Virtual Book Display

"Comprehensive, authoritative, and timely, here is a wide-ranging portrait of America's indigenous peoples, combining information about their history and traditions with insight into the topics that most affect their lives today. From the upheaval of first contacts to the policies of removal to contemporary issues of self-determination, this useful source book provides information on all aspects of Native American life." "Each chapter of the almanac outlines a particular topic of interest, such as the history of Native-white relations, the location and status of Native American tribes, religious traditions and ceremonies, Native American language and literature, contemporary performers and artists, and more." "Within each chapter, reference features highlight prominent individuals, provide up-to-date facts and figures, make suggestions for further reading, and include the names and addresses of dozens of Native American organizations, cultural centers, and points of interest. The book also contains a detailed chronology, an extensive bibliography, and more than 100 historical and contemporary drawings and photographs." "For students, researchers, writers, and anyone else interested in Native American studies today, The Native American Almanac is a comprehensive look at the first Americans."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This work describes the various types of bows used by the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with an added appendix by Bill Holm on "Making Horn Bows".

Negotiators of Change covers the history of ten tribal groups including the Cherokee, Iroquois and Navajo -- as well as tribes with less known histories such as the Yakima, Ute, and Pima-Maricopa. The book contests the idea that European colonialization led to a loss of Native American women's power, and instead presents a more complex picture of the adaption to, and subversion of, the economic changes introduced by Europeans. The essays also discuss the changing meainings of motherhood, women's roles and differing gender ideologies within this context.

Winner of the 2020 Society for Economic Botany's Mary W. Klinger Book Award An authoritative and thoroughly accessible overview of farming and food practices at Cahokia   Agriculture is rightly emphasized as the center of the economy in most studies of Cahokian society, but the focus is often predominantly on corn. This farming economy is typically framed in terms of ruling elites living in mound centers who demanded tribute and a mass surplus to be hoarded or distributed as they saw fit. Farmers are cast as commoners who grew enough surplus corn to provide for the elites.   Feeding Cahokia: Early Agriculture in the North American Heartland presents evidence to demonstrate that the emphasis on corn has created a distorted picture of Cahokia's agricultural practices. Farming at Cahokia was biologically diverse and, as such, less prone to risk than was maize-dominated agriculture. Gayle J. Fritz shows that the division between the so-called elites and commoners simplifies and misrepresents the statuses of farmers--a workforce consisting of adult women and their daughters who belonged to kin groups crosscutting all levels of the Cahokian social order. Many farmers had considerable influence and decision-making authority, and they were valued for their economic contributions, their skills, and their expertise in all matters relating to soils and crops. Fritz examines the possible roles played by farmers in the processes of producing and preparing food and in maintaining cosmological balance.   This highly accessible narrative by an internationally known paleoethnobotanist highlights the biologically diverse agricultural system by focusing on plants, such as erect knotweed, chenopod, and maygrass, which were domesticated in the midcontinent and grown by generations of farmers before Cahokia Mounds grew to be the largest Native American population center north of Mexico. Fritz also looks at traditional farming systems to apply strategies that would be helpful to modern agriculture, including reviving wild and weedy descendants of these lost crops for redomestication. With a wealth of detail on specific sites, traditional foods, artifacts such as famous figurines, and color photos of significant plants, Feeding Cahokia will satisfy both scholars and interested readers.

Confounding the Color Line is an essential, interdisciplinary introduction to the myriad relationships forged for centuries between Indians and Blacks in North America.nbsp;Since the days of slavery, the lives and destinies of Indians and Blacks have been entwined-thrown together through circumstance, institutional design, or personal choice. Cultural sharing and intermarriage have resulted in complex identities for some members of Indian and Black communities today. The contributors to this volume examine the origins, history, various manifestations, and long-term consequences of the different connections that have been established between Indians and Blacks. Stimulating examples of a range of relations are offered, including the challenges faced by Cherokee freedmen, the lives of Afro-Indian whalers in New England, and the ways in which Indians and Africans interacted in Spanish colonial New Mexico. Special attention is given to slavery and its continuing legacy, both in the Old South and in Indian Territory. The intricate nature of modern Indian-Black relations is showcased through discussions of the ties between Black athletes and Indian mascots, the complex identities of Indians in southern New England, the problem of Indian identity within the African American community, and the way in which today's Lumbee Indians have creatively engaged with African American church music. At once informative and provocative, Confounding the Color Line sheds valuable light on a pivotal and not well understood relationship between these communities of color, which together and separately have affected, sometimes profoundly, the course of American history.

