I didn’t think I would be fully reviewing this picture book because of the short length of it (only thirteen pages), but I’ve found myself thinking about it quite a lot after putting it down. When We Were Alone by David Alexander Robertson and Jenny Kay Dupuis’s I Am Not a Number are two reads that aquatinted me on the hard-hitting subject of this book: the intergenerational impact of Canada’s residential school system, which separated young Indigenous children from their families.
I went into this not expecting much, but Stolen Words completely blew me away. The illustrations by Gabrielle Grimard in particular because of how hauntingly beautiful they were:
I found myself fighting tears with the above.
Before reading I’d been worried about whether Stolen Words was an #ownvoices story, but thankfully with a little research on the author’s website I found that Florence is a writer of Cree and Scottish heritage based in Toronto. She was close to her grandfather as a child, a relationship that sparked her interest in writing about Aboriginal themes and characters.
Needless to mention, this is a vitally important picture book from a much-needed voice.
ARC kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication: September 5th, 2017
4/5 stars
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