Each December, NWT Literacy Council staff choose a book that they will be giving as a gift, would like to receive and read over the holiday, or a favourite book they have been given in the past. This is the first half of our picks. Read our blog again next week to see more.
The book that I’m choosing to recommend for a Christmas gift this year is educated by Tara Westover. This is a memoir about the author’s fundamentalist upbringing in the mountains of Idaho. Growing up, Westover didn’t go to school, to a doctor, or even have a birth certificate until the age of 9. Instead, she spent most of her time in the mountains exploring: assisting her mother as a healer and midwife, and working in the family’s junkyard. Through motivation from an older brother she takes the leap from her life to pursue a new life and education.
- Charlotte Upton, Family and Community Literacy Coordinator
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
This book was gifted to me during Christmas of 2007 by my older sister, Jennifer. It is a beautifully crafted novel that captivated me from start to finish, as I read it at lightning speed. This is the kind of novel that sweeps you away on a journey to another world each time you hunker down and open its cover. To this day, it is one of my favourite books that I recommend to anyone who has not yet had the pleasure of reading it!
- Stephanie van Pelt, Community Oral Health Literacy Coordinator
This year I am giving May We Have Enough to Share by Richard Van Camp to my brand new niece. I have given Richard’s previous board books to each new baby in my life, and I am so happy to give this new beautiful book. I love the combination of Richard’s words, quillwork artistry and photography of families by Tea & Bannock, a collective blog of Indigenous women photographers.
-Katie Johnson, Family and Community Literacy Coordinator
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
I will be giving this to my partner as a Christmas present. It was the first book written in the “MaddAddam” trilogy, and was the first book to awaken my awe and adoration for dystopian literature. The characters and creatures that dwell in this book effortlessly capture the imagination, simultaneously warming your heart while ripping it out of your chest. Seventeen years later, there are days that I feel the line between fact and fiction is blurred, and it makes me fall in love with this series all over again.
- Coleen Hardisty, Youth Literacy Coordinator