The Last of the Mohicans is the second book in Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy, and remains his best-known work. It is a historical novel set in the French and Indian war in New York, and centers around the massacre of surrendered Anglo-American troops. The two daughters of the British commander are kidnapped, but rescued by the last two Mohicans. The title comes from a quote by Tamanend: "I have lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans".

I am alive -- Across and Arctic bridge -- Nomads of the north -- Woodmen and villagers of the east -- About language -- Farmers and raiders of the southwest -- Fishermen and foragers of the west -- Horsemen of the plains -- The clash of cultures -- From Wounded Knee to Wounded Knee.

Traces the history of the Powhatan Indians since their first contact with the English in 1607 to the present, and examines the evolution of their social, economic, political, and ritual life.

Ehle tells the searing story of the betrayal and brutal dispossession of the Cherokee Nation. The book covers the entire sweep of Cherokee history, from the coming of the white man to the infamous Trail of Tears. 32 photos.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed forever our vision of how the West was really won.

"Moonshot is a project that is a thrilling new collection that showcases diverse aboriginal representation in comic books. This is an anthology of stories about identity, culture, and spirituality told by writers and artists from a range of communities across North America including many creators that identify as Métis, Inuit, Dene, Anishnaabe, Cree, Mi'kmaq, Caddo, Haida, Sioux, and Suquamish, among others"--Foreword.

This book focuses on the renewal (or rekindling) of cultural identity, especially in populations previously considered 'extinct'. At the same time, Hendry sets out to explain the importance of ensuring the survival of these cultures. By drawing a fine and textured picture of these cultures, Hendry illuminates extraordinary diversity that was, at one point, seriously endangered, and explains why it should matter in today's world.

In May 1830, the United States formally launched a policy to expel Native Americans from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Justified as a humanitarian enterprise, the undertaking was to be systematic and rational, overseen by Washington's small but growing bureaucracy. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal government's auspices, and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation, and violence. Unworthy Republic reveals how expulsion became national policy and describes the chaotic and deadly results of the operation to deport 80,000 men, women, and children.Drawing on firsthand accounts and the voluminous records produced by the federal government, Saunt's deeply researched book argues that Indian Removal, as advocates of the policy called it, was not an inevitable chapter in U.S. expansion across the continent. Rather, it was a fiercely contested political act designed to secure new lands for the expansion of slavery and to consolidate the power of the southern states. Indigenous peoples fought relentlessly against the policy, while many U.S. citizens insisted that it was a betrayal of the nation's values. When Congress passed the act by a razor-thin margin, it authorized one of the first state-sponsored mass deportations in the modern era, marking a turning point for native peoples and for the United States.In telling this gripping story, Saunt shows how the politics and economics of white supremacy lay at the heart of the expulsion of Native Americans; how corruption, greed, and administrative indifference and incompetence contributed to the debacle of its implementation; and how the consequences still resonate today.

Referencing a classic Haida oral narrative, this stunning full-colour graphic novel documents the tragic story of a leader so blinded by revenge that he leads his community to the brink of war and destruction. Consisting of 108 pages of hand-painted illustrations, Red is a groundbreaking mix of Haida imagery and Japanese manga. Now available in paperback, the hardcover edition was nominated for the B.C. Bookseller's Choice Award, a Doug Wright Award for Best Book and a 2010 Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Canadian Cartoonist. It was also an Amazon Top 100 book of 2009. Red is the prideful leader of a small village in the islands off the northwest coast of British Columbia. His sister was abducted years ago by a band of raiders. When news comes that she has been spotted in a nearby village, Red sets out to rescue his sister and exact revenge on her captors. Tragic and time- less, it is reminiscent of such classic stories as Oedipus Rex and Macbeth. Red is an action-packed and dazzling graphic novel that is also a cautionary tale about the devastating effects of rage and retribution.

