No comments about Song of Rita Joe: Autobiography of a Mi'kmaq Poet (American Indian Lives).

1 comments about Waking Nanabijou: Uncovering a Secret Past.

1. Waking Nanabijou is an outstanding piece of work, beautifully crafted and meticulously researched. More than that, it is clearly the product of a wonderful labour of love. The rich details of Jim Poling Sr.'s close family life as a youngster in northern Ontario are particularly rich in warmth and drama. Some readers may guess the secret that is the book's foundation before the author reveals it. Nevertheless, Poling's story line about following old trails until he came to the truth reads like a great mystery novel. The final chapter of Waking Nanabijou is disturbing in its unvarnished clarity about the stark situation facing Canada's First Peoples. Poling raises many questions here. They deserve answers.

No comments about Rusty Nails and Ration Books: Memories of the Great Depression and WWII 1929-1945.

1 comments about Metis Makers of History.

1. Not bad, I was not expecting much I waas surprised with some of the research

No comments about Bill Reid: Beyond the Essential Form (Museum Note, No 19).

1 comments about On Six Continents: Life in Canada's Foreign Service 1966-2002.

1. This book is strictly a biography, which is not what I was looking for. I was hoping to learn about Canada's Foreign Service department and about the work of foreign service employees. The book is written at high school level, and never goes into depth on any topic. It's a good book for Mr. Bartleman to give to his children, and for people who want a great story to read in an evening or two.

No comments about History in Their Blood : The Indian Portraits of Nicholas de Grandmaison.

3 comments about Grey Owl: The Many Faces of Archie Belaney.

1. It has been said, "one cannot judge a book by it's cover", however, we must also keep in mind that there are no absolutes as this book is a story which is depicted, in large measure, by the cover. Sensitive, warm, and poetic presentation of the life and contributions of Grey Owl. The photos exceptional in quality, and accurate as to life and times of the era. These are real people, places, and times that were a part of North American history. The manner in which sayings and aspects of Grey Owl are available as the story unfolds are done in such a manner I think you get two books for the price of one. I read the book from cover to cover the first time then re-read the white pages only, and then followed by reading the tan colored pages. Either way it is easy, fast, and enjoyable. I think the author did an excellent job in demonstrating the efforts of Grey Owl. He was an interesting fellow who had a vision and purpose in life which is so unique that a major moving picture has been make about him as well as four documantaries. Jane Billinghurst has created a work which makes possible an interpretation of the content, by the reader, as it is a factual and well documented treatise. There have been several books published about Grey Owl, in my opinion this is, like the Land of Shadows (Don Smith), is a must read for a deeper appreciation of this most remarkable fellow, Grey Owl.



2. This is a wonderful book. Well researched and balanced. Jane Billinghurst tells the story of Archie B. and I could not put it down. Other's have borrowed it and have praised it also. I am off to check out what else Billinghurst has written!



3. Beautifully -- in places lyrically -- written, this small volume makes a compelling case for preservation of the natural beauty that once prevailed throughout North America, and which now has become all too rare. Never straying far from her main theme (the life of Grey Owl), Jane Billinghurst draws us into the passion and dedication of her subject, leading us reflect on environmental questions not as dry policy issues, but as ones that can relate to an almost spiritual connection between the individual and his natural surroundings. Must reading for historians, environmentalists, and those with an interest in Canada, this insightful book is thoroughly rewarding for the general reader as well. Very highly recommended.

No comments about The Hollow Tree: Fighting Addiction With Traditional Native Healing (Mcgill-Queen's Native and Northern Series).

5 comments about It Stops with Me: Memoir of a Canuck Girl.

