Stolen Words by Melanie Florence.

Stolen Words tells the story of a Cree grandfather whose culture and language was stolen from him as a result of his attending a residential school.

A young girl comes home from school, happy, carrying a dream catcher she has made. Walking with her beloved grandpa, she asks him how to say grandfather in Cree. But her grandfather doesn't remember. He tells her, "I lost my words a long time ago." Puzzled, his seven-year-old granddaughter asks him how this happened. He tells her how he and others were taken away from home, their way of life, and their mothers, "...to a school that was cold and lonely."  When they tried to use their words at the school, "...angry white faces raised their voices and their hands..." Grandfather and others were punished if they spoke their words - their own Cree language. Remembering brings tears and great sadness to her grandfather.

The next day, the young girl returns home, this time with his words. She tells him she has found his words, handing him a paperback book of the Cree language. As he looks through the book, his words come back, and so does his past. He is filled with joy. His granddaughter asks to learn his words too, and so begins, in some small but important way, the passing on a his heritage.

Discussion

Author Melanie Florence of Cree/Scottish heritage wrote this picture book in honour of her grandfather. Unlike the little girl in the story, Florence never had the chance to speak to her grandfather about his Cree heritage.For the author,  "...this story is about the healing relationship she wishes she had been able to have with him." 

Stolen Words gently introduces young readers to the residential school issue in a way that is easy to understand, simple text that presents the essence of what happened to young Indigenous children. Florence's text is given colour and emotion through the lovely, soft, warm illustrations by Quebec artist, Gabrielle Grimard. 

September 30 is Orange Shirt day, which is a day of remembrance and education about the Indian Residential school system and the impact it had on Indigenous children who were forcibly taken from their homes and placed in schools. These schools were designed to assimilate young Indigenous children into white European culture. Indigenous children were often completely separated from their families for long periods. The result was a loss of their mother language and the forgetting of a way of life. Afterwards, belonging to neither the white culture nor their own Indigenous culture, children who attended the residential schools grew into troubled adults, suffering from a deep sense of loss and profound alienation. As we now know, the impact of the residential school program has been ongoing and inter-generational.  Books like Stolen Words, are essential. They remind us to acknowledge the harm done by Canada's racist policies towards its First Nations, to work towards healing and to helping Indigenous peoples of Canada recover their culture and identity.

Book Details:

Stolen Words by Melanie Florence
Toronto: Second Story Press    2017