Deb

I read Genesis first. 

I didn’t love it. I wanted to love it, and I felt like I learned a lot about the perspective of the main character by reading it, but I didn’t find the writing to be overly strong and I felt myself rolling my eyes sometimes at the forced inclusion of musical references and the sometimes cliche responses of the characters. 

This Place was the clear winner for me. It does a beautiful job of giving us history lessons that are meaningful, succinct, and powerful. I think that the way the author gives us the details of the event, shows us on a timeline when it took place in the history of our country, and then tells the story in the graphic novel format will be impactful for students and will help them to see these historical events from the perspective of First Nations, Metis and Inuit people. Having the illustrations along with the more traditional presentation of facts will also support students to understand these events on a much deeper level. This book would be a wonderful addition to any class library from grade 3 up to grade 12. 

My vote is for This Place: 150 Years Retold.

Ashley 

I had high hopes for Genesis. The author allowed me to really learn a lot by presenting the world of a protagonist that is very opposite from my own experiences, but that was the big struggle for me, I learned a lot in this book. Rather than presenting itself as an intriguing piece of literature, Genesis reads more like a lesson and I need more than that from a book to truly fall in love with it. 

I’m probably (more than probably) biased towards This Place because I love graphic novels and the graphics in this novel are STUNNING. It is a collection of different Indigenous Short Stories, each with not only a different author, but a different illustrator. There is something for everyone in this story, as if you ever have a problem with any of the stories/writing you can just flip a few pages to find a stunning new piece of writing! This book succeeds where Genesis stumbled, in that I learned a lot throughout this book, but I didn’t feel like that learning was forced.

My vote is for This Place: 150 Years Retold.