Debbie and I have talked with many non-Native educators who know the importance of teaching about hard aspects of Indigenous peoples' history. Good teachers want to do it "right." We try to impress on them that conversations about those difficult topics may land differently with Native children than with others. We kept this fact in mind when adapting An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People, carefully choosing how we presented some of the most painful situations in history.
Miya Wears Orange begins when Miya's well-intentioned non-Indigenous teacher reads aloud from a story about the Canadian residential schools. The teacher does not seem to anticipate how the story might effect Miya.
Miya is the only Indigenous child in her class. The lesson makes her deeply uncomfortable; it is about injustice and tragedy that affected children like her, and families like hers. But she isn't able to put that into words. Wanda John-Kehewin does a very good job of expressing how a child might feel and behave, when unexpectedly exposed to distressing information related to their identity. Having worked with young children in classrooms and therapeutic settings, I'm impressed by the layers of understanding evident in the portrayal of Miya's experience. The emotional content rings true. (I felt the same way about the social-emotional content of her teen novel, Hopeless in Hope.)
Eventually, Miya is able to tell her mother what's bothering her. Her mother listens and answers her questions. She gives Miya time to come to terms with what the new information means. Miya finds her way. (Incidentally, the illustrations depicting mother-child interactions are very warm and give a strong sense of how secure their relationship is.)
The teacher may not have understood Miya's heritage. Or she may have assumed that Miya's family had already introduced her to the history of the residential schools. But that was a mistaken assumption, and Miya was left in the moment to struggle with the emotional weight of the new knowledge. Perhaps the teacher could have alerted families of Native kids so they could be prepared for their children's responses, or so they could lay some groundwork for the children.
I'd love to see this book shared with educators and librarians as an example of why they must proceed with care and caution when they discuss boarding schools/residential schools with children -- especially Indigenous children. That goes for high schoolers as well as elementary grade kids. And of course, we think the book belongs in the hands of children, too.
