Borders

Publisher's Description (HarperCollins): a powerful graphic-novel adaptation of one of Thomas King’s most celebrated short stories, Borders explores themes of identity and belonging, and is a poignant depiction of the significance of a nation’s physical borders from an Indigenous perspective. This timeless story is brought to vibrant, piercing life by the singular vision of artist Natasha Donovan.

Author and illustrator Biographies (HarperCollins):
Thomas King is an award-winning writer and photographer. His critically acclaimed, bestselling books include Medicine River; Green Grass, Running Water; One Good Story, That One; Truth and Bright Water; A Short History of Indians in Canada; The Back of the Turtle (winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction); The Inconvenient Indian (winner of the RBC Taylor Prize); Indians on Vacation; Sufferance; and the poetry collection 77 Fragments of a Familiar Ruin. A Companion of the Order of Canada and the recipient of a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, Thomas King lives in Guelph, Ontario.

Natsha Donovan is a self-taught illustrator from Vancouver, BC, with a focus on comics and children’s illustration. Her work has appeared in two anthologies: The Other Side, edited by Melanie Gillman and Kori Handwerker, and This Place, published by Portage & Main Press. She illustrated the award-winning children’s book The Sockeye Mother by Brett D. Huson and the graphic novel Surviving the City by Tasha Spillett. She has a degree in anthropology from the University of British Columbia and has worked in academic and magazine publishing. She currently lives in Bellingham, Washington. Natasha Donovan is a member of the Métis Nation of British Columbia.

In this video, author Thomas King shares what inspired him to write his 1993 short story "Borders" and how it was adapted to a graphic novel.

Resource type: Graphic Novel

Age recommendation: 7-9, 10-12, Post Secondary

Keywords: identity, immigration, blackfoot, youth, family, land, place, Canadian, American

Year of publication: 2021

Publisher information: Harper Collins