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Fritz Agency
Christian Dittus
Original language
English

MY NAME IS SEEPETZA

Shirley Sterling

An honest, inside look at life in an Indian residential school in the 1950s, and how one indomitable young spirit survived it

Seepeetza loves living on Joyaska Ranch with her family. But when she is six years old, she is driven to the town of Kalamak, in the interior of British Columbia. Seepeetza will now spend the next several years of her life at an Indian residential school. The nuns call her Martha and cut her hair. Worst of all, she is forbidden to "talk Indian," even with her sisters and cousins.

Still, Seepeetza looks for bright spots - the cookie she receives as a Halloween treat, the dance practices. Most of all, there are the memories of her holidays back on her family farm - camping trips, horseback riding with her sister, picking berries and cleaning fish with her mother, aunt and grandmother. Always, thoughts of home make her school life bearable.

Based on her own experiences, this powerful novel by Shirley Sterling, of the Nlaka'pamux Nation, is a moving account of one of the most blatant expressions of racism in the history of Canada. Includes a new afterword by acclaimed author Tomson Highway, who is Cree, of the Barren Lands First Nation in northern Manitoba.

Groundwood Books will publish the 30th anniversary edition this year in September 2022.
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Published 1992-11-01 by Groundwood Books

Comments

Winner, Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, 1992

Short-listed, Governor General's Literary Awards: Text, 1993