Just Ask Us
A Conversation with First Nations Teenage Moms
by Sylvia Olsen
Teen moms are nothing new. For as long as anyone can remember, families, communities, and governments have been grappling with the poverty and lack of life opportunities faced by these parents and their children.
Just Ask Us takes a comprehensive, first-hand look at First Nations teen mothers, offering ways to counteract the intractable cycle of poverty and turn reserve communities into places of hope for the next generation. Olsen explores issues of teenage sexuality and relationships, birth control, abortion, and violence. She examines aboriginal and non-aboriginal cultural attitudes and practices and how they affect the lives of young moms and their children. Her book weaves the threads of these young mothers' lives together with colours of desperation, enthusiasm, impossibility, and hope.
FIRST NATIONS NON-FICTION 160 pp 6 x 9
ISBN 1-55039-152-6 paper $19.95
Which Way Should I Go?
by Sylvia Olsen with Ron Martin
Illustrated by Kasia Charko
Following on the heels of the much-lauded Yetsa's Sweater, versatile author Sylvia Olsen again brings her storytelling gifts to picture book readers. Which Way Should I Go? is a moving story, based on the memories and the direction of Olsen's friend Ron Martin, that handles a tender subject with a light and deft touch.
All families, and especially those who have lost a loved one, will enjoy storytime with this beautiful, touching book.
32 pp 8 x 10
ISBN 1-55039-161-5 hardcover $19.95
full colour
Plants of Haida Gwaii
Nancy Turner
Haida Gwaii is the traditional name for that beautiful group of islands, sometimes called the Queen Charlottes, off the northern mainland coast of British Columbia. For thousands of years these islands have been the home of the Haida. Plants of Haida Gwaii, written with the cooperation and collaboration of the Haida, is a detailed and insightful record of the uses and importance to the Haida of over 150 species of native plants. Moreover, it explains the knowledge and understanding that enabled the Haida to use the resources of their islands, sustainably from one generation to the next for thousands of years. Beautifully illustrated with over 200 colour and black & white photographs and illustrations, this book is at once beautiful and informative, captivating and thought provoking.
Ethnobotany 256 pp 6.5 x 9.5
ISBN 1-55039-144-5 hardcover $38.95
Living on the Edge
Nuu-Chah-Nulth History from an Ahousaht Chief's Perspective
Chief Earl Maquinna George
Chief Earl Maquinna George, hereditary chief of the Ahousaht First Nation of Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, presents his compelling life story, told in his own words. Born in the village of Maaqtusiis, on Flores Island, Chief Maquinna lost his mother when he was very young, and spent his childhood years, until Grade 8, at the Ahousaht Indian Residential School. Despite this institutional influence, he received traditional training from the elders at Maaqtusiis, as well as learning the skills of fishing and a sea-going life from his father, MacPherson George. He also worked as a logger and with the Canadian Coast Guard, eventually earning his skipper's papers. He lost his first wife to illness, and he later re-married, taking responsibility for two large families. He took on a major role in Nuu-Chah-Nulth Treaty negotiations with the provincial and federal governments, and as an elder, began a university education, receiving a B.A. in History and an M.A. in Geography from the University of Victoria.
Biography/History 160 pp 6 x 9
ISBN 1-55039-143-7 paper $19.95
The Geography of Memory
Recovering Stories of a Landscape's First People
by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes
The Sinixt, or "Arrow Lakes Indians," are the original inhabitants of the Upper Columbia Basin. Decimated by disease, displaced by settlement, and devastated by the dams that flooded their village and burial sites and eliminated ocean salmon from their territory, they were as a final insult declared "extinct" by the Canadian government in 1956. Yet they have steadfastly maintained close cultural and spiritual ties to their homeland.
In a quest for understanding, Eileen Delehanty Pearkes set out to find the lost story behind the Sinixt First Nation. With the help of contemporary Sinixt people, Pearkes travelled, researched, and interviewed her way through a course of discovery. Her personal account is imbued with a deep respect for the land and its First Peoples.
FIRST NATIONS HISTORY 96 pp 6 x 9 colour maps, colour and b/w photos and illustrations
ISBN 0-9731222-0-X paper $19.95
No Time to Say Goodbye
Childrens Stories of Kuper Island Residential School
Sylvia Olsen with Rita Morris and Ann Sam
No Time to Say Goodbye is a fictional account of five children sent to aboriginal boarding school, based on the recollections of a number of Tsartlip First Nations people. These unforgettable children are taken by government agents from Tsartlip Day School to live at Kuper Island Residential School. The five are isolated on the small island and life becomes regimented by the strict school routine. They experience the pain of homesickness and confusion while trying to adjust to a world completely different from their own. Their lives are no longer organized by fishing, hunting and family, but by bells, line-ups and chores. In spite of the harsh realities of the residential school, the children find adventure in escape, challenge in competition, and camaraderie with their fellow students.
Juvenile, 175 pp, 5Ό x 7Ύ
ISBN 1-55039-121-6, $9.95
The Girl With a Baby
Sylvia Olsen
You are the same girl that came to school last year. They are the same kids. But nothing was the same and I knew it. I had become the girl with a baby. Jane has always been the good Williams. Her brothers might be high school dropouts and late-night rowdy partiers, but never Jane. Jane never drinks, smokes dope or misses a single day of school. She's in the drama club . . . smart and hot . . . one of the popular ones.
Or she used to be. Now she's one of those: the teenage mothers packing diaper bags with their knapsacks, wheeling strollers into the high school daycare, tired and grumpy. Jane's only 14, younger than most of them, and she can feel the stares in the school halls. She can hear the whispers on her whitebread street, too: too bad, gone the way of her brothers, guess those Indians are all the same.
TEEN FICTION 200 pp 5.25 x 7.75
ISBN 1-55039-142-9 paper $9.95
Recommended for ages 12+
I never thought about being white. I didn't have to. I was transparent--no colour at all. I hung out, was a good enough student and no one paid any special attention to me at all. Then I became a white girl.
Until she was fourteen, Josie was pretty ordinary. Then her Mom meets Martin, "a real ponytail Indian," and before long, Josie finds herself living on a reserve outside town, with a new stepfather, a new stepbrother, and a new name--"Blondie." In town, white was the ambient noise, the no-colour background. On the reserve, she's White, and most seem to see her only for her blond hair and blue eyes.
Teen Fiction 200 pp 5Ό x 7Ύ
ISBN 1-55039-147-X paper $9.95
Ages 12+
Yetsa's Sweater
by Sylvia Olsen
Illustrated by Joan Larson
BC Bestseller
From the author of No Time To Say Goodbye, The Girl with a Baby, White Girl, and Just Ask Us comes a tender and joyful picture book, perfect for sharing. In Yetsa's Sweater, Sylvia Olsen takes a workaday chore and illuminates it with meaning, while Joan Larson takes Olsen's simple and loving words and fills them with radiant light.
On a fresh spring day, young Yetsa, her mother and her grandmother gather to prepare the sheep fleeces piled in Grandma's yard. As they clean, wash and dry the fleece, laughter and hard work connect the three generations. Through Yetsa's sensual experience of each task, the reader joins this family in an old but vibrant tradition: the creation of Cowichan sweaters. Each sweater is unique, and its design tells a story. In Yetsa's Sweater, that story is one of love, welcome and pride in a job well done.
ILLUSTRATED PICTUREBOOK, 40 pp, 8 x 10
ISBN 1-55039-155-0, paper, $19.95