Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese

Winner of the Canada Reads People’s Choice award and the First Nations Communities Reads program and short-listed for the International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award.

Richard Wagamese is an Ojibway from the Wabaseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario. He is the author of four novels, including the award-winning Dream Wheels. His autobiographical book For Joshua was published to critical acclaim, and One Native Life was selected as one of the Globe & Mail‘s Top 100 Books of the Year. He lives outside Kamloops, British Columbia.

This story comes highly recommended by a number of my male students who love hockey. It is hockey that becomes the catalyst that changes the life of Saul Indian Horse, growing up in a northern Ontario residential school.

Excerpt:

‘My grandmother had always referred to the universe as the Great Mystery.

“What does it mean?” I asked her once.

“It means all things.”

“I don’t understand.”

She took my hand and sat me down on a rock at the water’s edge. “We need mystery,” she said. “Creator in her wisdom knew this. Mystery fills us with awe and wonder. They are the foundations of humility, and humility, grandson, is the foundation of all learning. So we do not seek to unravel this. We honour it by letting it be that way forever.”‘