Learning Commons Resources

Learning Commons | Selected Books

These books have been selected as a conversation starter on Indigenous culture, stories and history. 

Primary (Grades K-4)

• Sweetest Kulu - Inuit values of love and respect for the land and animals.
• Our First Caribou Hunt - Traditional Inuit hunting practices.
• The Old Ways - Traditional wisdom of elders.
• An Inuksuk Means Welcome - An inuksuk is a stone landmark that different peoples of the Arctic region build to leave a symbolic message.
• Soapstone Signs - One spring, a nine-year-old Cree boy is visited by a master soapstone carver named Lindy, who gives him four pieces of soapstone.
• The Salmon Twins - Caroll Simpson explains the significance of community values. She introduces readers to a world of creatures like Sea Lion, Killer Whale, Dogfish and Kingfisher. Her dramatic tale of young twins and their transformation shows how working together keeps a community healthy.
• niwîcihâw / I Help - This simple story in Cree and English explores a young child's relationship to his grandmother, or nôkhom, as they go for a walk in the woods to pick rosehips. Part of the Nohkom Series.
•  Coyote Tales - Two tales, set in a time "when animals and human beings still talked to each other," display Thomas King's cheeky humour and master storytelling skills. 

For further resources, visit the K-Grade 3 Indigenous Peoples Collection in Sora or the Indigenous Peoples Fiction or Non-Fiction topic collections in the Search Portal. 

Middle School (Grades 5-9) 

• Salmon's Journey - Combines the timeless appeal of Aesop's fables with the oral storytelling traditions of First Nations and other cultures.
• Fatty Legs - A Residential School Story.
• Turtle Island - This book goes back to the Ice Age to give young readers a glimpse of what life was like pre-contact.
• Brothers of the Wolf - This is the tale of two wolf cubs found and raised in a village on the Pacific coast as human children. The wolf cub brothers, Tkope and Klale, are very different from one another. One feels most at home in the forest, while the other is more comfortable in the sea.
• Little Wolf - A young Indigenous girl moves to the big city and learns to find connections to her culture and the land wherever she goes, despite encountering bullies and feelings of isolation along the way.
• The Sockeye Mother - To the Gitxsan people of Northwestern British Columbia, the sockeye salmon is more than just a source of food. Over its life cycle, it nourishes the very land and forests that the Skeena River runs through and where the Gitxsan make their home.
• The Barren Grounds - a novel about two Indigenous foster children who discover a portal to a snowy, magical world where they must use traditional knowledge and courage to survive and bring balance to a land in crisis.

For further resources, visit the Grades 4-6 Indigenous Peoples Collection and Grades 7-9 Indigenous Peoples Collection in Sora or the Indigenous Peoples Fiction or Non-Fiction topic collections in the Search Portal. 

High School (Grades 10-12)

• Pemmican War - Echo finds herself transported to another time and place—a bison hunt on the Saskatchewan prairie—and back again to the present.
• Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults - Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.
• How I Survived Four Nights on the Ice - After his snowmobile breaks down halfway across the sea ice on a trip back from a fishing camp, Serapio Ittusardjuat recounts the traditional skills and knowledge he leaned on to stay alive. This harrowing first-person account of four nights spent on the open sea ice…
• The FireKeepers Daughter - Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is…
• Looking at Indian Art of the Northwest Coast - Hilary Stewart introduces the elements of style, interprets the myths and legends which shape the motifs, and defines and illustrates the stylistic differences between the major cultural groupings.

For further resources, visit the Grades 9-12 Indigenous Peoples Collection in Sora or the Indigenous Peoples Fiction or Non-Fiction topic collections in the Search Portal.