‘Cady and the Birchbark Box’ Wins Michigan’s State History Award

By Ernest Dempsey

Modern History Press is proud to announce that its title Cady and the Birchbark Box by Ann Dallman has won the 2022 State History Award in the Children & Youth category.

Cady and the Birchbark Box is a novel for children, mainly in the age range 11 to 14 years, telling the story of young Cady Whirlwind Thunder who sets out to solve the mystery behind a weathered journal found inside an old birchbark box. With the voice of wisdom by her grandma and assistance of her ever-present companion, a noisy blue jay, Cady puts together the pieces and ultimately restores the reputation of a deceased elder.

Cady and the Birchbark Box is the second book in the Cady series of books. Like the first book Cady and the Bear Necklace, it was inspired by a birchbark basket given to the author by a friend. Cady, the protagonist in the series, is a compilation of the many students who passed through Dallman’s classroom during the 15 years she taught on the Hannahville Indian Reservation in Wilson, MI. Dallman says, “My students asked me to write a book for them and about them. The Cady books are the realization of that.”

For the Modern History Press, the Cady series serves two main goals of the press-focusing more locally on issues in its home state of Michigan, and telling the stories of minorities in contemporary society, including Native American women. The series also serves to present stories with lots of positive role models, which is a priority of the press.

The Historical Society of Michigan (HSM) posted among the full list of the books that won the 2022 State History Awards and announced that the winners will receive their awards during the Annual Meeting and Michigan History Conference on September 23-25, 2022, in Albion.

The HSM presents the State History Awards every year to individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the appreciation, collection, preservation and/or promotion of state and local history.

How Dare We! Write, 2nd Edition [PB]

978-1-61599-683-4
$24.95
In stock
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Product Details
UPC: 978-1-61599-683-4
Brand: Modern History Press
Binding: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Author: Sherry Quan Lee
Pages: 266
Publication Date: 08/01/2022

How Dare We! Write: a multicultural creative writing discourse offers a much needed corrective to the usual dry and uninspired creative writing pedagogy. The collection asks us to consider questions, such as “What does it mean to work through resistance from supposed mentors, to face rejection from publishers and classmates, and to stand against traditions that silence you?" and "How can writers and teachers even begin to make diversity matter in meaningful ways on the page, in the classroom, and on our bookshelves?"

How Dare We! Write is an inspiring collection of intellectually rigorous lyric essays and innovative writing exercises; it opens up a path for inquiry, reflection, under­standing, and creativity that is ultimately healing. The testimonies provide a hard won context for their innovative paired writing experiments that are, by their very nature, generative.
--Cherise A. Pollard, PhD, Professor of English, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

So-called “creative writing” classes are highly politicized spaces, but no one says so; to acknowledge this obvious fact would be to up-end the aesthetics, cultural politics (ideology) and economics on which most educational institutions are founded. How Dare We! Write, a brilliant interventive anthology of essays, breaks this silence.
-- Maria Damon, Pratt Institute of Art; co-editor of Poetry and Cultural Studies: A Reader

How Dare We! Write is a collection of brave voices calling out to writers of color everywhere: no matter how lonely, you are not alone; you are one in a sea of change, swimming against the currents.
-- Kao Kalia Yang, author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, and The Song Poet, a 2017 Minnesota Book Award winner

How Dare We! Write is a much needed collection of essays from writers of color that reminds us that our stories need to be told, from addressing academic gatekeepers, embracing our identities, the effects of the oppressors tongue on our psyche and to the personal narratives that help us understand who we are.
---Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria, writer, spoken word poet/performer and contributing author to A Good Time for fhe Truth: Race in Minnesota

Learn more at http://blog.SherryQuanLee.com

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