Residential Schools / Reconciliation

Larry Loyie, award-winning Cree author, educator, and playwright writes honestly, tenderly, with laughter as well as sadness about his traditional childhood interrupted by six years in residential school. Three books in the Lawrence Series are included in Young Man, True Stories of a Cree Childhood. This book includes 53 photographs from the author’s life.

Educator Information
Recommended for grades 4 to 9.

This anthology includes three books:

• Goodbye Buffalo Bay
• The Moon Speaks Cree
• When the Spirits Dance

Additional Information
200 Pages | Paperback 

Beyond the Orange Shirt Story: A collection of stories from family and friends of Phyllis Webstad - Before, during, and after their Residential School experiences.

Beyond the Orange Shirt Story is a unique collection of truths, as told by Phyllis Webstad's family and others, that will give readers an up-close look at what life was like before, during, and after their Residential School experiences. In this book, Survivors and Intergenerational Survivors share their stories authentically and in their own words. Phyllis Webstad is a Residential School Survivor and founder of the Orange Shirt Day movement. Phyllis has carefully selected stories to help Canadians educate themselves and gain a deeper understanding of the impacts of the Residential School System. Readers of this book will become more aware of a number of challenges faced by many Indigenous peoples in Canada. With this awareness comes learning and unlearning, understanding, acceptance, and change. Phyllis's hope is that all Canadians honour the lives and experiences of Survivors and their families as we go Beyond the Orange Shirt Story.

Educator Information
This book gives readers an up-close look at what life was like for many Survivors — before, during, and after their Residential School experiences. These personal Survivor accounts, relayed in a number of one on one interviews, are authentically shared in their own voices.

Young Adult Nonfiction (Ages 12+).

This book has a Teacher Lesson Plan: Beyond the Orange Shirt Story Teacher Lesson Plan

This book is available in French: Derrière l'histoire du chandail orange

Additional Information
100 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

A deeply scouring poetic account of the residential school experience, and a deeply important indictment of colonialism in Canada.

Many of the poems in Louise Halfe's Burning in This Midnight Dream were written in response to the grim tide of emotions, memories, dreams and nightmares that arose in her as the Truth and Reconciliation process unfolded. In heart-wrenching detail, Halfe recalls the damage done to her parents, her family, herself. With fearlessly wrought verse, Halfe describes how the experience of the residential schools continues to haunt those who survive, and how the effects pass like a virus from one generation to the next. She asks us to consider the damage done to children taken from their families, to families mourning their children; damage done to entire communities and to ancient cultures.

Halfe's poetic voice soars in this incredibly moving collection as she digs deep to discover the root of her pain. Her images, created from the natural world, reveal the spiritual strength of her culture.

Originally published in 2016 by Coteau Books, Burning in This Midnight Dream won the Indigenous Peoples' Publishing award, the Rasmussen, Ramussen & Charowsky Indigenous Peoples' Writing award, the Saskatchewan Arts Board Poetry Award, the League of Canadian Poets' Raymond Souster Award, and the High Plains Book Award for Indigenous Writers. It was also the 2017 WILLA Literacy Award Finalist in Poetry. This new edition includes a new Afterword by Halfe.

Reviews
"Burning in this Midnight Dream honours the witness of a singular experience, Halfe's experience, that many others of kin and clan experienced. Halfe descends into personal and cultural darkness with the care of a master storyteller and gives story voice to mourning. By giving voice to shame, confusion, injustice Halfe begins to reclaim a history. It is the start of a larger dialogue than what is contained in the pages." --Raymond Souster Award jury citation

Additional Information
104 pages | 5.75" x 8.50" | 8 illustrations

The thrilling follow-up to the bestselling, award-winning novel The Marrow Thieves, about a dystopian world where the Indigenous people of North America are being hunted for their bone marrow and ability to dream.

Years ago, when plagues and natural disasters killed millions of people, much of the world stopped dreaming. Without dreams, people are haunted, sick, mad, unable to rebuild. The government soon finds that the Indigenous people of North America have retained their dreams, an ability rumored to be housed in the very marrow of their bones. Soon, residential schools pop up—or are re-opened—across the land to bring in the dreamers and harvest their dreams.

