Reconciliation Through Reading: Observe Truth and Reconciliation Day With These 11 Books
September’s Director of Diversity Editorial
Lorraiya Blurton
What is Truth and Reconciliation Day?
September 30th is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, as well as Orange Shirt Day, but what exactly does that mean? National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is an annual statutory holiday intended to recognize survivors of residential schools, their families, and the Indigenous community at large, whilst also bringing attention to the long-hidden history of residential schools. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was created to inform Canadians about the often unacknowledged history of residential schools and their impact on Indigenous populations. After extensive research and documentation of the horrors of the schools, the TRC released the 94 Calls to Action, which are “an appeal to mobilize all levels of government, organizations, as well as individuals to make concrete changes in society. They list specific actions to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation.” (National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, 2026).
Orange Shirt Day, which also falls on September 30th, honours survivor Phyllis Webstad’s story of having her orange shirt taken from her at a residential school. In solidarity, many have begun sporting orange shirts on the 30th, as a symbol of recognition of the trauma and abuse inflicted on Indigenous children in residential schools. You may often see orange shirts with the Orange Shirt Society’s slogan: “Every Child Matters.”
Facilitating Truth and Reconciliation
Step 1: Educate Yourself
In order to move towards the reconciliation part of truth and reconciliation, it’s important that we first start with the truth. Educate yourself through reading books, articles, and, crucially, listening to Indigenous voices.
Below are 11 book recommendations that can help you get started – but no matter what, never stop trying to learn more! Reconciliation is an active process, and requires constant conversation and personal interrogation.
Disclaimer: As a result of the horrific historical treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada, a lot of these books cover sensitive and potentially triggering topics. We’ve added content warnings when possible, but ensure that you engage with these books at your own discretion.
Fiction
Indian Horse
Richard Wagamese
Saul Indian Horse has hit bottom. His last binge almost killed him, and now he’s a reluctant resident in a treatment centre for alcoholics, surrounded by people he’s sure will never understand him. But Saul wants peace, and he grudgingly comes to see that he’ll find it only through telling his story. With him, readers embark on a journey back through the life he’s led as a northern Ojibway, with all its joys and sorrows. With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he’s sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement. Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Graphic depictions of child abuse, child death, racism, child sexual assault, child rape, suicide, alcoholism and addiction
Fools Crow
James Welch
The year is 1870, and Fool’s Crow, so called after he killed the chief of the Crows during a raid, has a vision at the annual Sun Dance ceremony. The young warrior sees the end of the Indian way of life and the choice that must be made: resistance or humiliating accommodation. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Violence, murder, colonization, rape, sexual assault, incest, slavery, animal cruelty, gore
Celia’s Song
Lee Maracle
Mink is a witness, a shape shifter, compelled to follow the story that has ensnared Celia and her village, on the West coast of Vancouver Island in Nuu’Chahlnuth territory. Celia is a seer who – despite being convinced she’s a little “off” – must heal her village with the assistance of her sister, her mother and father, and her nephews. While mink is visiting, a double-headed sea serpent falls off the house front during a fierce storm. The old snake, ostracized from the village decades earlier, has left his terrible influence on Amos, a residential school survivor. The occurrence signals the unfolding of an ordeal that pulls Celia out of her reveries and into the tragedy of her cousin’s granddaughter. Each one of Celia’s family becomes involved in creating a greater solution than merely attending to her cousin’s granddaughter. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Rape, child abuse, addiction
Keeper’n Me
Richard Wagamese
