TOP TEN FAVORITE BOOKS

It is Top Ten Tuesday again! Ready for an eclectic list? He is my list of my Top Ten Favorite Books and book series.

1. Drew Hayden Taylor's Blues Quartet: Bootlegger Blues, Baby Blues, Buz'gem Blues & Berlin Blues.
   Drew Hayden Taylor is an Ojibway Playwright. Many of his plays have been printed as books. They are hilarious and he is my favorite author (so he will appear again on this list). The Blues quartet is a series of plays that take place in different locals. The characters are intertwined throughout the plays and they are parody's of Native and White stereotypes. A chance for us all to laugh together. And who better to deliver them then an Ojibway that is also half white?
2. Louisa May Alcott's Little Women Series: Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, Jo's Boys. This has been a favorite of mine since I first read them as a little girl. Taking Place during and after the civil war in America. I had basically nothing in common with Meg, Jo, Beth or Amy but their feelings and emotions were so real I couldn't help but become each of them as I read. I loved all the books but I think Little Men was always my favorite. I enjoyed the movie with Winona Ryder as well.
3. William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. Blake is my favorite poet. I also love the artwork that each poem is set in (also done by Blake). The collection is two parts the first a state of innocence. It takes place in childhood. The second; experience is collection of poems matching the first but in later years of a persons life, or as perceived by an older person.
4. A Little Matter Of Genocide by Ward Churchill. This is a book that I think should be read by highschool aged students (younger students my struggle with the language and comprehension). This is a detailed accountnt of the holocaust and denial in the Americas of Native people.
5. alterNATIVES, also by Drew Hayden Taylor. This book is a great laugh! I can't count how often I have read it. It is about a dinner party. The hosting couple is a Native man (and former activist), and his girlfriend who is a Native Issues Professor. She has invited his former activist buddies and her veggie, enviro conscious friends. Dinner between Natives and veggies is always a comedy, you should read it!
6. William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. Well hopefully you know this classic tale of two star crossed lovers. I love it. I love the tragedy, and I love the comedy. It makes me laugh and cry. However I failed to find a movie version that I liked until the one with Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Danes.
7. Mary Crow Dog's autobiography Lakota Woman and Ohitika Woman. This is the autobiography of a Woman who came of age in the late sixties when Native people were finding our voices. She became an activist and a traditional Woman. She had joys and struggles and doesn't hold back. This is a very real look into Native life on the Rosebud Reservation.
8. 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy & other misheard lyrics by Chris Kalb. This is a book that is one quick laugh after another. Not a novel, just a fun read. The author apparently suffered the embarrassment of singing misheard lyrics and eventually wrote a book full of people's misheard lyrics.
9. The Secret Life Of Emily Dickinson by Jerome Charyn. This is a fictional biography but oh was it a good read. If you read Emily Dickinson's poetry this sounds like her. I think it was a good read.
10. Drew Hayden Taylor's Someday Trilogy: Someday, Only Drunks & Children Tell The truth, 400 Kilometers. This is a trilogy that speaks to me like no other, and speaks to my generation of native people. It is the story of the 60's scoop (which I was a part of). It is told through a few characters as a Native Women taken during the scoop returns home, and all the struggles of doing so. the second one takes place after her Mother (she met once) dies and she builds a relationship with her sister, and then lastly the book concludes with life coming full circle. This is one I think should be read by students, and adults. This is the story of my people that is largely un-known, and needs to be heard.