First Published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.  Humans have long been acute observers of their biological surroundings and have been involved in dynamic relationships with ambient flora and fauna since the development of the earliest medical systems and food-getting technologies. Human-plant interactions can, then, be viewed as one expression of a population's encounter with their environment and have been the subject of considerable interest in various disciplines which seek to understand how the use of plants affects patterns of health and disease. The aim of this volume is to promote a bio-behavioral focus for indigenous plant research.

ntroduction, by R. Redfield.--Some problems of social organization, by S. Tax.--The Cheyenne and Arapaho kinship system, by F. Eggan.--Kiowa-Apache social organization, by J. G. McAllister.--An outline of Chiricahua Apache social organization, by M. E. Opler.--The social organization of the Fox Indians, by S. Tax.--Eastern Cherokee social organization, by W. H. Gilbert, Jr.--The underlying sanctions of Plains Indian culture, by J. H. Provinse.--The place of religious revivalism in the formation of the intercultural community on Klamath Reservation, by P. Nash.--From Lafitau to Radcliffe-Brown: a short history of the study of social organization, by S. Tax.--Social anthropology: methods and results, by F. Eggan.--Bibliography p. 555-567.

The Cherokee husband-and-wife team who recorded and translated these folktales in 1961 helped to preserve the lore of seventeen elder Oklahoma Cherokees. This volume includes a wide variety of folklore; talking-animal stories, tales of a dragon-like creature and other monsters, accounts of little people inhabiting the hills of eastern Oklahoma, variants of European tales, fragments of Cherokee mythology and cosmology, and legends and lore of historical personages and events. The authors present the stories exactly as they were told, adding brief comments to place the stories clearly in the context of Cherokee life and thought. Musical notations are included wherever a song formed part of a story.

The tragedy of the Indian -- King Philip, the Wampanog mystery -- Joseph Brant, the Iroquois statesman -- Pontiac, the chief who called the nations together -- Tecumseh, the Shawnee who dreamed of empire -- Black Hawk, the Sauk who fought for his village -- Sitting Bull, war chief or swindler? -- Captain Jack, an Indian David -- Chief Joseph, master strategist -- Indian bibliography (p. 275-280)

Seminole beginnings -- Return of the Seminoles to Spanish rule -- Seminoles and border diplomacy, 1801-12 -- Indian alliance against the United States -- The Creek-Seminole frontier, 1814-16 -- The end of the Spanish regime in Florida -- The Treaty of Camp Moultrie -- Difficulties of enforcing the treaty -- Agitation for Indian removal, 1826-34 -- Prelude to war, 1834-35 -- Removal by force : Seminole trail of tears -- Seminole guile -- General Jesup's second campaign -- Removal for profit, 1838-41 -- End of the war : more removals for profit -- Seminole struggle for adjustment in the West -- A separate Seminole Nation -- The Seminoles in the American Civil War -- Reconstruction and recovery -- Transition to United States citizenship -- The Seminoles as United States citizens.

I am alive -- Across and Arctic bridge -- Nomads of the north -- Woodmen and villagers of the east -- About language -- Farmers and raiders of the southwest -- Fishermen and foragers of the west -- Horsemen of the plains -- The clash of cultures -- From Wounded Knee to Wounded Knee.

"What is the 'meaning' of names like Coosa and Tallapoosa? Who named the Alabama and Tombigbee and Tennessee rivers? How are Cheaha and Conecuh and Talladega pronounced? How did Opelika and Tuscaloosa get their names? Questions like these, which are asked by laymen as well as by historians, geographers, and students of the English language, can be answered only by study of the origins and history of the Indian names that dot the map of Alabama.--from the Foreword Originally published by Professor Read in 1937, this volume was revised, updated, and annotated in 1984 by James B. McMillan and remains the single best compedium on the topic.