When Garnet Raven was three years old, he was taken from his home on an Ojibway Indian reserve and placed in a series of foster homes. Having reached his mid-teens, he escapes at the first available opportunity, only to find himself cast adrift on the streets of the big city. Having skirted the urban underbelly once too often by age 20, he finds himself thrown in jail. While there, he gets a surprise letter from his long-forgotten native family. The sudden communication from his past spurs him to return to the reserve following his release from jail. Deciding to stay awhile, his life is changed completely as he comes to discover his sense of place, and of self. While on the reserve, Garnet is initiated into the ways of the Ojibway – both ancient and modern – by Keeper, a friend of his grandfather, and last fount of history about his people’s ways. By turns funny, poignant and mystical, Keeper’n Me reflects a positive view of Native life and philosophy – as well as casting fresh light on the redemptive power of one’s community and traditions. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Depictions of colonisation, kidnapping, addiction, alcoholism, genocide, animal death, death, gun violence
The Marrow Thieves
Cherie Dimaline
Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The Indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden — but what they don’t know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Depictions of genocide, racism, death, child death, rape, sexual assault, alcoholism, animal death, and cannibalism
Nonfiction
Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life
James Daschuk
In arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics—the politics of ethnocide—played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of aboriginal people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald’s “National Dream.” It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between First Nations and non-Native populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Depictions of death, chronic illness, racism, child death, gun violence, misogyny, and domestic abuse
Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers
Mark Cronlund Anderson and Carmen. L Robertson
The first book to examine the role of Canada’s newspapers in perpetuating the myth of Native inferiority. Seeing Red is a groundbreaking study of how Canadian English-language newspapers have portrayed Aboriginal peoples from 1869 to the present day. It assesses a wide range of publications on topics that include the sale of Rupert’s Land, the signing of Treaty 3, the North-West Rebellion and Louis Riel, the death of Pauline Johnson, the outing of Grey Owl, the discussions surrounding Bill C-31, the “Bended Elbow” standoff at Kenora, Ontario, and the Oka Crisis. The authors uncover overwhelming evidence that the colonial imaginary not only thrives, but dominates depictions of Aboriginal peoples in mainstream newspapers. The colonial constructs ingrained in the news media perpetuate an imagined Native inferiority that contributes significantly to the marginalization of Indigenous people in Canada. That such imagery persists to this day suggests strongly that our country lives in denial, failing to live up to its cultural mosaic boosterism. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Discussions of racism, colonization, and other potentially triggering topics
Siksikaitsitapi: Stories of the Blackfoot People
Payne Many Guns, Crystal Many Fingers, Sheena Potts, Latasha Calf Robe, Tim Fox, Marlene Yellow Horn, and DerRic Starlight
In Siksikaitsitapi: Stories of the Blackfoot People, six authors share their stories that come from both from legend and from their personal experiences, with many of the stories in both Blackfoot and English languages. The book is illustrated with beautiful full-colour pictures and photos which help convey these stories from Blackfoot traditional and contemporary traditions and cultures.The Blackfoot Confederacy is made up of the Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, and Amskapi Piikuni Nations of Southern Alberta and Montana. Payne Many Guns’ story captures the ways the Blackfoot People live in harmony with the land, animals, and stars in their traditional lands. Crystal Many Fingers tells a delightful, modern story about animals, their gifts, and why they were put on Earth. Sheena Potts’ story beautifully illustrates the many ways love is alive in Blackfoot traditions and culture. Tim Fox tells a humorous story about mice who are having a celebration that the raven Napi and a group of dogs want to join. Marlene Yellow Horn shares her personal story of the teachings she learned as a child about the Elders’ traditional and sacred knowledge. DerRic Starlight tells the tale of Morning Star’s diverse and loving family life. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Not specified
Blackfoot Ways of Knowing: The Worldview of the Siksikaitsitapi
Betty Bastien
Blackfoot Ways of Knowing is a journey into the heart and soul of Blackfoot culture. As a scholar and researcher, Betty Bastien places Blackfoot tradition within a historical context of precarious survival amid colonial displacement and cultural genocide. In sharing her personal story of reclaimed identity, Bastien offers a gateway into traditional Blackfoot ways of understanding and experiencing the world. For the Siksikaitsitapi, knowledge is experiential, participatory, and ultimately sacred. Bastien maps her own process of coming to know, stressing the recovery of the Blackfoot language and Blackfoot notions of reciprocal responsibilities and interdependence. Rekindling traditional ways of knowing is essential for Indigenous peoples in Canada to heal and rebuild their communities and cultures. By sharing what she has learned, Betty Bastien hopes to ensure that the next generation of Indigenous people will enjoy a future of hope and peace. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Not specified
Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City
Tanya Talaga
In 1966, twelve-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied. More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city. Five were found dead in the rivers surrounding Lake Superior, below a sacred Indigenous site. Jordan Wabasse, a gentle boy and star hockey player, disappeared into the minus twenty degrees Celsius night. The body of celebrated artist Norval Morrisseau’s grandson, Kyle, was pulled from a river, as was Curran Strang’s. Robyn Harper died in her boarding-house hallway and Paul Panacheese inexplicably collapsed on his kitchen floor. Reggie Bushie’s death finally prompted an inquest, seven years after the discovery of Jethro Anderson, the first boy whose body was found in the water. Using a sweeping narrative focusing on the lives of the students, award-winning investigative journalist Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this small northern city that has come to manifest Canada’s long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Racism, child death, death, suicide, child abuse, alcohol, alcoholism, drug use, sexual assault
Weasel Tail: Stories Told by Joe Crowshoe Sr. (Aapohsoy’yiis), a Peigan-Blackfoot Elder
Michael Ross
The generation to which Joe and Josephine Crowshoe belonged spanned more than the length of their lifetimes. That generation fought heroically in world wars and at the same time raised children under a paternalistic federal regime that denied both a culture and a heritage. The Crowshoes regained their heritage and shared it with the larger community, gaining respect from all the people with whom they were in contact and becoming articulate representatives and the holders of stories, legends, and customs. The interviews in Weasel Tail track not just their personal stories but the stories of a people who insisted on being recognized and a culture born out of the land of southern Alberta. Paralleling the interviews, Mike Ross has included historical photographs and documentation of a world and people who are a rich part of Alberta’s history. (StoryGraph)
Content Warnings
Not specified
Step 2: Educate Others
Once you’ve taken the time to learn about Indigenous stories and history yourself, make a point to stand up for truth and reconciliation in your community. If you hear family members, friends, or people around you spreading misinformation or harmful rhetoric about Indigenous groups, speak up! An important part of working towards truth and reconciliation is combating misinformation and encouraging education. By educating yourself, you can improve at disengaging mistruths with truth.
It’s important not only to educate ourselves on the horrors of residential schools and colonization, but on Indigenous history and culture as well. When we say “Indigenous”, we are actually referring to a collective of over 100 distinct groups with separate cultures, languages, and territories. We must also pay attention and support Indigenous peoples today in their continuous battle for agency over the rights for their traditional land.
If you are looking for more information, more details on the history of residential schools, or for ways to contribute, The National Center for Truth and Reconciliation is a great resource.
About The Author
Lorraiya Blurton is a 2nd year Fine Arts student at the University of Calgary, and an aspiring artist. They love travelling, singing, and learning new languages. They love to read, especially non-fiction and books about the queer experience. They hold dual roles as VP Events and Director of Diversity within the UCalgary Readers Society.
References
Cordeiro, C. L. (2025, May 8). 8 ways to engage in truth and reconciliation. Faculty of Health Sciences. https://healthsci.mcmaster.ca/8-ways-to-engage-in-truth-and-reconciliation/
Government of Canada. National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. (2026, September 15). canada.ca. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/national-day-truth-reconciliation.html
Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC). (2026, July 24). What is Truth and Reconciliation? | Truth and Reconciliation | Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC). https://issbc.org/tools-resources/increase-your-knowledge-information-and-resources/
National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. (2026, March 23). Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action – NCTR. National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. https://nctr.ca/about/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-of-canada-calls-to-action/
National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. (2026a, March 23). Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada – NCTR. NCTR – National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. https://nctr.ca/about/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-of-canada/