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K-Gr 3—A young girl learns about family and heritage in this gentle picture book about the legacy of Native American boarding schools. Working in the garden with her grandmother, a pigtailed girl asks why her "Nókom" wears colorful clothing and her hair in a long braid. Her grandmother explains that as a child, she was sent far away from her family to a school where she was forced to wear plain clothing and chop off her hair. "They wanted us to be like everyone else," she explains. But when they were alone, the ch...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

This quiet story is one of love and resistance during the decades-long era of oppressive residential schools for First Nations children in Canada. While spending the day with her grandmother, a contemporary girl has several questions, beginning with "Nokom, why do you wear so many colours?" Nokom answers by telling her granddaughter that at the residential school she was sent to as a child, students wore colorless uniforms. She goes on to say, "Sometimes in the fall, when we were alone...we would pile the leaves over th...Log In or Sign Up to Read More