1. Charleen Touchette's story "The Pie Religion" is online in the May issue of Késsinnimek - Roots - Racines
   
   "What a loving, touching article! I could see, smell, hear everything, thanks to your beautiful descriptions. And what memories of my own childhood you brought back; we, too, had a pie religion among the women in our large family. My mother even had a modest business of making pies for the restaurants and the hotel in our little Northern Vermont town.
   Indeed, the secret to pie-making is passed on from mother to daughter to daughter as a sacred tradition.
   Thanks for a great read!
   I've recommended your article to several people, with my comment that if I could write as well as you, I'd give up quilting and stitching...and making pies!"
   Louise Dubrule



2. An autobiography of a spunky Franco-American woman from Woonsocket, Rhode Island gives cultural storytelling multi-generational appeal. Too many Franco-Americans (with ancestral roots in French-Canada) are quickly amalgamating into the mainstream of American culture without writing their special family stories. Fortunately, Charleen Touchette, a Woonsocket, Rhode Island writer and artist now living in New Mexico, puts both of her pleasingly creative talents together in "It Stops With Me: Memoir of a Cannuck Girl".
   Touchette writes about her Franco-American roots by relating simple, often bittersweet and even brutal experiences growing up as a typical French Catholic girl in Woonsocket and later as an accomplished artist.
   Moreover, Touchette energizes her autobiography's prose with a series of original black, and white and color print blocks. In other words, "It Stops With Me" expresses Touchette's Franco-American creativity using prose accentuated by her surprisingly cutting edge original art describing absorbing coming of age experiences. Her journey from a parochial Franco-American into her adult life is fraught with opportunities, along with unexpected harsh challenges. Her life is ordinary in some ways but hardly a nostalgic cake walk.
   "It Stops With Me" is at its best when Touchette looks back and elevates normal Franco-American experiences to familiarities we can identify with. For example, she describes cooking with her "Ma Tantes" or getting ready to receive First Holy Communion at Woonsocket's Eglise Précieux-Sang (Church of Precious Blood).
   Discord arises at a young age. Growing up as a French Roman Catholic girl is an underlying theme. Touchette's typical childhood is without the benefit of feeling safe at home, as she depicts in one of her portraits of a "Not a Picture Perfect Family".
   Rather, Touchette's absorbing life story endures familial stress, social and personal conflicts, even leading to physical ailments, which haunt her into adult years.
   Touchette's hard hitting narrative is set apart from others of the modern autobiographic genre by the intimate and complicated relationships she shares with her family. Delving even deeper into her private spiral are the intense personal investigations Touchette undertakes with regard to her sad relationship with her father.
   Nevertheless, in spite of the particular circumstances, it's typical of Franco-Americans to harbor deep attachments for their relatives and parents regardless of obvious flaws, shortcomings or even family violence. Female family role models are especially strong in Touchette's life. "Although my Maman was a devout Catholic, she was a strong supporter of my right to freedom of expression," writes Touchette. In fact, her female relatives were outraged when Touchette even considered not going to college after high school. In her Woonsocket Franco-Americans world, Touchette writes about how curious it was to be singled out for college when no other woman in her family ever went beyond a high school education.
   Throughout the autobiography, her French heritage is front and center, even when she embraces the peace of Judaism.
   Many of the book's chapters are charmingly led by simple French titles.
   Touchette's talent as a creative writer moves the reader beyond the dark side of her autobiography. Using the power of words, she inspires us to learn more about her as an individual woman with a spellbinding story to tell. Touchette does a good job explaining the pros and cons of the personal contrasts she inherited from her religious and ethnic roots. This is a well written autobiography, nominated for book awards, with a progressive social focus.



3. Reviewer Jennifer Lefkowitz chose "It Stops with Me" as the Book Special for "Girlfriends Magazine" November 2005 issue, p. 58 with two color photos of Touchette's art.
   
   "It Stops with Me: Memoir of a Cannuck Girl"
   
   "Charleen Touchette's memoir is healing and cathartic, a story of survival and triumph as a victim of childhood abuse. The author is an artist, and throughout the book she showcases her paintings, which resemble the work of painter Frida Kahlo. Like Kahlo, Touchette survived vehicle collisions; after a spine injury she is able to connect her past to her present. This compelling memoir dives into the dark trenches of that past, confronting memories with ancient practices. "I learned it is the task of all human beings to cut through the fog and illusion of maya, and reconnect with the light." A - Jennifer Lefkowitz
   
   "Water Illumination" (top) and "Boom Boom Boom" are two of the many paintings which illustrate the author's journey."



