Description
How the Cree people lost their language and got it back
The story of the beautiful relationship between a little girl and her grandfather. When she asks her grandfather how to say something in his language – Cree – he admits that his language was stolen from him when he was a boy. The little girl then sets out to help her grandfather find his language again. This sensitive and warmly illustrated picture book explores the intergenerational impact of the residential school system that separated young Indigenous children from their families. The story recognizes the pain of those whose culture and language were taken from them, how that pain is passed down, and how healing can also be shared.
A Cree grandfather explains to his granddaughter about he lost his mother tongue in a Canadian residential school when he was a child. From 1831 to 1996, the government of Canada took First Nations children away from their families and sent them to residential schools. The government, and the White, Christian men and women who taught at these schools, were prejudiced. They believed that White people were better than First Nations (or Indigenous) people and systematically stripped them of their language and culture in order to ‘civilize’ them and convert them to Christianity. The infamous saying goes: ‘kill the Indian to save the child.’ Because of this cultural genocide for more than a hundred years, many, many children suffered, many, many families were torn apart, and much of the rich, beautiful Indigenous culture was lost. A culture full of wisdom we all desperately need.
A modern story, exploring the way the Cree people lost their language and how they begin to reclaim it in this beautiful story about a man and his gransdaughter.
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