Joan Crate

There can be no reconciliation without truth, and that is why I think this is an important addition to the writings about Canada's residential school system. I believe the system and its policy underpinnings were 100% wrong. Even if every child taken from their families had been treated like little princes and princesses (and they most definitely were not), it would have been 100% wrong. To make matters of cultural genocide even worse...yes, it's possible to get worse than that...the system created a haven for pedophiles by isolating children from any possible support system.

So why is this particular book important? Because it shows that there were individual people (like Mother Grace) who genuinely believed she was helping the children and who did her best to ensure they were fed, educated and not abused. Here is a woman who was indoctrinated from birth about salvation of the immortal soul through Jesus, about priests being the embodiment of God on earth...she is (to a more benevolent extent) a victim of a system that channeled her way of thinking and her beliefs. She did her best in difficult circumstances. Should she have known better? Probably.

And that is the main reason this book is important. Despite the relatively good treatment Rose received, and the advantages Mother Grace secured for her, we see a young woman torn from her family who misses them terribly throughout her life. We see a young aboriginal person struggling to understand who she really is, where she belongs, how to best live her life, learning how to make her own decisions and to trust her own judgement. That is one of the tragic legacies of residential schools: they stole the identities of those who survived; they stunted the growth of independence, decision-making, self-confidence and trust. That is one part of why so many survivors, and their children and grandchildren have had to work so hard to reclaim their cultural and personal heritage.

So, for those who say that many former students were not abused, that many received a good education; for those who try to find the good in the system, this book is an eye-opener that even the good was not really so good for the vast majority of students.… (mais)

*SPOILER WARNING* The book was a good read. I enjoyed the flow, the author's writing and the general flow of the book.
Joan Crate sculpted the characters well and I found that they were well rounded. Despite Canada's inhumane treatment of Native Aboriginals I found that this book managed to create a dynamic balance between both the religious institutions and the Aboriginals perspective, showing how well intentioned actions were the cause of Native decline yet keeping some humanity in the wrongdoing. The nuns were not just portrayed as villainous, which I find creates the good vs evil sort of view but there were injustices done in the Catholic organization to members of it.

The issue that I have with the book is when Rose Marie arrives in Black Apple. She is out of school and is thrust into the real world of discrimination as a young woman and without the guidance of the Sisters, she begins to question as why things are as they are. This should be the peak of the book but its near the end, and I find that the inclusion of two possible suitors, one native and the other white is a blunt representation of what lifestyle Rose Marie chooses without the Sisters at her back.
I thought that the discrimination that she faced in the church was enough to give her of a choice whether she wants to stay part of the Catholic institution or not, and this addition of possible romance was just an excess which could have been done without. It could be seen as a metaphor, but it is written far too literally.
Especially one insinuation in a chapter near the end.
It was a letdown of an ending about 3/4 through, but everything else was enough to pique my interest to keep reading it. I recommend it to a certain extent, not to those who rely on the ending to wrap up the story with a neat little bow though.… (mais)

i am a little bit torn over this book. to be sure, this is a necessary story and i did like it, but i found the flow never clicked for me, and i was left wanting a bit more from the book and from Crate.

canada has a shameful, heartbreaking legacy in its residential school system. for years indigenous children were forcibly taken from their homes and placed into schools away from their families and traditions. often these schools were run by religious orders, with the goal to assimilate the first nations children to a white, christian way of life. of course, this was a spectacular and horrific failure. last year, the truth and reconciliation commission released their report on the impact of the government's residential school program - it found these actions were akin to cultural genocide.

so in this regard, Crate's novel could not be any more well-timed and necessary. i hope many people will pick up this book and gain some exposure to what this experience may have been like for a child. (i strongly recommend Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese as well, for fiction that shares a residential school experience. and you can access the truth and reconciliation commission's work here: http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=890.)

Crate is not, at all, letting anyone off the hook, but what she does, interestingly, is offer small glimpses of - in the best case - moments of compassion and kindness from non-indigenous characters. at its worst, she portrays horrific abuses, cruelty, racism, stereotypes, and white saviour mindsets. somewhere in the middle... Crate presents a feeling of ambiguity.

i was quite taken by some aspects of the book, but there was so much in the story that left me wanting. i did like rose and mother grace, and how their arcs worked together. but two of the most interesting characters for me - anataki, and sister cilla - were secondary, and did not go as deeply as i had hoped. (i would read a whole novel just focusing on each of them.) the novel also jumped 6 years in its early stages, and that transition was not such a smooth one in my reading. the ending is fairly open. i read that the character of rose has been with Crate for many years, originally being created in a much earlier and different writing project. learning this, it made me wonder if we could see rose again in a subsequent novel?… (mais)