Annually on September 30, Canadians recognize Orange Shirt Day, a day dedicated to educating people and promote awareness in Canada about the Indian residential school system and the impact it has had on Indigenous communities for over a century.
RDC Library has several books that tell the story of Canada’s residential schools.
RDC Books (and a movie!)
The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King (nonfiction)
“Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, The Inconvenient Indian distills the insights gleaned from Thomas King’s critical and personal meditation on what it means to be “Indian” in North America, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other.”
The Reason You Walk by Wab Kinew (memoir)
“When his father was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer, Winnipeg broadcaster and musician Wab Kinew decided to spend a year reconnecting with the accomplished but distant aboriginal man who’d raised him.”
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (fiction, YA)
“In a future world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America’s indigenous population – and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow – and dreams – means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a 15-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones, and take refuge from the “recruiters” who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing ‘factories.'”
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott (nonfiction)
“A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a personal and critical meditation on trauma, legacy, oppression and racism in North America… Alicia Elliott offers indispensable insight and understanding to the ongoing legacy of colonialism.”
Speaking Our Truth by Monique Gray Smith (nonfiction, YA)
“This nonfiction book examines how we can foster reconciliation with Indigenous people at individual, family, community and national levels.”
In My Own Moccasins by Helen Knott (memoir)
“In My Own Moccasins is an unflinching account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds brought on by sexual violence.
Northern Wildflower by Catherine Lafferty (memoir)
“Northern Wildflower is the beautifully written and powerful memoir of Catherine Lafferty. With startling honesty and a distinct, occasionally humorous, voice, Lafferty tells her story of being a Dene woman growing up in a small northern Canadian mining town and her struggles with discrimination, poverty, addiction, love and loss.”
Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot (memoir)
“Terese Mailhot’s memoir chronicles her struggle to balance the beauty of her Native heritage with the often desperate and chaotic reality of life on the reservation. Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman’s coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in British Columbia.”
Mamaskatch by Darrel J. McLeod (memoir)
“Growing up in the tiny village of Smith, Alberta, Darrel J. McLeod was surrounded by his Cree family’s history. In shifting and unpredictable stories, his mother, Bertha, shared narratives of their culture, their family and the cruelty that she and her sisters endured in residential school.”
The Education of Augie Merasty by Joseph Auguste Merasty, with David Carpenter (memoir)
“Merasty was one of an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children who were taken from their families and sent to government-funded, church-run schools, where they were subjected to a policy of ‘aggressive assimiliation.’ As Merasty recounts, these schools did more than attempt to mold children in the ways of white society. They were taught to be ashamed of their native heritage and, as he experienced, often suffered physical and sexual abuse. Even as he looks back on this painful part of his childhood, Merasty’s generous and authentic voice shines through.”
Up Ghost River by Edmund Metatawabin, with Alexandra Shimo (memoir)
“Edmund Metatawabin tells the story of his years as a child in the 1950s in St. Anne’s, one of Canada’s worst residential schools, and the healing he found from his alcoholism and PTSD through his reconnection with his Cree culture.”
When we were alone by Robertson, David and illustrated by Julie Flett (fiction, children’s picture book)
“When a young girl helps tend to her grandmother’s garden, she begins to notice things that make her curious. Why does her grandmother have long, braided hair and beautifully colored clothing? Why does she speak another language and spend so much time with her family? As she asks her grandmother about these things, she is told about life in a residential school a long time ago, where all of these things were taken away. When We Were Alone is a story about a difficult time in history, and, ultimately, one of empowerment and strength”
The Outside Circle by Patti LaBoucane-Benson (fiction, graphic novel)
“Pete, a young Aboriginal man wrapped up in gang violence, lives with his younger brother, Joey, and his mother who is a heroin addict. After returning home one evening, Pete and his mother’s boyfriend, Dennis, get into a violent struggle, which sends Dennis to the morgue and Pete to jail. Initially maintaining his gang ties, a jail brawl forces Pete to realize the negative influence he has become on Joey and encourages him to begin a process of rehabilitation through a traditional Native healing circle.”
They Called Me Number One by Bev Sellars (memoir)
“Like Native children forced by law to attend schools across Canada and the United States, Sellars and other students of St. Joseph’s Mission were allowed home only for two months in the summer and for two weeks at Christmas. The rest of the year they lived, worked, and studied at the school. St. Joseph’s mission is the site of the controversial and well-publicized sex-related offences of Bishop Hubert O’Connor, which took place during Sellars’s student days, between 1962 and 1967, when O’Connor was the school principal. After the school’s closure, those who had been forced to attend came from surrounding reserves and smashed windows, tore doors and cabinets from the wall, and broke anything that could be broken. Overnight their anger turned a site of shameful memory into a pile of rubble. In this frank and poignant memoir, Sellars breaks her silence about the institution’s lasting effects, and eloquently articulates her own path to healing.”
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese (fiction)
The book: https://catalogue.neoslibraries.ca/catalog/5451199?lib=reddeer
The movie: https://catalogue.neoslibraries.ca/catalog/8297419?lib=reddeer
“Saul Indian Horse is in trouble, and there seems to be only one way out. As he journeys his way back through his life as a northern Ojibway, from the horrors of residential school to his triumphs on the hockey rink, he must question everything he knows.”
These books are available to RDC students, faculty, and staff through NEOS
The Red Files by Lisa Bird-Wilson (poetry)
“Drawing from family photographs and archival records, Lisa Bird-Wilson writes poetry to commemorate the generations of children traumatized by the residential school system. The project is a personal one as Bird-Wilson’s own grandparents, aunts and uncles were among the 150,000 Indigenous students to attend residential schools. The title of the book comes from the federal government, who organized the residential school archives into “black files” and “red files.”” (CBC Books, 2018)
Calling Down the Sky by Rosanna Deerchild (poetry)
“In this poetry collection, Rosanna Deerchild calls attention to the traumatic impact of severing Indigenous children from their communities. Deerchild focuses on the survivors of the Canadian residential school system in the 1960s, who were forbidden to speak their languages and practice their culture. Calling Down the Sky illustrates how this cruelty reverberates across Indigenous communities and through generations of family.” (CBC Books, 2018)
Burning in this Midnight Dream by Louise Bernice Halfe (poetry)
“Celebrated Cree poet Louise Bernice Halfe was inspired to write the collection Burning in this Midnight Dream as the Truth and Reconciliation process unfolded. The book describes how survivors continue to be haunted by their experiences, and how that trauma has been passed down for generations. Halfe herself is a survivor of the residential school system.” (CBC Books, 2018)
