Highly Recommended: I'M FINDING MY TALK, by Rebecca Thomas, illustrated by Pauline Young

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I'm Finding My Talk

by Rebecca Thomas (Mi'kmaw)

Illustrations by Pauline Young

Published in 2019

Publisher: Nimbus Publishing

Reviewer: Debbie Reese

Review Status: Highly Recommended

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A reader wrote to ask me about I'm Finding My Talk. I did not know about the book prior to being asked about it. I was able to get a copy and deeply touched by it. The author's father was in a residential school in Canada. Because of his experience at the school, he was not able to teach Thomas about their language or culture. In the US those schools -- designed to 'kill the Indian and save the man' -- are called boarding schools. 

When I started reading it, I saw that Nimbus (the publisher) dedicated it to Gregory Younging. He was a leading figure in publishing of Native people in Canada. He was Cree. I saw that Thomas dedicated it to her father. So did Young. Her "I will do my best, Dad" embody so much of the emotion and tenacity Native people in the US and Canada carry as we move forward on our homelands. We work to preserve what we have and we work to recover what was taken from us.

Here's the words Thomas gives us on the first page: 

I'm finding my talk.

The one I never had.

The one that the schools

Took away from my dad.

Young's illustration shows us Thomas's father, eyes closed and head down as he stands in front of the residential school he was at when his talk was taken from him. Together, Thomas's words and Young's illustrations give us facts. 

I deeply appreciate the page because these facts are often rendered in overly dramatic ways that take the dignity from the persons being depicted. That dignified presentation continues throughout the book. We see Thomas learning words and getting to know people in her family and community, and their cultural ways. 

This picture book is outstanding. It leaves room for readers to see, and to come to understandings of what those schools did to Native people. Because it is a picture book, some may think it belongs in an elementary school classroom, but I encourage you to read and talk about it in classrooms at every grade level. It touches me, personally. Our cultural ways were always part of me but language? Not so much. My parents were at boarding school. So--Thomas is speaking to any Native people who are learning their language, and she's speaking to non-Native people who don't know about residential or boarding schools. 

In interviews, Thomas tells us that she read Rita Joe's poem (also a book illustrated by Young), I Lost My Talk and was inspired to write I'm Finding My Talk. I'll look for Rita Joe's book and review it here. In the meantime I'll be thinking about this book as I go through my day.