The Debwe Books in Order

The Debwe series is not a single story line with one hero moving from book to book. It is a publishing series centered on Indigenous writing from across Canada, and the name points to an Anishinaabe idea about speaking truth. That gives the books a shared spirit even when their forms are very different. Some are novels, some are story collections, some are graphic narratives, and some are nonfiction.

Truth-telling is the connective tissue.

Because of that, the main characters change from title to title. One book may follow young people dealing with loss, violence, or the weight of history. Another may stay close to families, communities, or the work of carrying teachings forward. Readers should not come expecting a single ongoing cast or a cliffhanger arc. Each book stands on its own, but the larger series keeps returning to questions of identity, survival, kinship, land, language, and how people hold on to themselves under pressure.

Setting matters a lot here. Debwe books often move between reserve and city, bush and classroom, family home and public struggle. The places are not generic backdrops. They shape what the characters can do, remember, inherit, and resist. The tension in these books usually comes from something larger than one villain or one mystery plot. It often grows out of colonialism, racism, displacement, grief, and the daily work of staying connected to community without losing your own voice.

That does not mean the books are only heavy. A good Debwe title usually makes room for humor, tenderness, awkwardness, and everyday detail. People joke, argue, fall in love, miss each other, take care of children, and try to figure out what responsibility looks like in real life. The tone changes from book to book, but even the hardest stories tend to leave space for persistence, relation, and the possibility of repair.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's The Gift Is in the Making shows one side of what the series can do. It retells Anishinaabeg stories for younger readers while keeping teachings, language, and a sense of oral tradition close to the surface. That makes it a good example of the series at its most welcoming. It is accessible, but it still carries the larger Debwe commitment to truth, memory, and responsibility.

So, what should you expect from The Debwe? Expect range rather than repetition. Expect stand-alone books with strong points of view. Expect stories and essays that care about community as much as individual characters, and about land as much as plot. If you like reading across genres and following shared concerns instead of one continuous storyline, this series gives you a lot to explore.