Seventeen-year-old French lost his family to these schools and has spent the years since heading north with his new found family: a group of other dreamers, who, like him, are trying to build and thrive as a community. But then French wakes up in a pitch-black room, locked in and alone for the first time in years, and he knows immediately where he is—and what it will take to escape. 

Meanwhile, out in the world, his found family searches for him and dodges new dangers—school Recruiters, a blood cult, even the land itself. When their paths finally collide, French must decide how far he is willing to go—and how many loved ones is he willing to betray—in order to survive. This engrossing, action-packed, deftly-drawn novel expands on the world of Cherie Dimaline’s award-winning The Marrow Thieves, and it will haunt readers long after they’ve turned the final page.

Reviews
"Lush, devastating, and hope-filled novel. . . . The action never lets up and is inextricably intertwined with the personal and community histories of the diverse characters who band together from various nations. Dimaline paints a nightmarish world that is too easy to imagine; it will haunt readers long after they turn the final page." ―Kirkus Reviews

"Dimaline has created vivid characters who propel a suspenseful and atmospheric story that boldly brings past, and ongoing, darkness to light." ―Booklist

"The brutal realities faced by French in the residential school will leave readers thinking about what Indigenous people endured in the residential schools of the past. The idea of storytelling and the importance of realizing that the past and present are interwoven is beautifully conveyed and will keep readers anxious for what comes next." ―School Library Journal

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for ages 12+

This book is available in French: Chasseurs d'étoiles

This book is part of the Marrow Thieves series.

Mature Content Warning: Hunting by Stars touches on physical and sexual violence. 

Additional Information
408 pages | 5.50" x 8.25" | Paperback

A collection of authentic Orange Shirt Day books from the founder of the Orange Shirt Day movement, Phyllis Webstad. Package includes four books and three accompanying lesson plans, The Orange Shirt Story, Phyllis's Orange Shirt, Orange Shirt Day and Beyond the Orange Shirt Story.

Educator Information
Includes picture books for children, as well as books for young adults.  Review individual titles for more information about each include:

• The Orange Shirt Story
• Phyllis's Orange Shirt
• Orange Shirt Day
• Beyond the Orange Shirt Story

Additional Information
9.00" x 12.00"

Over more than 100 years, the Canadian government took 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children from their families and placed them in residential schools. In these schools, young people were assigned a number, forced to wear European-style clothes, forbidden to speak their native language, required to work, and often subjected to physical and psychological abuse. If they tried to leave the schools to return to their families, they were captured by the RCMP and forced back. Run by churches, the schools were paid for by the federal government. The last residential school closed in 1996.

It took decades for people to speak out in public about the devastating impact of residential schools. School Survivors eventually came together and launched court actions against the federal government and the churches. In 2008 the Canadian government apologized for the historic wrongs committed by the residential school system. The survivors’ lawsuits led to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history, and the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Commission spent six years gathering testimony and discovering the facts about residential schools.

This book includes the text of the government’s apology and summarizes the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, which offer the basis for a new relationship between the Canadian government, Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people.

Reviews
"If I were purchasing materials for a high school library, I would buy at least 2 copies, and I would urge Social Studies and Aboriginal Studies classroom teachers to have at least one copy on their bookselves. Perhaps the strongest work to date in the Righting Canada's Wrongs series, Residential Schools underscores the importance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's work... Highly Recommended." — CM: Canadian Review of Materials

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of the Righting Canada's Wrongs series.

Recommended for ages 13 to 18.

This book is available in French: Les pensionnats indiens: Effets dévastateurs sur les peuples autochtones du Canada et appels à l'action de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation.

Additional Information
128 pages | 8.50" x 11.53" | Paperback | 2nd, Updated Edition

One of the few accounts by care-givers in an Indian Residential School describing the horrific conditions.

In 1970, the authors, Nancy Dyson and Dan Rubenstein, were hired as childcare workers at the Alert Bay Student Residence (formerly St. Michael's Indian Residential School) on northern Vancouver Island. Shocked when Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families, punished for speaking their native language, fed substandard food and severely disciplined for minor offences, Dan and Nancy questioned the way the school was run with its underlying missionary philosophy. When a delegation from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs visited St. Michael's, the couple presented a long list of concerns, which were ignored. The next day they were dismissed by the administrator of the school. Some years later, in 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Reports were released. The raw grief and anger of residential school survivors were palpable and the authors' troubling memories of St. Michael's resurfaced. Dan called Reconciliation Canada, and Chief Dr. Robert Joseph encouraged the couple to share their story with today's Canadians.

