Reads for Orange Shirt Day/National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

In 2021 Indigenous communities across Turtle Island were deeply impacted by the countless children who didn’t make it home to their families when they attended residential school.

September 30, Orange Shirt Day, is the national day of remembrance commemorating the children, survivors and families impacted by the Canadian Indian residential school system. In the following reads, survivors share their stories of bravery, courage, resilience, and how residential school impacted their lives.

“Fatty Legs” – Christy JordanFenton and Margaret PokiakFenton. Oolmaun arrives at residential school in Aklavik with a yearning desire for learning.

She soon realizes they would only try to strip away her identity but couldn’t steal her love of reading or the connection in her heart to her family back home. Brave, resilient and free spirited, Oolmaun shares her experience at residential school as a young

Inuvialuit girl. This book is also written as a children’s book “When I Was Eight”, with Illustrations by Gabrielle Grimard.

“They Called Me Number One, Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School” – Bev Selers. An excerpt: “Soon after arrival at residential school, we were assigned a number that would become our identity. I became number 1 on the girl’s side. Ninety years after she left St Joseph’s Mission, my grandmother still remembered she was number 27. My mom remembers her number was 71. Thankfully our numbers were not tattooed on our skin.”

“Indian Horse” – Richard Wagamese. With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he’s sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battels obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement. “Indian Horse” unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man. Description provided by the publisher.

Lethbridge Public Library welcomes you online at https:// lethlib.ca where you can find book lists searching Truth and Reconciliation.

LPL Teens: Truth and Reconciliation | Lethbridge Public Library | BiblioCommons

LPL KIDS - Truth and Reconciliation | Lethbridge Public Library | BiblioCommons

LPL Adult –Truth and Reconciliation I Lethbridge Public Library I BiblioCommons

The Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line is available 24-hours a day for anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of his/her or their family’s residential school experience 1-866-925-4419.

Please take the time to remember and to always be kind to others. Our condolences, thoughts and prayers are with the survivors, families and children.

Marilyn Contois, Library Technician; Indigenous Services at the Lethbridge Public Library