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An honest look at life in an Indian residential school in the 1950s, and how one indomitable young spirit survived it -- 30th anniversary edition. Seepeetza loves living on Joyaska Ranch with her family. But when she is six years old, she is driven to the town of Kalamak, in the interior of British Columbia. Seepeetza will spend the next several years of her life at an Indian residential school. The nuns call her Martha and cut her hair. Worst of all, she is forbidden to "talk Indian," even with her sisters and cousins. Still, Seepeetza looks for bright spots -- the cookie she receives at Halloween, the dance practices. Most of all, there are her memories of holidays back at the ranch -- camping trips, horseback riding, picking berries and cleaning fish with her mother, aunt and grandmother. Always, thoughts of home make school life bearable. Based on her own experiences at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, this powerful novel by Nlaka'pamux author Shirley Sterling is a moving account of one of the most blatant expressions of racism in the history of Canada. Includes a new afterword by acclaimed Cree author Tomson Highway of the Barren Lands First Nation in northern Manitoba. Key Text Features afterword dialogue journal entries maps Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.1 Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6 Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.… (more)
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It's hard to write a novel in diary format and keep it realistic. Most writers go overboard and put way too much details in the diary, which moves the story along and lets the reader know what's going on, but you know nobody would write like that in their diary in real life. But Shirley Sterling struck the right balance here: Seepeetza's diary was detailed enough to be interesting, but short enough to pass for a real diary. It sounds like it really could have been written by a twelve-year-old girl.
This isn't a pleasant story to read, as Seepeetza is miserable at school, and the nuns treat the children dreadfully. Her time at home with her family is so happy, that it hurts to read how she dreads her holidays coming to an end.
I think this would be particularly interesting for people the same age who are growing up in BC, as it is a story that has happened locally, not far away, and it brings a dreadful part of Canada's history to life very vividly.
It was interesting to see the Irish words scattered throughout the story. Terms I usually associate with happy storytelling are used here in malice.
The entries will provide young readers with examples of how these schools tried to eradicate Indigenous culture. There are also examples of intergenerational trauma as many relations attended the school. Her father, who struggles with alcoholism, speaks six Indigenous languages, but won’t teach her them because he knows she will be punished for speaking them at school as he was.
The entries allude to other abuses but do not go into detail, so it is a good entry point for younger readers to understand residential schools. For adults, and older students, there is Behind Closed Doors, where adult survivors of the same Kamloops Residential School share their legacy of trauma, including physical, sexual and emotional abuse.