Five Little Indians by Michelle Good

Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.

Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn't want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.

Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can't stop running and moves restlessly from job to job through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.

With compassion and insight,Five Little Indianschronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward. (From HarperCollins Canada)

Christian AllairewonCanada Reads2022, defendingFive Little IndiansbyMichelle Good.

• Meet theCanada Reads2022contenders

Five Little Indianswon the 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.It was also onthe 2020 Writers's Trust Fiction Prize shortlistand2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist.

Michelle Good is a Cree writer and lawyer, as well as a member of Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.Five Little Indiansis her first book. CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2020.

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From the book

Why Michelle Good wrote Five Little Indians

"My mother is a residential school survivor, as is my grandmother and cousins. I started writing this story in the 1990s. I think the seed really took shape really came to me when I was practicing law and I was representing survivors of residential schools. I was realizing just how much Canadians or Canada at large doesn't understand the impact of how these individuals suffered because of their attendance at these schools.

It occurred to me that this needed to be told as a story as something that people could engage in with more ease than a factual diatribe.- Michelle Good

"The thing that I was observing was that we could communicate the facts of the number of children that were forced to attend school and the manner in which they were forced to attend school.

"It occurred to me that this needed to be told as a story as something that people could engage in with more ease than a factual diatribe."

Read more in her interview with CBC Books.

TheCanada Reads2022 contenders

• Christian Allaire championsFive Little Indiansby Michelle Good
• Malia Baker championsScarboroughby Catherine Hernandez
• Tareq Hadhad championsWhat Strange Paradiseby Omar El Akkad
• Suzanne Simard championsLife In the City of Dirty Waterby Clayton Thomas-Mller
• Mark Tewksbury championsWashington Blackby Esi Edugyan

Interviews with Michelle Good

Cree author shares the importance of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

3 years ago

Duration 7:57

This Thursday will mark Canada's first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a federal statutory holiday. Cree author Michelle Good shares why she hopes Canadians will treat the day in a similar way as Remembrance Day.

Daybreak Kamloops8:49Michelle Good- racism and hate speech

Earlier on the program we heard from some TRU Law students......who said they were disappointed, even disturbed, by a presentation given at a conference this week.

The Next Chapter3:44Michelle Good on Five Little Indians

Michelle Good on her debut novel Five Little Indians, which follows five characters after they leave residential school.