Michaela Washburn has narrated 5 audiobooks on Listento.it by 7 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 1,376 ratings. The most-rated is Seven Fallen Feathers.
Seven Fallen Feathers
Summary
Finalist, 2017 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Finalist, 2017 Speaker's Book Award Finalist, 2018 B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-fiction In 1966, 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called, and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied. More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city. Five were found dead in the rivers surrounding Lake Superior, below a sacred Indigenous site. Jordan Wabasse, a gentle boy and star hockey player, disappeared into the -20 degrees Celsius night. The body of celebrated artist Norval Morrisseau’s grandson, Kyle, was pulled from a river, as was Curran Strang’s. Robyn Harper died in her boardinghouse hallway, and Paul Panacheese inexplicably collapsed on his kitchen floor. Reggie Bushie’s death finally prompted an inquest, seven years after the discovery of Jethro Anderson, the first boy whose body was found in the water. Using a sweeping narrative focusing on the lives of the students, award-winning investigative journalist Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this small northern city that has come to manifest Canada’s long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2017 Tanya Talaga (P)2018 Anansi Audio
The Break
Summary
2017 Burt Award for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Literature Finalist Winner, Amazon.ca First Novel Award Winner, Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction Winner, Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award Winner, McNally Robinson Book of the Year A Canada Reads 2017 finalist National Bestseller 2016 Governor General's Literary Award Finalist 2016 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Finalist National Post 99 Best Books of the Year CBC Best Canadian Debut Novels 2016 Globe and Mail Best 100 Books of 2016 Quill & Quire Book of the Year Kobo Best Books of the Year Walrus Magazine The Best Books of 2016 49th Shelf Books of the Year
When Stella, a young Métis mother, looks out her window one evening and spots someone in trouble on the Break - a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house - she calls the police to alert them to a possible crime.
In a series of shifting narratives, people who are connected, both directly and indirectly, with the victim - police, family, and friends - tell their personal stories leading up to that fateful night. Lou, a social worker, grapples with the departure of her live-in boyfriend. Cheryl, an artist, mourns the premature death of her sister Rain. Paulina, a single mother, struggles to trust her new partner. Phoenix, a homeless teenager, is released from a youth detention centre. Officer Scott, a Métis policeman, feels caught between two worlds as he patrols the city. Through their various perspectives a larger, more comprehensive story about lives of the residents in Winnipeg's North End is exposed.
A powerful intergenerational family saga, The Break showcases Vermette's abundant writing talent and positions her as an exciting new voice in Canadian literature.
©2016 Katherena Vermette (P)2017 Anansi Audio
In Search of April Raintree
Summary
Two young sisters are taken from their home and family. Powerless to change their fortunes, they are separated, and each put into different foster homes. Yet over the years, the bond between them grows. As they each make their way in a society that is, at times, indifferent, hostile, and violent, one embraces her Métis identity, while the other tries to leave it behind. In the end, out of tragedy, comes an unexpected legacy of triumph and reclamation. Bespeak Audio Editions brings Canadian voices to the world with audiobook editions of some of the country’s greatest works of literature, performed by Canadian actors.
©1983, 1999, 2008 Beatrice Mosionier (P)2019 Bespeak Audio Editions
Home (Oprah's Book Club)
Summary
Hundreds of thousands were enthralled by the luminous voice of John Ames in Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Home is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames' closest friend. Glory Boughton, aged 38, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack - the prodigal son of the family, gone for 20 years - comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain. Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton's most beloved child. Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory and engages painfully with Ames, his godfather and namesake. Home is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. It is Robinson's greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions.
©2008 Marilynne Robinson (P)2008 Macmillan Audio
I Become a Delight to My Enemies
Summary
Dark, cutting, and coursed through with bright flashes of humor, crystalline imagery, and razor-sharp detail, I Become a Delight to My Enemies is a gut-wrenchingly powerful, breathtakingly beautiful meditation on the violence and shame inflicted on the female body and psyche. An experimental fiction, I Become a Delight to My Enemies uses many different voices and forms to tell the stories of the women who live in an uncanny Town, uncovering their experiences of shame, fear, cruelty, and transcendence. Sara Peters combines poetry and short prose vignettes to create a singular, unflinching portrait of a Town in which the lives of girls and women are shaped by the brutality meted upon them and by their acts of defiance and yearning towards places of safety and belonging. Read by a multi-voice ensemble cast, with original vocal accompaniment, I Become a Delight to My Enemies is a hybrid in form and an awe-inspiring example of the exquisite force of words to shock and move. The 15-person cast includes: Angela Asher Amanda Cordner Tess Degenstein Pearl Harbour Maggie Huculak Pam Hyatt Jani Lauzon Justin Miller Amy Nostbakken Paloma Nuñez Martin Roach Norah Sadava Amelia Sargisson Nicole Stamp Michaela Washburn
©2019 Sara Peters (P)2019 Strange Light