Indigenous children’s literature in Canada: Ethical teaching, research, and librarianship

Abstract

In the introduction to his edition of Indigenous writing from the decades between 1890 and 1930, Frederick Hoxie argues that by “talking back to those who considered themselves superior,” these authors “rejected the self-serving nationalism they heard from missionaries and bureaucrats [and] made it clear that they refused to accept the definitions others had of them⎯savage, backward, doomed” (8). In her studies of earlier Indigenous writers, Abenaki historian Lisa Brooks delineates the myriad ways in which Indigenous peoples have always talked back to colonialism. This history of talking back to the dominant discourse necessarily involves writing for children, these days as part of the project of decolonisation as Indigenous writers offer children counterstories that work to champion their own narratives, often through stories about residential schools in North America. The systematic and purposeful governmental removal of Inuit, Métis, and First Nations children and incarceration in the schools became a major focus of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s hearings and recommendations, and this removal and its consequences are the subject of several children’s books written by Indigenous authors. This presentation outlines how those books come into being, then draws on theorists including Brooks, Daniel Justice (Cherokee), Robin Kimmerer (Potawatomi), and Leanne Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg) to demonstrate how, by offering representations of removal from healthy families and child resistance to residential schools, these books talk back to dominant interpretations of Indigenous peoples and colonial history.