Atlantic Books Today BOOK FEATURE
Confronting a difficult past
by Michelle Porter
Three new books use the power of research, story and the law to consider residential schools and the paths to healing, reconciliation and cultural renewal
MUINJI’J ASKS WHY
Muinji’j and Shanika MacEachern Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press
B
ooks can help us have the conversations that we don’t always know how to have. This spring, there are three books about residential schools that invite readers of all kinds to have necessary and healing conversations. These books offer the words many of us struggle with sometimes—especially when we’re talking with children. Told by a Mi’kmaq mother, Shanika MacEachern, and her third-grade daughter Muinji’j, Muinji’j Asks Why: The Story of the Mi’kmaq and the Shubenacadie Residential School is a beautiful picture book that will begin a conversation with the children in your life. Muinji’j returns home from school with questions about residential schools and her grandparents tell her about the Mi’kmaq community in Nova Scotia. What’s important about this book is that it begins with the story of the Mi’kmaq community before the residential schools, and lets the story continue into the present, where there is healing, reconciliation and cultural renewal.
This book gives us a large traumatic story through one family in one place. Muinji’j’s grandparents are strong, comforting figures who make sure their granddaughter—and the reader— knows that the people survived and remain strong. Each difficult part of the story is paired with parallel descriptions of present healing. This is a book that teaches compassion. It is what reconciliation looks like for our elementary school-aged children. The illustrations by Zeta Paul are done in colours that offer comfort and bring the sense of healing and renewal that is important to this gentle, loving story. The book ends with descriptions of two-eyed seeing, of living within two cultures. Muinji’j then asks how they will make sure others know the true story of residential schools. “We will tell them,” said Papa. “How?” “We just did.”
MICHELLE PORTER is a Red River Métis poet, journalist and editor. She holds degrees in journalism, folklore and geography. She is the author of Inquiries, Approaching Fire and the memoir Scratching River. She lives in St. John’s. 36
