Acadia Reads 2018

The Acadia Reads initiative encourages the Acadia community to share their love of books by reading Thomas King's The Inconvenient Indian and participating in programming surrounding the book.

How did we decide whose story to tell? The Campus Community voted for the book that Acadia Reads from a shortlist. The closing date for voting was April 20th, 2018 at midnight.

The Shortlist

The Marrow Thieves

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.

About the author: Cherie Dimaline

Braiding Sweetgrass

The awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.

About the author: Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Inconvenient Indian

Acadia Reads 2018 Winner!

The Inconvenient Indian is at once a "history" and the complete subversion of a history—in short, a critical and personal meditation that the remarkable Thomas King has conducted over the past 50 years about what it means to be "Indian" in North America.

About the author: Thomas King

Birdie

A big, beautiful Cree woman with a dark secret in her past, Bernice (”Birdie”) has left her home in northern Alberta to travel to Gibsons, B.C. She is on something of a vision quest, looking for family, for home, for understanding.

About the author: Tracey Lindberg

The Break

When Stella, a young Métis mother, looks out her window one evening and sees someone in trouble on the Break—a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house—she calls the police to alert them to a possible crime. In a series of shifting narratives, people who are connected with the violence—police, family, and friends—tell their personal stories leading up to that fateful night.

Author: Katherena Vermette

Selection Criteria

The committee produced a long-list of twelve titles. These books were read and voted on to produce a short-list of five titles.

  • An Indigenous author writes the 2018 book.
  • The book must be capable of generating discussion and an exchange of ideas.
  • The book must be appealing to students with a focus on first-year undergraduates.

Selection Committee

  • Jeff Hooper – Dean of Pure and Applied Sciences, Interim
  • Donna Hurlburt – Aboriginal Advisor, Acadia University
  • Abu Kamara – Coordinator Accessible Learning Services
  • Maggie Nielsen – Librarian in Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences
  • Samantha Nixon – ASU Vice-President Academic 2017-18
  • Anthony Pash – Librarian in Professional Studies and Faculty of Theology
  • Danielle Pierce – Instructional Designer, Learning Technologies & Instructional Design
  • Ann Smith (Chair) – Librarian in Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences
  • Britanie Wentzell – Librarian in Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Professional Studies

Contest Winner

Community Development graduate student, Chaiti Seth was the winner of an Amazon gift card and a book of her choice from the 2018 shortlist. Chaiti selected Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Acadia Reads chairperson, Ann Smith presented Chaiti with her draw prizes May 3, 2018.

2017 Shortlist and Winner

The campus community selected 13 Ways of Looking At A Fat Girl by Mona Awad as its Acadia Reads 2017 book.