Too often textbook accounts of American Indians end with the massacre at Wounded Knee, but the story of American Indians is an ongoing one. In this remarkable feat of inclusion, Professor Iverson begins at Wounded Knee and tells the stories of Indian communities throughout the United States, including not only political leaders and activists, but also professionals, artists, soldiers and athletes-men and women who have throughout this century worked to carry on time-honored traditions even as they created new ones. Though appropriate attention is paid to federal officials and policies, We Are Still Here centers on Indian country-on the decisions and actions of Indian individuals-in its discussion of urbanization, economic development, cultural revitalization, identity, and sovereignty.

From the ancient traditions of pottery making at Acoma's Sky City to the more recent revival of fine ceramic work at Laguna, Dillingham explores the role and meaning of pottery and potters in Pueblo life.

She was both guardian of the hearth and, on occasion, ruler and warrior, leading men into battle, managing the affairs of her people, sporting war paint as well as necklaces and earrings--she is the Native American woman. She built houses and ground corn, wove blankets and painted pottery, played field hockey and rode racehorses. Frequently she enjoyed an open and joyous sexuality before marriage; if her marriage didn't work out she could divorce her husband by the mere act of returning to her parents. She mourned her dead by tearing her clothes and covering herself with ashes, and when she herself died was often shrouded in her wedding dress. She was our native sister, the American Indian woman, and it is of her life and lore that Carolyn Niethammer writes in this rich tapestry of America's past and present. Here, as it unfolded, is the chronology of the Native American woman's life. Here are the birth rites of Caddo women from the Mississippi-Arkansas border, who bore their children alone by the banks of rivers and then immersed themselves and their babies in river water; here are Apache puberty ceremonies that are still carried on today, when the cost for the celebrations can run anywhere from one to six thousand dollars. Here are songs from the Night Dances of the Sioux, where girls clustered on one side of the lodge and boys congregated on the other; here is the Shawnee legend of the Corn Person and of Our Grandmother, the two female deities who ruled the earth. Far from the submissive, downtrodden "squaw" of popular myth, the Native American woman emerges as a proud, sometimes stoic, always human individual from whom those who came after can learn much. At a time when many contemporary American women are seeking alternatives to a lifestyle and role they have outgrown, Daughters of the Earth offers us an absorbing--and illuminating--legacy of dignity and purpose.

This work gives a historic overview of the relationship between these 2 groups through slavery, the Civil War, land battles, segregation, & various political movements, as well as a basic history of each group's struggle for civil rights.

Are images and representations central to understanding Native Americans? How do Native artists, as producers of visual culture, respond to what art critic Lucy Lippard has called "the overwhelming burdens" of Indian art? In this path breaking study, anthropologist Nancy Marie Mithlo examines the power of stereotypes, the utility of pan-Indianism, the significance of realist ideologies, and the employment of alterity in Native American arts. Addressing the question of how visual referents communicate across cultural divides, she aims to deconstruct the common understanding of stereotypes and suggest that they may play a role in conveying otherness. By using concepts such as "strategic essentialism" and "conventional representations," she analyzes the ways in which disparate groups employ damaged knowledges in trying to communicate their own values and those of contrasting groups, especially when other conceptual tools are unavailable.

An innovative survey of Native North American art history which fully incorporates substantive new research and scholarship, and examines such issues as gender, representation, the colonial encounter, and contemporary arts. By encompassing both the sacred and secular, political and domestic,the ceremonial and commercial, it shows the importance of the visual arts in maintaining the integrity of spiritual, social , political, and economic systems within Native North American societies.This exciting new investigation explores the indigenous arts of the US and Canada from the early pre-contact period to the present day, stressing the conceptual and iconographic continuities over five centuries and across an immensely diverse range of regions. The richness of Native American art isemphasized through discussions of basketry, wood and rock carvings, dance masks, and beadwork, alongside the contemporary vitality of paintings and installations by modern artists such as Robert Davidson, Emmi Whitehorse, and Alex Janvier.

