows well and the powerful wisdom of elders. On an island at the edge of a wide, wild sea, a girl and her grandmother gather gifts from the earth. Salmon from the stream, herring eggs from the ocean, and in the forest, a world of berries. Salmonberry, Cloudberry, Blueberry, Nagoonberry. Huckleberry, Snowberry, Strawberry, Crowberry. Through the seasons, they sing to the land as the land sings to them. Brimming with joy and gratitude, in every step of their journey, they forge a deeper kinship with both the earth and the generations that came before, joining in the song that connects us all. Michaela Goade's luminous rendering of water and forest, berries and jams glows with her love of the land and offers an invitation to readers to deepen their own relationship with the earth.
 
 
 
 
 

Cover ArtElapultiek : (we are looking towards) by Joudry, Shalan

Set in contemporary times, a young Mi'kmaw drum singer and a Euro-Nova Scotian biologist meet at dusk each day to count a population of endangered Chimney Swifts (kaktukopnji'jk). They quickly struggle with their differing views of the world. Through humour and story, the characters must come to terms with their own gifts and challenges as they dedicate efforts to the birds. Each "count night" reveals a deeper complexity of connection to land and history on a personal level. Inspired by real-life species at risk work, Shalan Joudry originally wrote this story for an outdoor performance. Elapultiek calls on all of us to take a step back from our routine lives and question how we may get to understand our past and work better together. The ideal of weaving between Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds involves taking turns to speak and to listen, even through the most painful of stories, in order for us all to heal. We are in a time when sharing cultural, ecological, and personal stories is vital in working towards a peaceful shared territory, co-existing between peoples and nature. "It's a crucial time to have these conversations," offers Joudry. "The power of story can engage audience and readers in ways that moves them to ask more questions about the past and future.
 
 
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