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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
5 heart wrenching stars.
This is the (short) story of Chanie Wenjack, a young aboriginal boy that died trying to find his way home after fleeing a Residential School in 1966. Chanie had been forcibly removed from his family in 1964, in the middle of the night, by people who thought they knew what was best for aboriginal children; they did not.
The Indian Residential Schools was presented to Canadians as a way to help aboriginal children out of a life of poverty. All it succeeded in doing was killing more than six thousand children, between the 1870s and 1996; 150,000 plus children were removed from their homes and sent long distances away to unlearn their birth language and forget their culture. As a proud Canadian, did you ever think it meant being a part of a country that actively worked at cultural genocide of it's original population?
This little book packs a huge history. It is peppered with Native Language so that we can keep the language alive. It is built on the pain and loneliness and death of a little boy, and many more like him, who wanted nothing more than to get back to their families and their lifestyle.
In this re-telling, Joseph Boyden weaves Chanie's story through the eyes of twelve different life forms who see him at different stages of his last and only journey home. Some people might say this book is magical realism, but I would venture that it is the full circle of existence, that everything is interconnected and as such nothing we do is left unnoticed or untouched by what else exists in the world we interact with. Our history is embedded in all things and while it may get covered over and buried, it becomes our soil, our thinking, our interactions, our environment. When the wind changes, the soil shifts, and our history re-emerges. We can keep digging more graves and deeper silences and shame or we can say we don't want our country pocked with such disastrous landscape and we can start to repair our environment. Wenjack helps repair.
This is the (short) story of Chanie Wenjack, a young aboriginal boy that died trying to find his way home after fleeing a Residential School in 1966. Chanie had been forcibly removed from his family in 1964, in the middle of the night, by people who thought they knew what was best for aboriginal children; they did not.
The Indian Residential Schools was presented to Canadians as a way to help aboriginal children out of a life of poverty. All it succeeded in doing was killing more than six thousand children, between the 1870s and 1996; 150,000 plus children were removed from their homes and sent long distances away to unlearn their birth language and forget their culture. As a proud Canadian, did you ever think it meant being a part of a country that actively worked at cultural genocide of it's original population?
This little book packs a huge history. It is peppered with Native Language so that we can keep the language alive. It is built on the pain and loneliness and death of a little boy, and many more like him, who wanted nothing more than to get back to their families and their lifestyle.
In this re-telling, Joseph Boyden weaves Chanie's story through the eyes of twelve different life forms who see him at different stages of his last and only journey home. Some people might say this book is magical realism, but I would venture that it is the full circle of existence, that everything is interconnected and as such nothing we do is left unnoticed or untouched by what else exists in the world we interact with. Our history is embedded in all things and while it may get covered over and buried, it becomes our soil, our thinking, our interactions, our environment. When the wind changes, the soil shifts, and our history re-emerges. We can keep digging more graves and deeper silences and shame or we can say we don't want our country pocked with such disastrous landscape and we can start to repair our environment. Wenjack helps repair.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This heartbreaking story is about Chanie Wenjack, an Ojibwe boy who was kidnapped from his family and taken to a "residential school" (I think they should not be called a school because they weren't schools). He escaped with two brothers and attempted to go home.
The writing style is beautiful.
"Do you remember me? I remember, me."
"Daddy. Nindede. Mama. Nimaamaa. My sisters. Nimiseyag. My dogs. Animoshag. I will see you again, yes? Indian. Anishnaabe."
"Tuberculosis and similar diseases had taken thousands of Indian children's lives the last years in these strange schools, always built with a cemetery beside them to bury those attendants knew would not make it to the final grade."
Author's Note
"The real-life Chanie "Charlie" Wenjack was forcibly taken from his parents and his sisters and his home in Ogoki Post, Northern Ontario, in 1964 when he was nine years old."
He was taken to Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School - 600 km away from Kenora.
"Chanie came home two years later in a casket."
"From the 1870s until 1996, when the last school closed its doors, more than 150,000 Indigenous children over seven generations were removed from their families in an attempted cultural genocide. Chanie, for me and for a number of others, has become a symbol not just of this tragedy but of the resilience of our First Nations, Inuit and Métis people - which is why I use the word "attempted." Our cultures were forced underground for a long time, but they have re-emerged despite the odds."
I am listening. I am learning. I am helping my children to learn the truth. Reconciliation does not happen without truth.