In this spiritual, moving autobiography, Wilma Mankiller, former Chief of the Cherokee Nation and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, tells of her own history while also honoring and recounting the history of the Cherokees. Mankiller's life unfolds against the backdrop of the dawning of the American Indian civil rights struggle, and her book becomes a quest to reclaim and preserve the great Native American values that form the foundation of our nation. Now featuring a new Afterword to the 2000 paperback reissue, this edition of Mankiller completely updates the author's private and public life after 1994 and explores the recent political struggles of the Cherokee Nation.

Buffalo Bird Woman, a Hidatsa Indian born about 1839, was an expert gardener. Following centuries-old methods, she and the women of her family raised huge crops of corn, squash, beans, and sunflowers on the rich bottomlands of the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. When she was young, her fields were near Like-a-fishhook, the earth-lodge village that the Hidatsa shared with the Mandan and Arikara. When she grew older, the families of the three tribes moved to individual allotments on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. In Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden, first published in 1917, anthropologist Gilbert L. Wilson transcribed the words of this remarkable woman, whose advice today's gardeners can still follow. She describes a year of activities, from preparing and planting the fields through cultivating, harvesting, and storing foods. She gives recipes for cooking typical Hidatsa dishes. And she tells of the stories, songs, and ceremonies that were essential to a bountiful harvest. A new introduction by anthropologist and ethnobotanist Jeffery R. Hanson describes the Hidatsa people's ecologically sound methods of gardening and Wilson's work with this traditional gardener. Praise for Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden: "A gem of a book useful for today's gardener." --Organic Gardener "One of the best gardening books around." --City Pages "Every gardener and agricultural scientist should find gems of practical wisdom in these pages, borne from an age-old tradition when sustainable agricultural practices . . . made the difference in sustaining life. Fascinating!" --Foster's Botanical & Herb Review "Historical photographs and diagrams of farming techniques, along with actual recipes and Hidatsa vegetable varieties, make this gem of a book useful for today'' gardener." --Organic Gardening

Translated from over forty lanugages and representing all the best-known Indian cultures of North and South America, this collection contains omens, battle songs, orations, love lyrics, prayers, dreams and mysterious incanations. A few examples of Eskimo poetry are included.

The vast, pine-covered plateau now known as Yellowstone National Park has been lived in, traveled through, and exploited by humans for thousands of years. It is still possible to see the remnants of old camps and deep-rutted trails over which ancient peoples crossed the Park to reach the bison-rich plains. When did humans first visit the area we now call Yellowstone? Who lived there when the first Europeans entered the region? What happened to the last of the early inhabitants? How did the Nez Perce, fleeing across the northen of the newly established Park in 1877, escape U.S. troops? How did Indians perceive the Park's geysers and hot springs? These and other questions are answered in this popular history of the Park written by a professional archaeologist who is also a seasonal resident of West Yellowstone. Joel Janetski reconstructs past human events from archaeological evidence and historical sources to provide an engrossing story of the people who knew the area hundreds, even thousands, of years ago and who left their traces amidst the grandeur that is today's Yellowstone National Park.

American Indians in a Modern World examines the persistence of American Indian culture in a world of explicit antagonism and rapid modernization. Surveying the many facets of Indian life, from tribal ceremonies to Indian humor and gaming tables, Donald L. Fixico shows how Indian nations have survived threats to their culture and their very existence by relying on a flexible mix of traditional and modern values, enabling them to adapt to a world of airplanes, cities, and the Internet. Fixico looks deeply at Indian culture in its inescapable confrontation with the modern world: the formation of tribal governments in the 1930s, the service of thousands of Indians in World War II, the development of activist movements, the evolution of Indian artistic traditions, and efforts to balance traditional and modern education. American Indians have survived and often thrived in a rapidly changing world, he observes, because of their cultural resilience.

Slavery existed in North America long before the first Africans arrived at Jamestown. For centuries, Native Americans took prisoners of war and killed, adopted, or enslaved them. This book takes a familiar setting for bondage, the American South, and places Native Americans at the centre of the story.