St. Michael's Residential School: Lament and Legacy is a moving narrative - one of the few told by caregivers who experienced on a daily basis the degradation of Indigenous children. Their account will help to ensure that what went on in the Residential Schools is neither forgotten nor denied.

Additional Information
200 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Faced with a constant stream of news reports of standoffs and confrontations, Canada’s “reconciliation project” has obviously gone off the rails. In this series of concise and thoughtful essays, lawyer and historian Bruce McIvor explains why reconciliation with Indigenous peoples is failing and what needs to be done to fix it.

Widely known as a passionate advocate for Indigenous rights, McIvor reports from the front lines of legal and political disputes that have gripped the nation. From Wet’suwet’en opposition to a pipeline in northern British Columbia, to Mi’kmaw exercising their fishing rights in Nova Scotia, McIvor has been actively involved in advising First Nation clients, fielding industry and non-Indigenous opposition to true reconciliation, and explaining to government officials why their policies are failing.

McIvor’s essays are honest and heartfelt. In clear, plain language he explains the historical and social forces that underpin the development of Indigenous law, criticizes the current legal shortcomings and charts a practical, principled way forward.

By weaving in personal stories of growing up Métis on the fringes of the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba and representing First Nations in court and negotiations, McIvor brings to life the human side of the law and politics surrounding Indigenous peoples’ ongoing struggle for fairness and justice. His writing covers many of the most important issues that have become part of a national dialogue, including systemic racism, treaty rights, violence against Indigenous people, Métis identity, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and the duty to consult.

McIvor’s message is consistent and powerful: if Canadians are brave enough to confront the reality of the country’s colonialist past and present and insist that politicians replace empty promises with concrete, meaningful change, there is a realistic path forward based on respect, recognition and the implementation of Indigenous rights.

Additional Information
208 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

A young girl struggles to survive residential school in this timeless graphic novel from the bestselling author of The Barren Grounds—a story of strength, family, and culture, inspired by true events, that shares the awe-inspiring resilience of Betty Ross.

Abandoned as a young child, Betsy was soon adopted into a loving family. A few short years later, at the age of 8, everything changed. Betsy was taken away to a residential school. There she was forced to endure abuse and indignity, but Betsy recalled the words her father spoke to her at Sugar Falls—words that gave her the resilience, strength, and determination to survive.

Sugar Falls is based on the true story of Betty Ross, Elder from Cross Lake First Nation. We wish to acknowledge, with the utmost gratitude, Betty’s generosity in sharing her story. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Sugar Falls goes to support the bursary program for The Helen Betty Osborne Memorial Foundation.

Educator Information
Recommended for grades 9 to 12.

This 10th-anniversary edition brings David A. Robertson’s national bestseller to life in full colour, with a foreword by Senator Murray Sinclair, Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and a touching afterword from Elder Betty Ross herself.

A Teacher Guide is available for this work: Teacher Guide for Sugar Falls: Learning About the History and Legacy of Residential Schools in Grades 9-12 

Additional Information
48 pages | 6.50" x 10.00" | full colour throughout

Left out of the national apology and reconciliation process begun in 2008, survivors of residential schools in Labrador and Newfoundland received a formal apology from the Canadian government in 2017. This recognition finally brought them into the circle of residential school survivors across Canada, and acknowledged their experiences as similarly painful and traumatic.

For years, the story of residential schools has been told by the authorities who ran them. A Long Journey helps redress this imbalance by listening closely to the accounts of former students, as well as drawing extensively on government, community, and school archives. The book examines the history of boarding schools in Labrador and St. Anthony, and, in doing so, contextualizes the ongoing determination of Indigenous communities to regain control over their children’s education.

Educator Information
This resource is recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 resource list as being useful for grades 10 to 12 for English Language Arts, Law, and Social Studies.

