Shirley: An Indian Residential School Story

Gr 3-6–At five years old, Shirley Fletcher Horn was taken away from her family by a Canadian government official and sent to live at a Residential school. She describes various experiences from her 10 years in two residential schools, including trauma of her own and that she witnessed. Both schools housed first nation children from various areas who were all separated from their families and culture. The book ends joyfully depicting happy summer memories: her only family time throughout that decade. Short, often poetic, chapters cover different key memories from Shirley Fletcher Horn’s experience. Each chapter has a correlating mixed media image of photography and hand-drawn illustration. The majority layer colorful illustrations over a black-and-white photograph, or a colorful illustration with an embedded black-and-white photo. Happier memories with family use color photography and illustrations. Those combining black-and-white illustration into photography depict child labor, loneliness, seeing her toddler brother alone outside, and other traumatic memories. This work is a collaboration between two First Nation women: the titular Shirley Fletcher Horn, former Chief of the Missanabie Cree First Nation, and Robertson, Atikameksheng Anishnawbek First Nation. The book melds both of their backgrounds in art and activism. They took great care in tailoring the difficult and generationally traumatic subject of residential schools in an appropriate and respectful format for school age children.