Valley of the Birdtail
An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation
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Valley of the Birdtail
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Narrated by:
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Greg Rogers
About this listen
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Winner – 2023 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize
Winner – 2023 John W. Dafoe Book Prize
Winner – 2023 High Plains Book Award for Indigenous Writer
Winner – 2022 Manitoba Historical Society Margaret McWilliams Book Award for Local History
Finalist – 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize
Finalist – Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
Nominated – 2023 Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading Evergreen Award
Shortlisted – 2023 Quebec Writers’ Federation Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction and Concordia University First Book Prize
Finalist – Canadian Law and Society Association Book Prize
Longlisted – 2023-2024 First Nations Communities Read
A heart-rending true story about racism and reconciliation
Divided by a beautiful valley and 150 years of racism, the town of Rossburn and the Waywayseecappo Indian reserve have been neighbours nearly as long as Canada has been a country. Their story reflects much of what has gone wrong in relations between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous Canadians. It also offers, in the end, an uncommon measure of hope.
Valley of the Birdtail is about how two communities became separate and unequal—and what it means for the rest of us. In Rossburn, once settled by Ukrainian immigrants who fled poverty and persecution, family income is near the national average and more than a third of adults have graduated from university. In Waywayseecappo, the average family lives below the national poverty line and less than a third of adults have graduated from high school, with many haunted by their time in residential schools.
This book follows multiple generations of two families, one white and one Indigenous, and weaves their lives into the larger story of Canada. It is a story of villains and heroes, irony and idealism, racism and reconciliation. Valley of the Birdtail has the ambition to change the way we think about our past and show a path to a better future.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2022 Douglas Sanderson and Andrew Stobo Sniderman (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, Wangari Maathai has been fighting for environmental responsibility and democracy in her native Kenya for over 35 years. Unbowed recounts the incredible journey that culminated in her appointment to Parliament in 2002. Despite repeated jailings, beatings, and other obstacles along the way, Maathai created the Green Belt Movement and never relented in her goal to bring democracy to Kenya.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Amazing story of this woman, but missing something
- By Peter on 06-29-11
By: Wangari Maathai
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Confucius Never Said
- By: Helen Raleigh
- Narrated by: Helen Raleigh
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Story5 out of 5 stars 25
This book is a four-generation family journey from repression and poverty in China to freedom and prosperity in the United States. Their lives overlap with many significant historical events taking....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wake up America
- By K and J on 12-14-19
By: Helen Raleigh
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A Warrior of the People
- How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America’s First Indian Doctor
- By: Joe Starita
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
On March 14, 1889, Susan La Flesche received her medical degree - becoming the first Native American doctor in US history. She earned her degree 31 years before women could vote and 35 years before Indians could become citizens in their own country. This is the story of an Indian woman who effectively became the chief of an entrenched patriarchal tribe, the story of a woman who crashed through thick walls of ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice and then spent the rest of her life using a unique bicultural identity to improve the lot of her people.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Remarkable Woman
- By Jean on 11-27-16
By: Joe Starita
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Black Titan
- A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire
- By: Carol Jenkins
- Narrated by: Susan Spain
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 460
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 395
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Story5 out of 5 stars 395
A.G. Gaston, the poor grandson of slaves, was born in the Deep South in 1892. Over the course of his extraordinary life, he amassed a fortune of over $130 million and a vast business empire. The story of his remarkable life is written with eloquence and grace by his niece, an Emmy¿ Award-winning journalist and her daughter, who holds degrees from Yale and Harvard.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Black Gold = Standing Ovation
- By 2Fresh on 01-20-16
By: Carol Jenkins
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Rez Life
- An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life
- By: David Treuer
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 104
Celebrated novelist David Treuer has gained a reputation for writing fiction that expands the horizons of Native American literature. In Rez Life, his first full-length work of nonfiction, Treuer brings a novelist's storytelling skill and an eye for detail to a complex and subtle examination of Native American reservation life, past and present. With authoritative research and reportage, Treuer illuminates misunderstood contemporary issues of sovereignty, treaty rights, and natural-resource conservation.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Rez Life needs a Rez voice not a Suyapi narrator..
- By Deaxkaash on 09-11-13
By: David Treuer
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Song in a Weary Throat
- Memoir of an American Pilgrimage
- By: Pauli Murray, Patricia Bell-Scott - Introduction by
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 19 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story5 out of 5 stars 81
Poet, memoirist, labor organizer, and Episcopal priest, Pauli Murray helped transform the law of the land. Arrested in 1940 for sitting in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus, Murray propelled that life-defining event into a Howard law degree and a fight against "Jane Crow" sexism. Now Murray is finally getting long-deserved recognition: The first African American woman to receive a doctorate of law at Yale, her name graces one of the university's new colleges.
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4 out of 5 stars
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great American shero
- By Coisge F Mccullough on 04-13-24
By: Pauli Murray, and others
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Strangers from a Different Shore
- A History of Asian Americans
- By: Ronald Takaki
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 24 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story5 out of 5 stars 33
In an extraordinary blend of narrative history, personal recollection, and oral testimony, the author presents a sweeping history of Asian Americans. This is a powerful and moving work that will resonate for all Americans, who together make up a nation of immigrants from other shores.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Eye opening to the way immigrants are treated
- By Amazon Customer on 10-06-20
By: Ronald Takaki
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This Child Will Be Great
- Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President
- By: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
The first elected woman president of an African country, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was also listed as one of the world’s 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes. This evocative memoir recounts Sirleaf ’s childhood upbringing and rise to political power in Liberia. More than a simple biography, Sirleaf ’s account details how she stood firm in the face of physical abuse early in life and carried that strength over into her career as a young economist in Samuel Doe’s regime.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What a powerfully strong woman!