Caution: contains descriptions of mental, physical, and sexual abuse.

Additional Information
528 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

The beloved story of an Inuvialuit girl standing up to the bullies of residential school, updated for a new generation of readers.

Margaret Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton’s powerful story of residential school in the far North has been reissued to commemorate the memoir’s 10th anniversary with updates to the text, reflections on the book’s impact, and a bonus chapter from the acclaimed follow-up, A Stranger at Home. New content includes a foreword from Dr. Debbie Reese, noted Indigenous scholar and founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature, while Christy Jordan-Fenton, mother of Margaret’s grandchildren and a key player in helping Margaret share her stories, discusses the impact of the book in a new preface.

With important updates since it first hit the shelves a decade ago, this new edition of Fatty Legs will continue to resonate with readers young and old.

Reviews
"I highly recommend this book for the discussion it would stir with students...Makes the harrowing residential school stories accessible to youth." — Resource Links

"Presents a unique and enlightening glimpse into the residential school experience and, most importantly, one little girl's triumph over her oppressors." — Quill & Quire

Educator Information
Themes: biography; Inuit; Indigenous peoples; Indigenous; arctic; school; self-esteem; abuse; community; prejudice; Canadian content; courage/bravery; right vs. wrong; role reversal; secrets; society; history; bullying; memoir; character education.

This resource is also available in French: Les bas du pensionnat

This resource is also available in its original format: Fatty Legs: A True Story 

Additional Information

Authenticity Note
This illustrator of this book is not Indigenous; therefore, her artwork is not considered to be Authentic Indigenous Artwork according to Strong Nations Authenticity Guidelines. The archival photos from Margaret Pokiak-Fenton's personal collection, however, are considered to be authentic, which is why the book is labelled as containing Authentic Indigenous Artwork. It is up to readers to determine whether or not the images in this work are authentic for their purposes.

Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.

Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.

Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can’t stop running and moves restlessly from job to job—through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps—trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.

With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.

Awards

• Amazon Canada First Novel Award
• 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for English-language fiction
• 2022 Canada Reads Winner 

Educator Information
Winner of the 2018 HarperCollins/UBC Price for Best New Fiction, Michelle Good's Five Little Indians is told from alternating points of view of five former residential school students as they struggle to survive in 1960s Vancouver.

Additional Information
304 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

How can we heal in the face of trauma? How can we transform intergenerational pain into a passion for community and healing?

Presenting herself as “Myrtle,” residential school survivor and Indigenous television personality Bevann Fox explores essential questions by recounting her life through fiction. She shares memories of an early childhood filled with love with her grandparents—until she is sent to residential school at the age of seven. Her horrific experiences of abuse there left her without a voice, timid and nervous, never sure, never trusting, affecting her romantic relationships and family bonds for years to come.

This is the story of Myrtle battling to recover her voice. Genocidal Love is a powerful confirmation of the long-lasting consequences of residential school violence —and a moving story of finding a path towards healing.

Awards

• 2021 Indigenous Voices Awards winner for Published Prose in English: Creative Nonfiction and Life-Writing

Reviews
“A riveting, often difficult, brave, important book. ” —Deanna Reder, Chair, Department of Indigenous Studies, Simon Fraser University

“A riveting and courageous reflection. . . . Genocidal Love is unique in its detailed account of the often re-traumatizing effects of the legal and bureaucratic barriers of compensation programs predating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. ” —Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber, editor of kisiskâciwan and co-editor of Performing Turtle Island

“Fox tears beauty from the jaws of genocide, daring to claim love beyond settler imaginings—love that nurtures decolonial futures and makes possible a more just world. ”—Sam McKegney, author of Magic Weapons and Masculindians

Educator Information
A forward from Michelle Coupal explains more about "Genocidal Love—a story that Bevann tells about herself outside the boundaries of what constitutes fiction and non-fiction".

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.00" x 7.00"

From Griffin Poetry Prize winner Jordan Abel comes a groundbreaking and emotionally devastating autobiographical meditation on the complicated legacies that Canada's reservation school system has cast on his grandparents', his parents' and his own generation.

