Children's Fiction Native Canadian
My Name Is Seepeetza
30th Anniversary Edition
- Publisher
- Groundwood Books Ltd
- Initial publish date
- Sep 2022
- Category
- Native Canadian, Post-Confederation (1867-), Prejudice & Racism
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780888991652
- Publish Date
- Nov 1992
- List Price
- $10.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781554980543
- Publish Date
- Nov 1992
- List Price
- $9.95
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781773068565
- Publish Date
- Sep 2022
- List Price
- $12.99
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781773068848
- Publish Date
- Sep 2022
- List Price
- $9.99
Add it to your shelf
Where to buy it
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 9 to 12
- Grade: 4 to 7
- Reading age: 9 to 12
Description
An honest look at life in an Indian residential school in the 1950s, and how one indomitable young spirit survived it — 30th anniversary edition.
Seepeetza loves living on Joyaska Ranch with her family. But when she is six years old, she is driven to the town of Kalamak, in the interior of British Columbia. Seepeetza will spend the next several years of her life at an Indian residential school. The nuns call her Martha and cut her hair. Worst of all, she is forbidden to “talk Indian,” even with her sisters and cousins.
Still, Seepeetza looks for bright spots — the cookie she receives at Halloween, the dance practices. Most of all, there are her memories of holidays back at the ranch — camping trips, horseback riding, picking berries and cleaning fish with her mother, aunt and grandmother. Always, thoughts of home make school life bearable.
Based on her own experiences at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, this powerful novel by Nlaka’pamux author Shirley Sterling is a moving account of one of the most blatant expressions of racism in the history of Canada.
Includes a new afterword by acclaimed Cree author Tomson Highway of the Barren Lands First Nation in northern Manitoba.
Key Text Features
afterword
dialogue
journal entries
maps
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.1
Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6
Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.
About the authors
SHIRLEY STERLING (1948–2005) was a member of the Nlaka’pamux Nation. She twice received the Native Indian Teacher Education Alumni Award and held a PhD in Education from the University of British Columbia. My Name Is Seepeetza is based on her childhood experiences at an Indian residential school. Acclaimed in Canada and the United States, the book won the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Shirley also won the Laura Steinman Award for Children’s Literature.
Shirley Sterling's profile page
Tomson Highway was born near Maria Lake, Manitoba in 1951. His father, Joe, was a hunter, fisherman and sled-dog racer, and his family lived a nomadic lifestyle. With no access to books, television or radio, Highway’s parents would tell their children stories; thus began Highway’s life-long interest in the oral tradition of storytelling. When he was six, Highway was taken from his family and placed in residential school in The Pas; he subsequently went to high school in Winnipeg and then travelled to London to study at the University of Western Ontario, earning a music degree in 1975 and a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1976. Instead of becoming a professional concert musician as he had at one point contemplated, however, Highway decided instead to dedicate his life to the service of his people. Fluent in Cree, English and French, he was for six years the artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts, the first and most enduring Native professional company in Canada which he also helped found. From 1975 to 1978 Highway worked as a cultural worker for the Native Peoples’ Resource Centre. He has worked for the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Culture and also for the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres as a program analyst. From 1983 to 1985 he worked as a freelance theatre artist before becoming the artistic director of the De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre Company in 1986. He has been writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, and Concordia University. Tomson Highway is widely recognized for his tremendous contribution to the development of Aboriginal theatre in both Canada and around the world. In 1994, he was inducted into the Order of Canada, the first Aboriginal writer to be so honoured.
Awards
- Short-listed, Governor General's Literary Awards: Text
- Winner, Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize
Other titles by
Le grand chef Salamoo Cook arrive en ville !
Grand Chief Salamoo Cook is Coming to Town!
Grand Chief Salamoo Cook is Coming to Town! (Enhanced Edition)
Laughing with the Trickster
On Sex, Death, and Accordions
Permanent Astonishment
Growing Up Cree in the Land of Snow and Sky
Permanent Astonishment (Signed Edition)
A Memoir
Kiss of the Fur Queen
Penguin Modern Classics Edition
Dragonfly Kites
From Oral to Written
A Celebration of Indigenous Literature in Canada, 1980–2010