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https://socialjusticebooks.org/booklists/american-indians/

https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com

Social Justice Books Indigenous #integrateyourshelf

Working on this for school thought I‘d pass it along 🤍

Olemaun desperately wants to go to the residential school to learn to read, even though her father is against it. When he finally agrees she learns the school is not what she hoped it to be.

Olemaun‘s hair is cut, her name and warm clothes are taken away, and she learns most of “school” is chores for the nuns.

Olemaun perseveres, teaching herself to read and reminding herself of her Inuit heritage.

#crossculturalstories 81 of 100 read

When I Was Eight serves as a picture book adaptation for Fatty Legs. The illustrations are cuter than in the book for slightly older children. Some of the scary bits have been sanitised. It serves as a tender introduction to residential schools for younger children, as well as an encouragement for all new readers out there.

I read this to my 8-year old, and I think that is probably the right age for this book. It is an intense story that required a lot of explaining from me to her. I explained the word Inuit, the concept of the residential schools, why her name was changed and how she must have felt, what a nun was, what a boarding school was...A lot of unfamiliar, but necessary to understand, things in here. Huge importance attached to reading in here as well.