Beautiful Beautiful by Brandon Reid

Twelve-year-old Derik Mormin travels with his father and a family friend to Bella Bella for his grandfather's funeral. Along the way, he uncovers the traumatic history of his ancestors, considers his relationship to masculinity and explores the contrast between rural and urban lifestyles in hopes of reconciling the seemingly unreconcilable, the beauty of each the Indigenous and "Western" way of lifehencebeautiful beautiful.

He travails a storm, meets long-lost relatives, discovers his ancestral homeland; he suffers through catching fish, gains and loses companions, learns to heal trauma. InBeautiful Beautifulwe delve into the mind of a gifted boy who struggles to find his role and persona through elusive circumstance, and

All right, that's quite enough third-person pandering; you're not fooling anyone. Redbird here, Derik's babysitter, and narrator of this here story. Make sure to smash thatlikebutton. We're here to bring light to an otherwise grave subject, friends. It's only natural to laugh while crying. I bring story to life. One minute I'm a songbird singing from a bough, the next, I'm rapture. I connect you to the realm of spirit Well, as best I can, given your mundane allocation.

Follow us through primordial visions, dance with a cannibal (don't worry, they're friendly once tamed) and discover what it takes to be united. Together, we'll have fun. Together, we are one. So tuck in, and believe what you'll believe, for who knows what yesterday brings. Amen and all my relations, all my relations and amen. (From Nightwood Editions)