HighWater Press

Two beautiful gatherings celebrating Indigenous voices, storytelling, and connection to the land🌿

✨ Renewal: Indigenous Perspectives on Land-Based Education — Oct 30, 7PM, McNally Robinson, Winnipeg.
🪶 Kookum, Are These Moose Tracks? — Nov 2, Entershine Bookshop, Thunder Bay.

🌍💚 World Mental Health Day 💚🌍

Today we pause to recognize the importance of open conversations, healing, and community. Stories can help us find courage, connection, and hope. We're sharing two stories that stand out - but of course - many more of our titles could be highlighted here.

Today, on Sisters in Spirit Day, we honour the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S).

We remember their stories. We speak their names. We carry their spirit forward.
Through books like REDress and Little Moons, we hold space for grief and hope.

✨ TRC Book Spotlight ✨
"Miya Wears Orange" by Wanda John-Kehewin, illustrated by Erika Rodriguez Medina, is a moving story of a young Cree girl learning about residential schools, her fears, and the comfort she finds through her mother’s guidance.

📚🧡 Books for TRC Day
September 30 marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation — a time to honour Survivors, and to reflect on the legacy of residential schools.
We’re highlighting 5 powerful books by Indigenous authors that help children, youth, and families learn, reflect, and grow.

✨ Just Released! ✨
Hands-On Social Studies for Ontario – Grade 1
Curriculum-aligned, inquiry-focused, and packed with ready-to-use lessons, assessments, and Indigenous perspectives.
Time-saving, cost-effective, and designed for today’s classroom.
👉 Order today!

Book cover of Miya Wears Orange by Wanda John-Kehewin and Erika Rodriguez Medina, shows a girl in an orange shirt and backpack holding hand of her mother

Out Aug 5: MIYA WEARS ORANGE, new #picturebook from Wanda John-Kehewin & illus by Erika Rodriguez Medina (from @highwaterpress.bsky.social), will become an important book for #NationalDayforTruthandReconciliation & dealing w children's worries. canlitforlittlecanadians.blogspot.com/2025/07/miya...

📚✨ Summer Reading Challenge: Indigenous Lit Edition! ✨📚
Looking for meaningful reads this summer? Our Indigenous Literature BINGO card is here!

From time-traveling fiction to stories about resilience, family, and the land — each square highlights a unique way to engage with Indigenous Lit!

🌿 World Environment Day Picks! 🌍
Celebrate June 5 with stories that honour land, language & tradition.
📖 Dad, Is It Time to Gather Mint?
🦌 Kokum, Are These Moose Tracks?
🐟 Herring to Huckleberry
🌱 Renewal

📚✨ National Indigenous History Month is here — a time to honour, learn, and reflect.

Dive into the stories of seven remarkable Indigenous heroes from Canadian history through Tales from Big Spirit — a powerful graphic novel series by David A. Robertson.

It was an honour to hear David speak at the First Nations School Association of British Columbia about healing and teaching through story, returning to the land and language, and deepening our connection to each other and the environment.

📚 His latest book, The Kodiaks, carries these values forward

🌸 Celebrate All Women This Mother’s Day 🌸

From matriarchs and aunties to knowledge keepers and caregivers, we honour the women who guide, protect, and nurture—just like the animal mothers in The Mothers of Xsan series.📚
✨ Use code: MOM20 afor 20% off ALL books at checkout
🗓️ Valid through May 31

We publish books that incorporate Indigenous languages ...

🪶 Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock
🪶 Nisto Mekwana / Three Feathers
🪶 Pīsim Finds Her Miskanaw
🪶 Powwow Counting in Cree
🪶 Amō’s Sapotawan
🪶 Stand Like a Cedar

... Because kids and teens deserve to see their words on the page.

Indigenous languages are living, powerful, and enduring.

We’ve published books written in, translated into, and celebrating Cree, Swampy Cree, Rocky Cree, Anishinaabemowin, Halq’emeylem, Nłeʔkepmxcín, and more.

Why? Because language is not a feature—it’s foundational.

