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Annotated Award-Winning Titles

Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People 2005
(Canadian Children's Book Centre)
For best book
Good for Nothing
Michel Noël
Toronto: Groundwood Books,
2004. 322 p.
ISBN 0888994788 (bound)
ISBN 0888996160 (paperback)
(Translation and compilation of Hiver indien, Journal d'un bon à rien et le cœur sur la braise)
Ages 12 and up

Good for Nothing
Source

This powerful story of life, love, loss and adventure begins with 15-year-old Nipishish, an Aboriginal boy living on a reserve in Quebec. Set in May 1959, Nipishish has just returned from a residential school to find that things have changed. The government has sent in land surveyors who are busy dividing the land. This disruption has caused confusion and worry among the inhabitants.

Feeling lost and trapped on the reserve, Nipishish decides to go to the town of Maniwaki to attend school. Despite this change, he still suffers from feelings of loneliness and isolation, which eventually lead him back to the reserve. Nipishish is an orphan. Not only did he lose his mother at a young age, but his father's death is shrouded in mystery — a mystery that he must get to the bottom of.

Author Michel Noël brings us back to nature by revealing a world that is grounded: one that is sustainable through animals, trees and rocks. During this journey, as the main character fights to preserve his culture, he must also face everyday teenage struggles. Could Nipishish be the leader that everyone has been waiting for?

–MM