by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer
Illustrated by Gillian Newland
Don’t let the picture book format fool you. This work gives a bleak look at the shameful residential school system that First Nations children were subjected to for over a century. Although this story takes place in Canada, the exact same thing happened in the United States during the same time frame.
The book tells the story of Jenny Kay Dupuis’s grandmother, Irene Couchie Dupuis, depicting the year that she spent at a residential school for Indigenous children. Irene was just eight years old. Some of Irene’s most vivid memories are shared, such as the cutting off of her hair (something only done by her people when mourning a loved one) and the punishments that followed infractions such as speaking in her native tongue. Perhaps the most egregious offense though was the loss of her very name. Irene became number 759.
Gillian Newland’s gentle watercolor illustrations magnify the pathos of Irene’s story. Her characters have clear facial expressions and body language, both of which speak loudly the sorrow, pain, and joy that the characters experience as the reader follows their story.
The last several pages of the book are prose and pictures that give the reader more information about the Residential School System and Ms. Dupuis’s grandmother.
I do NOT recommend this book for Grammar age children. The book begins with Irene’s experience being forcibly taken from her home and family. This is followed by several other events that I strongly feel would be distressing for young ones. I DO recommend this book for older students. Residential schools are rarely discussed outside of native communities in both the United States and Canada. For that reason, this book is important. These children and their parents suffered terribly at the hands of their governments and the school systems and deserve for their experiences to acknowledged.
Picture book (nonfiction)
Published: 2016
by Second Story Press; Toronto
Subject: Indigenous Residential School System
Time period: late 19th century—late 20th century
Recommended for: Dialectic and Rhetoric students