Please note : some of the content of the book may be a trigger to trauma or distress experienced by the residential school system. The Indian Residential School Survivors Society has a toll-free number that is available 24-hours a day, 7 days a week 1-800-721-0066
“Five Little Indians” by Michelle Good follows the lives of five teenagers as they exit the “Indian School” in the 1960’s and enter the streets of Vancouver with no support, money, family connections or life skills. We join them in their next journey as they deal with years of isolation, neglect and trauma and enter into a world that is just as isolating, neglectful, and traumatizing.
“Five Little Indians” is the debut novel by poet, lawyer and political activist Michelle Good, and a member of Saskatchewan’s Red Pheasant Cree Nation. She is the daughter and granddaughter of family members who went through the residential school system.
While the story has a dark side to it and I found myself needing to take breaks from reading to exhale, Good punctuates the narrative with light and hope. She succinctly shows the human cost of colonialism and residential schools in a non-judgmental manner. Each chapter is a narrative of one of the five main characters whose survival stories will have you cheering them on. In a way, you will find yourself on the street right alongside them in downtown Vancouver. I even found myself talking to the character at one point saying, “no, no, no . . . don’t go with him.”
Kenny, Howie, Maisie, Lucy and Clara are the “Five Little Indians” and you will learn about their individual and intertwining stories. You will sense their trauma and why it continues to haunt them. You will discover what was lost to them as children, as families, and as a culture of people. You will, hopefully, understand why truth and reconciliation matters and the validity of acknowledging the harmful and devastating impact of the residential school system.
Author, Michelle Good, has explained in interviews that one of the reasons she wrote this book was to open up conversations about the trauma people suffered at these institutions and its ongoing ramifications. The stories of the “five” will likely stay with the reader long after they have turned the last page. Take some time to read about the "Five Little Indians."