Review - Gaawin Gindaaswin Ndaawsii / I Am Not A Number

Gaawin Gindaaswin Ndaawsii / I Am Not A Number
by Jenny Kay Dupuis & Kathy Kacer
illustrated by Gillian Newland
Date: 2019
Publisher: Second Story Press
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book non-fiction
Pages: 48
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

Dual-language edition in Nishnaabemwin (Ojibwe) Nbisiing dialect and English. When eight-year-old Irene is removed from her First Nations family to live in a residential school, she is confused, frightened and terribly homesick. She tries to remember who she is and where she came from, despite the efforts of the nuns in charge at the school, who tell her that she is not to use her own name but instead use the number they have assigned to her. When she goes home for summer holidays, Irene's parents decide never to send her and her brothers away again. But where will they hide? And what will happen when her parents disobey the law? Based on the life of co-author Jenny Kay Dupuis's grandmother, I Am Not a Number is a hugely necessary book that brings a terrible part of Canada's history to light in a way that children can learn from and relate to.

(synopsis from NetGalley; see it on Goodreads)

Books like this don't exactly make one proud to be Canadian. The dehumanizing measures that were taken against innocent children are difficult to read about.

However, books like this are important. This one tells the story of Irene Couchie (grandmother of one of the authors) and her year spent in a residential school where she was stripped of her name (the children were known only by numbers), her hair, and her language. The children were half starved, and regularly abused as a form of discipline (if you can call a bedpan full of hot coals on the forearms a legitimate form of discipline). When the children were allowed to return home for the summer, their parents found out what had really been going on, and they vowed not to send Irene and her brothers back there. They devised a plan to hide them instead.

It's incredible to think that Irene's story happened less than 100 years ago. How could anyone have ever thought it was okay to treat other human beings so terribly? These were children, who had committed no crime other than being born into an Indigenous culture, and yet they were punished in almost unthinkable ways.

This book features a lot of text, but half of it is in the Nbisiing language, so the story itself isn't that long. In some ways, that's good, because I don't know if many more horrors could be included before this book was no longer suitable for children. The illustrations are nice, and show a loving family getting caught up in unfair laws driven by arrogance and bigotry. I enjoyed reading the notes at the end, too, which talk a little bit more about Irene's life, the residential school system in general, and the more recent efforts made to start to right the wrongs of the past. A few photographs are also included in this section.

Overall, this is a strong biographical picture book. I can't really say that I enjoyed it, because this subject matter isn't really something anyone should enjoy reading about. It is, however, an interesting story and one that would be a good teaching tool in elementary schools to help introduce kids to this part of history.

Thank you to NetGalley and Second Story Press for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 4/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 3/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 4/5

Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall: 3.67 out of 5