Review: #NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women

Title: #NotYourPrincess
Author: Lisa Charleyboy, Mary Beth Leatherdale
Genre: Non-Fiction, Poetry
Publisher: Annick Press
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Release Date: September 12, 2017
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Whether looking back to a troubled past or welcoming a hopeful future, the powerful voices of Indigenous women across North America resound in this book. In the same style as the best-selling Dreaming in Indian, #NotYourPrincess presents an eclectic collection of poems, essays, interviews, and art that combine to express the experience of being a Native woman. Stories of abuse, humiliation, and stereotyping are countered by the voices of passionate women making themselves heard and demanding change. Sometimes angry, often reflective, but always strong, the women in this book will give teen readers insight into the lives of women who, for so long, have been virtually invisible.

Review:

This is a very powerful collection of stories from Native American Women.

These stories were in multiple different forms. There are poems, short stories, essays, as well as paintings, photographs, and drawings. One of the stories was in the form of a comic, and another looked like pages torn from a notebook. Each of them were different and used a different format.

There were a few pieces on the residential schools in Canada. For those that don’t know, the residential schools separated Native children from their parents, and raised them to be “white.” They removed their Indigenous culture from them, and refused to let them practice it. The women who wrote these stories are the children of the kids who were sent to residential schools. Though they didn’t witness it first hand, they have seen the pain that their parents still feel from their time spent there.

There was also an essay about how racist and harmful a Pocahontas costume is for Halloween. It represents more than just a character, even if the wearer means no harm. It is a costume but it represents a real person, who cannot take it off at the end of the night. People also think that Indigenous women need to look a certain way. There were a couple of pieces on not looking Indigenous enough, as if you can’t identify as a Native Woman if you have the wrong colour hair or skin. I find it crazy that people can think that, because they wouldn’t say that other cultures. For some reason people judge Indigenous people by what percentage of Native heritage they have in their genes,

I loved this collection of Native American Women’s voices.

Author: jilljemmett

Jill lives in Toronto, Canada. She has studied English, Creative Writing, and Publishing. Jill is the creator and content producer of Jill’s Book Blog, where she has published a blog post every day for the last four years, including 5-7 book reviews a week. She can usually be found with her nose in a book. View all posts by jilljemmett

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