NISHGA is a deeply personal and autobiographical book that attempts to address the complications of contemporary Indigenous existence. As a Nisga'a writer, Jordan Abel often finds himself in a position where he is asked to explain his relationship to Nisga'a language, Nisga'a community, and Nisga'a cultural knowledge. However, as an intergenerational survivor of residential school--both of his grandparents attended the same residential school in Chilliwack, British Columbia--his relationship to his own Indigenous identity is complicated to say the least.

NISHGA explores those complications and is invested in understanding how the colonial violence originating at the Coqualeetza Indian Residential School impacted his grandparents' generation, then his father's generation, and ultimately his own. The project is rooted in a desire to illuminate the realities of intergenerational survivors of residential school, but sheds light on Indigenous experiences that may not seem to be immediately (or inherently) Indigenous.

Drawing on autobiography, a series of interconnected documents (including pieces of memoir, transcriptions of talks, and photography), NISHGA is a book about confronting difficult truths and it is about how both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples engage with a history of colonial violence that is quite often rendered invisible.

Reviews
“With NISHGA, Jordan Abel has reinvented the memoir, incorporating personal anecdotes, archival footage, legal documentation, photos and concrete poetry to create an unforgettable portrait of an Indigenous artist trying to find his place in a world that insists Indigeneity can only ever be the things that he is not. Abel deftly shows us the devastating impact this gate-keeping has had on those who, through no decisions of their own, have been ripped from our communities and forced to claw their way back home, or to a semblance of home, often unassisted. This is a brave, vulnerable, brilliant work that will change the face of nonfiction, as well as the conversations around what constitutes Indigenous identity. It's a work I will return to again and again.” —Alicia Elliott, author of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground

“In NISHGA, Jordan Abel puts to use the documentary impulse that has already established him as an artist of inimitable methodological flair. By way of a mixture of testimonial vignettes, recordings of academic talks, found text/art, and visual art/concrete poetry, Abel sculpts a narrative of dislocation and self-examination that pressurizes received notions of “Canada” and “history” and “art” and “literature” and “belonging” and “forgiveness.” Yes, it is a book of that magnitude, of that enormity and power. By its Afterword, NISHGA adds up to a work of personal and national reckoning that is by turns heartbreaking and scathing.” —Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of NDN Coping Mechanisms and A History of My Brief Body

"This is a heart-shattering read, and will also be a blanket for others looking for home. NISHGA is a work of absolute courage and vulnerability. I am in complete awe of the sorrow here and the bravery. Mahsi cho, Jordan.” —Richard Van Camp, author of Moccasin Square Gardens

“Jordan Abel digs deeply into the questions we should all be asking. Questions that need no explanation but ones that require us to crawl back into our bones, back into the marrow of our understanding. NISHGA is a ceremony where we need to be silent. Where we need to listen.” —Gregory Scofield, author of Witness, I Am

Additional Information
288 pages | 7.25" x 8.62"

"Then one day a ‘flyable’ took me away from our world through the sky to a dark and desolate place.”

Jose Kusugak had a typical Arctic childhood, growing up playing games, enjoying food caught by hunters, and watching his mother preparing skins. But he was one of the first generation of Inuit children who were taken from their homes and communities and sent to live in residential schools. In this moving and candid memoir, Jose tells of his experiences at residential school and the lifelong effects it had on him.

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for ages 12 to 15.

Included in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 resource list for grades 6 to 9 for Social Studies, Science, and English Language Arts.

A personal, real story that introduces young readers to the memoir genre.

Inhabit Education Books is proud to introduce Qinuisaarniq (“resiliency”), a program created to educate Nunavummiut about the history and impacts of residential schools, policies of assimilation, and other colonial acts that affected the Canadian Arctic.

Each resource in the program has been carefully written and reviewed to include level-appropriate opportunities for students to learn about colonial acts and policies that affected Inuit. Topics covered include the residential school system, relocations to settlements and the High Arctic, sled dog slaughters, the use of E and W numbers, and others. These acts and policies created long-lasting impacts on Inuit individuals and communities, which are still being felt today.

The resources in this program include personal interviews, testimony, and writing; non-fiction informational resources; and information about traditional Inuit practices.

Additional Information
56 pages | 9.00" x 6.00". | b&w illustrations