That was the first time I ever wore makeup. There is a large red kiss print on my forehead. In the picture we are leaning against each other on the couch her frizzy hair blends into my shaggy braids and the points of our noses exactly match. And in front of it she had tucked a tiny Polaroid of the two of us laughing, our faces smudged with lipstick. Kokum loved that photo and put it into her fanciest gold frame.

Jonny is fortunate to have the love and support of both his mother and his Kokum (although, his mother and Kokum don’t always see eye-to-eye) – not everyone on the rez accepts him for who he is. I think that’s why she turns to the bottle and why I sometimes follow. There aren’t enough jokes in the world to stop her from weeping and there aren’t enough stories to stop me from feeling. It seems like my mom is always in tears on the phone with someone who is either dying or in pain, or knows someone who is. There are only a few sounds that always hurt me and one of them is the sound of my mom crying. As he tries to make enough money to make it back home for his step-father’s funeral, he considers his life thus far. Jonny Appleseed is about a 2-Spirited/Indigiqueer who has left the reserve to try to make it in the big city, getting by by selling sex online.

( Butter Honey Pig Bread was the other of the last two books to “fight it out” on Day 4, both books published by Arsenal Pulp Press, a small Canadian Indie press. I think the book is timely and needed for Canadian readers to see what it means for Indigenous peoples to be living under the weight of ongoing settler colonialism, the ways in which we have been harmed, injured profoundly, but also the ways in which we are powerful beyond measure and hold the highest registers of love for our communities, ourselves, and for this land we call Turtle Island.” Straight “I’m holding this as a legacy and a fire to keep burning for all Indigenous folks across Turtle Island and I dedicate it to all missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirited people and their families.

“This means the world to me,” Whitehead said.

Jonny Appleseed and Joshua Whitehead made Canadian history this year – by winning the 2021 Canada Reads debates, they became the first Indigenous and Indigiqueer book and author to win Canada Reads.

Love after the End by Joshua Whitehead