The writing style is beautiful.
"Do you remember me? I remember, me."
"Daddy. Nindede. Mama. Nimaamaa. My sisters. Nimiseyag. My dogs. Animoshag. I will see you again, yes? Indian. Anishnaabe."
"Tuberculosis and similar diseases had taken thousands of Indian children's lives the last years in these strange schools, always built with a cemetery beside them to bury those attendants knew would not make it to the final grade."
Author's Note
"The real-life Chanie "Charlie" Wenjack was forcibly taken from his parents and his sisters and his home in Ogoki Post, Northern Ontario, in 1964 when he was nine years old."
He was taken to Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School - 600 km away from Kenora.
"Chanie came home two years later in a casket."
"From the 1870s until 1996, when the last school closed its doors, more than 150,000 Indigenous children over seven generations were removed from their families in an attempted cultural genocide. Chanie, for me and for a number of others, has become a symbol not just of this tragedy but of the resilience of our First Nations, Inuit and Métis people - which is why I use the word "attempted." Our cultures were forced underground for a long time, but they have re-emerged despite the odds."
I am listening. I am learning. I am helping my children to learn the truth. Reconciliation does not happen without truth.
: “Wenjack” by Joseph Boyden, historical fiction I guess you could call it? Delivers the story of Chanie Wenjack, the 11 year aboriginal boy who died escaping his residential school and prompting the first public inquiry into the program.
An important and tragic peice of history but lacked pretty much everything I would need to feel conected to a story, it was delivered through a confusing 3rd person/1st person mix of different animals watching his journey? I think it was supposed to be artsy saying he was alone but i just found it odd hearing a story delivered by a deer tick. If you want to read boyden you should probably just read three day road which is amazing and ignore this one. Full of cree words without a meaning of what they are? Maybe trying to make us feel the cultural supression they experienced? Points for being artsy but everything else was a let down.
Save yourself the trouble and just read authors notes its the facts of the actual story and far more compelling that whatever that story was supposed to be
⭐️
An important and tragic peice of history but lacked pretty much everything I would need to feel conected to a story, it was delivered through a confusing 3rd person/1st person mix of different animals watching his journey? I think it was supposed to be artsy saying he was alone but i just found it odd hearing a story delivered by a deer tick. If you want to read boyden you should probably just read three day road which is amazing and ignore this one. Full of cree words without a meaning of what they are? Maybe trying to make us feel the cultural supression they experienced? Points for being artsy but everything else was a let down.
Save yourself the trouble and just read authors notes its the facts of the actual story and far more compelling that whatever that story was supposed to be
⭐️
3.5/5
A story that everyone must understand. That so many children lost their lives and had their culture destroyed. They were starved, abused and forced to conform to a society they wanted no part of. Canada's sad history. The prose itself was well put together and something I haven't read before.
A story that everyone must understand. That so many children lost their lives and had their culture destroyed. They were starved, abused and forced to conform to a society they wanted no part of. Canada's sad history. The prose itself was well put together and something I haven't read before.
In this short and powerful story, we come to meet Chanie Wenjack as he embarks on escaping from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School he had been put into, located in Kenora Ontario. However, when beginning this journey home, he has no way of knowing just how far away from home he truly is. On his way, he is surrounded by Manitous, spirits of the forest who tell Chanie's story from their eyes.
This story stems from a true story about Chanie Wenjack, a young Ojibwe boy who was taken from his family, brutally tortured in a residential school, escapes and attempts to get home, and ultimately is found dead. His death triggered the first real inquiry into the treatment of indigenous children within residential schools.
While short, I truly think this is should be a required read for Canadians. With the continued uncovering of unmarked graves near residential schools, it shows the horrific past of the religious and governmental institutions responsible the deaths of thousands of indigenous children, and the trauma of countless indigenous persons.
This was a powerful story, written masterfully. A must read.
This story stems from a true story about Chanie Wenjack, a young Ojibwe boy who was taken from his family, brutally tortured in a residential school, escapes and attempts to get home, and ultimately is found dead. His death triggered the first real inquiry into the treatment of indigenous children within residential schools.
While short, I truly think this is should be a required read for Canadians. With the continued uncovering of unmarked graves near residential schools, it shows the horrific past of the religious and governmental institutions responsible the deaths of thousands of indigenous children, and the trauma of countless indigenous persons.
This was a powerful story, written masterfully. A must read.