For September/October 2022 and in honour of International Literacy Day (September 8), National Day of Truth and Reconciliation/Orange Shirt Day (September 30), LGBT History Month in Canada (October), and World Mental Health Day (October 10), we are honoured to feature and share with you Joshua Whitehead's first novel and the 2021 CANADA READS WINNER, Jonny Appleseed. The book tells the intimate, compelling, heartbreaking yet inspiring story of a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer named Jonny Appleseed. The story focuses on Jonny's life as a young boy living on the reserve as well as his life as a young man living off the reserve in the big city. In the city, Johnny is trying to navigate through the challenges of life, love, and survival. Jonny's stories touch on the themes of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and unconditional love.
"You're gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine."
~Joshua Whitehead (from Jonny Appleseed)
Educational Resources
Click the link to access the Educational Resources to Read to Learn & Learn to Change with us!
About the Author
Joshua Whitehead (he/him) is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is a poet, author, Ph.D. candidate, lecturer, and Killam scholar at the University of Calgary where he studies Indigenous literatures and cultures with a focus on gender and sexuality. His Ph.D. dissertation, tentatively titled "Feral Fatalisms," is a hybrid narrative of theory, essay, and non-fiction that interrogates the role of "ferality" inherent within Indigenous ways of being (with a strong focus on nêhiyawewin). To learn more about Joshua Whitehead, visit his website!
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