4. December 14, 2005
   
   Woonsocket Harris Public Library Board of Trustees
   Diane Rivers, Chair
   Dorian Parker, Vice-Chair
   Lisa Sparks, Secretary
   John Pellizzari
   Ernest "Buddy" DiSpirito
   303 Clinton Street
   Woonsocket, RI 02895-3214
   Fax: 401-767-4140
   
   Dear Members of the Woonsocket Harris Public Library Board of Trustees,
   
   On behalf of the 2,900 members of PEN American Center, an international organization of writers dedicated to protecting freedom of expression wherever it is threatened, we are writing to express our deep concern over the fact that the Woonsocket Public Library Trustees are considering a request to ban It Stops with Me: Memoir of a Canuck Girl written by native Woonsocket author-artist Charleen Touchette.
   
   We understand that a citizen request to ban the book was made at the Library Trustees' September meeting. The Library Trustees removed the book from the Woonsocket Harris Public Library shelves after the September meeting pending a decision.
   
   It Stops with Me: Memoir of a Canuck Girl, the latest work by author-artist Charleen Touchette, invites you into the provincial world of a French Canadian girl in Rhode Island who cannot tell anybody her family secrets. Years later when she has her first daughter she must relive her childhood to heal the future generations of her family. It is a story of survival and triumph as a victim of childhood abuse and was written for an adult audience. The novel tells a realistic story with complex figures. Such books help readers approach sensitive topics and figure out how to deal with them. Even if the novel's themes are too mature for some, they will be meaningful to others. No book is right for everyone, and the role of the library is to allow community members to make choices according to their own interests, experiences, and family values.
   
   Author Charleen Touchette, a member of our colleague organizations PEN USA and the Author's Guild, advocates for the freedom to write worldwide. It Stops with Me has been praised by authors Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Louise Erdrich, Margaret Randall, Ana Pacheco, and Winona LaDuke, and received a Foreword Book of the Year 2004 Finalist Award.
   
   PEN American Center respectfully asks you to deny the request to ban It Stops with Me: Memoir of a Canuck Girl and to return it to library shelves. By doing so, you will be upholding a fundamental principle of freedom: the right of all Americans to read, inquire, question, and think for themselves.
   
   Thank you for your attention to this matter.
   
   Sincerely,
   
   Hannah Pakula
   
   Larry Siems
   Chair, Freedom to Write Committee Director, Freedom to Write
   and International Programs



5. "This book is incredible." Louise Erdrich
   "beautiful book." Lawrence Ferlinghetti
   "Tough, evocative, border-crossing, honest, unflinching...large enough so it can embrace its readers. Margaret Randall, Author. PEN NM Lifetime Achievement Awardee 2005
   "An emotion-charged story of initial struggle and ultimate success...a must in any library collection." Book Wire
   "magnificent in its courage and decency." Sam Ballen Author Without Reservations.
   
   Great Reads - New Mexico Magazine, April 2005 p. 45.
   Personal Journeys: More Than Just Survival by Michelle Miller Allen
   "Our girlhood years, formed in various cultures and family configurations-from the most abusive to the most loving-and tempered by the social prejudices and taboos of one's time-are where we begin our journeys into adulthood. These factors have much to do with whether we will just survive or become empowered by the most demanding, even devastating, events on our individual paths.
   It Stops with Me: Memoir of a Canuck Girl by Charleen Touchette (TouchArt Books 2004) Touchette's memoir opens the doors into the lives of women who shaped her childhood into adulthood-the healers, storytellers, homemakers, and artists. This most compelling book includes fascinating color and black and white reproductions of the author's artwork over three decades. The book charts Touchette's journey from a French Canadian/RhodeIsland childhood at the hands of an abusive alcoholic father, to Wellesley College, to New York City's culture of arts, to Minnesota and Indian Country.
   Touchette combines the voice of the reminiscing adult writer/artist with that of a child obsessed with "making things" as a survival mechanism. Abusive parents seem to bank on the false assumption that their children, as adults, will not remember abuse. Yet anyone who doubts the intelligence and level of awareness in a young, abused human being should read the end of Chapter "Forsythia Blossoms": "I do not know when I started fighting back. I do not have a memory of when Daddy started hitting me. I was too young. But I do remember clearly the moment when I looked up at my dad's face, and realized he was a fool. I was seven."