Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Non-classifiable

Spílexm

A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence

by (author) Nicola I. Campbell

Publisher
Portage & Main Press
Initial publish date
Sep 2021
Category
NON-CLASSIFIABLE, Personal Memoirs, Women, Literary
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781553799351
    Publish Date
    Sep 2021
    List Price
    $32.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781553799702
    Publish Date
    Dec 2021
    List Price
    $20.00

Add it to your shelf

Where to buy it

Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels

  • Age: 18
  • Grade: 12

Description

If the hurt and grief we carry is a woven blanket, it is time to weave ourselves anew.

In the Nłeʔkepmxcín language, spíləx̣m are remembered stories, often shared over tea in the quiet hours between Elders. Rooted within the British Columbia landscape, and with an almost tactile representation of being on the land and water, Spíləx̣m explores resilience, reconnection, and narrative memory through stories.

Captivating and deeply moving, this story basket of memories tells one Indigenous woman’s journey of overcoming adversity and colonial trauma to find strength through creative works and traditional perspectives of healing, transformation, and resurgence.

About the author

Nicola I. Campbell is the author of Shi-shi-etko, Shin-chi’s Canoe, Grandpa’s Girls, and A Day With Yayah. Nłeʔkepmx, Syilx, and Métis, Nicola is from British Columbia. Her stories weave cultural and land-based teachings that focus on respect, endurance, healing, and reciprocity.

She has been a finalist for numerous children’s literary awards, and her book Shin-chi’s Canoe won the 2009 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award as well as the 2008 Governor General's Award for Illustration. She lives in British Columbia.

 

Nicola I. Campbell's profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, Manuela Dias Book Design and Illustration Awards, Book Design
  • Short-listed, Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher
  • Nominated, Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes

Editorial Reviews

Among The White Ravens' 2022 A Selection of International Children‘s and Youth Literature

The White Raven

Among CBC Books Best Books of 2021 Canadian Nonfiction

CBC Books

A powerful memoir.

Prairie Books Now (PBN)

Among Ms. Magazine's Reads for the Rest of Us list

Ms. Magazine

Highly Recommended!

American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL)

Spíl?xm is a putting away of pain, a letting go of sorrow, a poignant unburdening, and a return to self and community. With it, Campbell establishes herself as a visionary with the capacity to gather what is broken and weave it into a new story.

Quill & Quire

This is a terrific tale, peppered with some lovely poetry and deep philosophical convictions: raise your arms in strength and humility. The Nations of British Columbia practise this every day. We commit to strength and humility. We are humble before Star Nations and strong for one another. Nicola Campbell gets this. She is descended from two distinct Indigenous peoples: those that hold their arms and those that serve one another. Nicola braids these two cultures together and bequeaths the result to all of us and to the world. Loaded with history, rich in story, and lovely in its poetics.

Si’Yam, Lee Maracle, author

Other titles by

Related lists