In partnership with the Ottawa Public Library, Our Stories: Indigenous Book Club runs from January - June 2021, with monthly books including poetry, fiction, memoirs and plays. At the end of each month, join us for an online conversation with each book’s author on Facebook live.

Our May book is ‘Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies’ by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. On May 19 at 7pm EDT, join us for this live, online discussion with author Leanne Betasamosake Simpson to discuss the book.

We’ll be sharing reflection questions in our book club Facebook event throughout May. Feel free to engage and share your thoughts about the book throughout the month!

Click here to borrow the book from the Ottawa Public Library. 

If you’re unable to get a copy of ‘Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies’ from the Ottawa Public Library, we encourage folks to purchase the book from Indigenous owned and operated book stores. The Ottawa Public Library has a great list available here. 

We’re excited to read with you all this month! 

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May’s Book - ‘Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies’ by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Please note: this book is intended for adult readers.

About the book

Mashkawaji (they/them) lies frozen in the ice, remembering a long-ago time of hopeless connection and now finding freedom and solace in isolated suspension. They introduce us to the seven main characters: Akiwenzii, the old man who represents the narrator's will; Ninaatig, the maple tree who represents their lungs; Mindimooyenh, the old woman who represents their conscience; Sabe, the giant who represents their marrow; Adik, the caribou who represents their nervous system; Asin, the human who represents their eyes and ears; and Lucy, the human who represents their brain. Each attempts to commune with the unnatural urban-settler world, a world of SpongeBob Band-Aids, Ziploc baggies, Fjällräven Kånken backpacks, and coffee mugs emblazoned with institutional logos. And each searches out the natural world, only to discover those pockets that still exist are owned, contained, counted, and consumed. Cut off from nature, the characters are cut off from their natural selves.

About the author

Leanne Betasomosake Simpson is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, scholar, and musician, and a member of Alderville First Nation. She is the author of five previous books, including This Accident of Being Lost, which won the MacEwan Book of the Year and the Peterborough Arts Award for Outstanding Achievement by an Indigenous Author; was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award; was longlisted for CBC Canada Reads; and was named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail, National Post, and Quill & Quire. She has released two albums, including f(l)ight, which is a companion piece to This Accident of Being Lost.