The first Europeans to arrive in North America's various regions relied on Native women to help them navigate unfamiliar customs and places. This study of three well-known and legendary female cultural intermediaries, Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea, examines their initial contact with Euro-Americans, their negotiation of multinational frontiers, and their symbolic representation over time. Well before their first contact with Europeans or Anglo-Americans, the three women's societies of origin--the Aztecs of Central Mexico (Malinche), the Powhatans of the mid-Atlantic coast (Pocahontas), and the Shoshones of the northern Rocky Mountains (Sacagawea)--were already dealing with complex ethnic tensions and social change. Using wit and diplomacy learned in their Native cultures and often assigned to women, all three individuals hoped to benefit their own communities by engaging with the new arrivals. But as historian Rebecca Kay Jager points out, Europeans and white Americans misunderstood female expertise in diplomacy and interpreted indigenous women's cooperation as proof of their attraction to Euro-American men and culture. This confusion has created a historical misrepresentation of Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea as gracious Indian princesses, giving far too little credit to their skills as intermediaries. Examining their initial contact with Europeans and their work on multinational frontiers, Jager removes these three famous icons from the realm of mythology and cultural fantasy and situates each woman's behavior in her own cultural context. Drawing on history, anthropology, ethnohistory, and oral tradition, Jager demonstrates their shrewd use of diplomacy and fulfillment of social roles and responsibilities in pursuit of their communities' future advantage. Jager then goes on to delineate the symbolic roles that Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea came to play in national creation stories. Mexico and the United States have molded their legends to justify European colonization and condemn it, to explain Indian defeat and celebrate indigenous prehistory. After hundreds of years, Malinche, Pocahontas and Sacagawea are still relevant. They are the symbolic mothers of the Americas, but more than that, they fulfilled crucial roles in times of pivotal and enduring historical change. Understanding their stories brings us closer to understanding our own histories.

This work captures storteller, poet, and performer Jim Northrup at his shrewdest and funniest. He tells the key events of his own life: his childhood in a government boarding school, combat in Vietnam, confronting tragedies, and becoming a grandfather.'

A young girl notices things about her grandmother that make her curious. Why does her grandmother have long, braided hair and beautifully coloured clothing? Why does she speak Cree and spend so much time with her family? As she asks questions, her grandmother shares her experiences in a residential school, when all of these things were taken away. Also available in a bilingual Swampy Cree/English edition. When We Were Alone won the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award in the Young People's Literature (Illustrated Books) category, and was nominated for the TD Canadian's Children's Literature Award.

At the not-so-tender age of 8, Aslan arrived in North Dakota to help stop a pipeline. A few months later he returned - and saw the whole world watching. Read about his inspiring experiences in the Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock. Learn about what exactly happened there, and why. Be inspired by Aslan's story of the daily life of Standing Rock's young water protectors. Mni Wiconi ... Water is Life

A collection of traditional tales which presents the heritage of various Indian nations, including the Wampanoag, Cherokee, Osage, Lakota, and Tlingit.

2019 Sibert Honor Book 2019 Orbis Pictus Honor Book NPR's Guide To 2018's Great Reads 2018 BookLaunchAward (SCBWI) Kirkus ReviewsBest Books of 2018 School Library JournalBest Books of 2018 2018 JLG selection 2019 Reading the West Picture Book Award The Cherokee community is grateful for blessings and challenges that each season brings. This is modern Native American life as told by an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. The word otsaliheliga (oh-jah-LEE-hay-lee-gah) is used by members of the Cherokee Nation to express gratitude. Beginning in the fall with the new year and ending in summer, follow a full Cherokee year of celebrations and experiences. Written by a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, this look at one group of Native Americans is appended with a glossary and the complete Cherokee syllabary, originally created by Sequoyah. "A gracious, warm, and loving celebration of community and gratitude"-Kirkus ReviewsSTARRED REVIEW "The book underscores the importance of traditions and carrying on a Cherokee way of life"-Horn Book STARRED REVIEW "This informative and authentic introduction to a thriving ancestral and ceremonial way of life is perfect for holiday and family sharing"-School Library JournalSTARRED REVIEW "An elegant representation"-Shelf Awareness STARRED REVIEW

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 who are in charge at the school and 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' 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.