Honouring International Women's Day With Stories by Indigenous Women Publishing practical K–12 educational materials and Indigenous literature

🌸 International Women’s Day continues, and we’re celebrating Indigenous women authors all month! 🌸

🎉 To honor their voices, we’re offering 25% off select Indigenous women-authored titles!

Shop today and support Indigenous women’s voices!
Visit

💜 This International Women’s Day, we’ve highlighted stories that celebrate Indigenous women and girls—their strength, histories, and futures.
✨ To celebrate, we’re offering 25% off a curated selection of books written by Indigenous women. Use the discount code IWD2025 on our website all month!

🌿 International Women’s Day is about recognizing diverse stories. Echo Desjardins, a Métis teen, struggles with loneliness until she is transported into pivotal moments of Métis history. This omnibus collection of the four-part graphic Echo’s journey reminds us that knowing our history is key.

🌿 Stories are more than just words on a page—they are acts of resistance, reclamation, and resilience.

📚 The books we’ve highlighted for upcoming International Women’s Day celebrate Indigenous women’s strength, wisdom, and perseverance.

🔥 Support Indigenous women this International Women's Day!

🔥 "Last Standing Woman" by Winona LaDuke is a novel of resistance, hope, and survival. Spanning seven generations, this 25th-anniversary edition chronicles an Anishinaabe community’s resilience through colonization, displacement, and renewal. What does the phrase "Last Standing Woman" mean to you?

🌊 In Search of April Raintree by Beatrice Mosionier is a book that has changed lives.
🔎 This 40th-anniversary edition of the groundbreaking novel continues to inspire conversations about identity, survival, and sisterhood.
💡 Have you read April Raintree’s journey? Share your thoughts below! ⬇️ #IWD

📖 Spíləx̣m: A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence by Nicola I. Campbell is a stunning memoir that intertwines poetry and prose, sharing the journey of an intergenerational survivor of Canada’s residential school system.

🌸 This International Women’s Day, we will honour the strength, wisdom, and resilience of Indigenous women and girls. Through storytelling, we recognize their experiences, histories, and futures.
📚 This week, we’re highlighting powerful books from women authors in what is now known as Canada.

🏳️‍🌈 Stories about Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ identities are among the most frequently challenged. Many people still attempt to silence books that reflect gender diversity and challenge colonial norms.
📖 Our books respectfully and thoughtfully explore Two-Spirit identity, gender roles, and experiences.

🚨 Book challenges often come from a small group of people who want to decide what is "appropriate" for everyone. But who should have the right to control what young readers learn?

📚 At HighWater Press, we believe readers deserve the freedom to explore stories that reflect their own identities.

📚 HighWater Press books, like "7 Generations” by David Robertson, address themes of colonialism and resilience in a way that is accessible to young readers. These books should be in every classroom, not hidden away.
📢 Freedom to read is freedom to learn. What’s a book that has taught you something?

🧡 Indigenous voices have long been excluded, misrepresented, or censored in literature. Freedom to Read Week is a reminder that our stories deserve space, recognition, and protection.📖 Books like those published by HighWater Press explore the complexities of Indigenous identity, culture, + history.

📢 Let’s celebrate the right to read, learn, and grow. Share a book that has challenged or changed your perspective! #FreedomToReadWeek

📚 It’s Freedom to Read Week! This reminds Canadians of the importance of intellectual freedom and the right to access diverse stories—especially those that challenge, educate, and inspire. 🌍 At HighWater Press, we publish stories that explore racism, colonialism, Two-Spirit identity + more!
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📢 How can we support Afro-Indigenous voices?
✔️ Buy & recommend their books
✔️ Support independent publishers who publish their stories
✔️ Talk about issues like MMIWG2S, colonial violence, and anti-Black racism
✔️ Center their voices in classrooms & book clubs
🖤✨ Let’s not just read—let’s amplify!

We Are the Medicine Miikwan and Dez are in their final year of high school. Poised at the edge of the rest of their lives, they have a lot to decide on. Miikwan and her boyfriend, Riel, are preparing for university, but…

💡 Afro-Indigenous communities have long faced erasure, forced to navigate both anti-Blackness in Indigenous spaces and Indigenous invisibility in Black spaces. Stories like "We are Medicine" help dismantle these barriers, amplifying voices that need to be heard. Visit our website to learn more.