- By Gary on 10-18-11
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Common Ground: Exclusive Edition
- By: Justin Trudeau
- Narrated by: Justin Trudeau, Colm Feore
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Justin Trudeau has spent his life in the public eye. From the moment he was born, the first son of an iconic prime minister and his young wife, Canadians have witnessed the highs and the lows, sharing in his successes and mourning with him during tragic times. But few beyond Justin's closest circle have heard his side of his unique journey. Now, in Common Ground, Justin Trudeau reveals how the events of his life have influenced him and formed the ideals that drive him today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mesmerizing
- By emilia on 05-04-18
By: Justin Trudeau
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The Crusades of Cesar Chavez
- A Biography
- By: Miriam Pawel
- Narrated by: Jackson Gutierrez
- Length: 21 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
In the first comprehensive biography of Chavez, Miriam Pawel offers a searching yet empathetic portrayal. Chavez emerges here as a visionary figure with tragic flaws; a brilliant strategist who sometimes stumbled; and a canny, streetwise organizer whose pragmatism was often at odds with his elusive, soaring dreams.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Cesar Chávez
- By Ed on 09-10-18
By: Miriam Pawel
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Ask a North Korean
- Defectors Talk About Their Lives Inside the World's Most Secretive Nation
- By: Daniel Tudor, Andrei Lankov - foreword
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan, Greta Jung
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
The weekly column Ask a North Korean, published by NK News, invites readers from around the world to pose questions to North Korean defectors. By way of these fascinating interviews, the North Koreans themselves provide authentic firsthand testimonies about what is happening inside the "Hermit Kingdom." This book sheds critical light on all aspects of North Korean politics and society and shows that even in the world's most authoritarian regime, life goes on in ways that are very different from what you may think.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant Narration on the unknown perspective
- By New Jaa Yeong on 09-01-18
By: Daniel Tudor, and others
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Road to Jonestown
- Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
- By: Jeff Guinn
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,499
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,140
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,128
In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially mixed, and he was a leader in the early civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California, where he got involved in electoral politics and became a prominent Bay Area leader. But underneath the surface lurked a terrible darkness.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Important Accurate Historical Report
- By Julia on 08-24-17
By: Jeff Guinn
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Radical
- Fighting to Put Students First
- By: Michelle Rhee
- Narrated by: Shannon McManus
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Part memoir, part manifesto, Radical is this fearless advocate's incisive, intensely personal call-to-arms. Rhee combines the story of her own extraordinary experience with dozens of compelling examples from schools she's worked in and studied-from students from unspeakable home lives who have thrived in the classroom to teachers whose radical methods have produced unprecedented leaps in achievement. Radical chronicles Rhee's awakening to the potential of every child, her rage at the special interests blocking badly-needed change, and her recognition that it will take a grassroots movement to create outstanding public schools.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good read after seeing Waiting for Superman
- By Marie on 04-10-13
By: Michelle Rhee
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A Nation of Nations
- A Story of America After the 1965 Immigration Law
- By: Tom Gjelten
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
In 1950, Fairfax County, Virginia, was 90 percent white, 10 percent African American, with a little more than 100 families who were "other". Currently the African American percentage of the population is about the same, but the Anglo white population is less than 50 percent, and there are families of Asian, African, Middle Eastern, and Latin American origin living all over the county. A Nation of Nations follows the lives of a few immigrants to Fairfax County over recent decades as they gradually "Americanize".
By: Tom Gjelten
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The Path to Power
- The Years of Lyndon Johnson
- By: Robert A. Caro
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 40 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 3,634
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 3,227
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Story5 out of 5 stars 3,217
This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart. It follows him from the Hill Country to New Deal Washington, from his boyhood through the years of the Depression to his debut as Congressman, his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, at age 31, of the national power for which he hungered.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Best of all Biographies
- By David C. Daggett on 12-14-13
By: Robert A. Caro
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Where I Was From
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 167
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 142
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 139
In her moving and insightful new book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history and ours. A native Californian, Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to the state’s ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic’s often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons.
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4 out of 5 stars
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California belongs to Joan Didion.
- By Darwin8u on 11-04-15
By: Joan Didion
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We Are Our Mothers' Daughters
- Revised and Expanded Edition
- By: Cokie Roberts
- Narrated by: Cokie Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story5 out of 5 stars 54
In this 10th anniversary edition, renowned political commentator Cokie Roberts once again examines the nature of women's roles. From mother to mechanic, sister to soldier, Roberts reveals how much progress has now been made and how much further we have to go. Updated and expanded to include a diverse new cast of women, including Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, Billie Jean King, and others, this collection of essays offers tremendous insight into the opportunities and challenges that women encounter today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A must read or “listen” for all women and girls!!
- By monica on 09-30-19
By: Cokie Roberts
What listeners say about Valley of the Birdtail
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Elizabeth
- 09-09-22
Well told history through a human lens
This book does a wonderful job of weaving past and present together by telling the generational tale of a First Nations and White family living on opposite sides of a valley. Through their stories we learn about the history of repression and endurance of First Nations and also the challenges and opportunities provided to Ukrainian immigrants. Well researched, written with a caring hand, and delivered by a wonderful narrator it is well worth listening. You will finish the book with a greater understanding of Canada’s history and how it informs our present day.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amol Verma
- 09-16-22
Beautifully written, deeply educational
An incredibly worthwhile read, with beautiful prose and a profound message. This should be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of colonialism and relationships with indigenous peoples.
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