I Am Not a Number by Jenny Kay Dupuis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an amazing book. It is written simply and too the point, based on the life of the author’s grandmother.
In the United State, Australia, and Canada, and perhaps other places as well, the Indigenous people were removed from their homes and families and forced to become “white”. They were forbidden to speak their native tongue, forbidden to eat their food, and forbidden to have any contact with their families.
The author’s grandmother was one such child in 1928, in Canada. She and her bothers were removed from their family and forced to speak English, and beaten when they did not. This did not just happen to a few children, and this did not just happen back in the olden days. The last of the residential schools closed in 1996!
Perfect book for teachers to discuss history. Perfect book for young children to read to understand what happened.
Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.