Five Little Indians: A Novel

Written by Michelle Good

Narrated by Kyla Garcia

WINNER: Canada Reads 2022

WINNER: Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction

WINNER: Amazon First Novel Award

WINNER: Kobo Emerging Author Prize 

Finalist: Scotiabank Giller Prize

Finalist: Atwood Gibson Writers Trust Prize

Finalist: BC & Yukon Book Prize

Shortlist: Indigenous Voices Awards

National Bestseller; A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year; A CBC Best Book of the Year; An Apple Best Book of the Year; A Kobo Best Book of the Year; An Indigo Best Book of the Year

Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.

Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.

Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can’t stop running and moves restlessly from job to job—through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps—trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.

With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781443462440

Michelle Good

MICHELLE GOOD is a writer of Cree ancestry and a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. After three decades of working with Indigenous communities and organizations, she obtained her law degree. She earned her MFA in creative writing at UBC while still practising law. Her novel, Five Little Indians, was nominated for the Writers’ Trust Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. It received the HarperCollinsPublishersLtd/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction, the Amazon First Novel Award, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. Five Little Indians was also chosen for Canada Reads in 2022. Michelle Good’s poems, short stories and essays have been published in magazines and anthologies across Canada.

Reviews for Five Little Indians

[Maggie Tilley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Heartbreaking. Really helped me understand the trauma suffered by the innocent children. A book every Canadian should read.

[Taryn Lees · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing, eye-opening, brutally disturbing look into the awful treatment of and subsequent fallout for indigenous people in Canada. A must read for any Canadian.

[Martina Kunz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Five Little Indians is a fantastic book -- sometimes terrible, sometimes triumphant -- that tells the story of children who were taken from their homes to residential schools and how they must navigate life afterwards. I thought the narrator captured their voices in a beautiful way.

[Alexandre Bellemare · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The book itself is great but the narration wasn’t my favorite. Still worth it though.

[Danielle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really had to commit myself and power through this book. I hated the narration but I am glad I finished it. This book offeres a prospective that I have been so privileged to not understand.

[Daphane444 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have lived most of my life in the unceded traditional territory of the Secwepemc people and yet only started hearing about the residential schools in the 1990s.

This story was an eye opener to the horror of mass, government sanctioned child abductions of the past but are still happening in more subtle ways through the so-called child welfare agencies.

Canada. Wake up. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission made 94 recommendations in 2015. We have our own personal responsibility to find our way and make amends. We may not have been responsible decades ago but we still play a part in the systemic racism still taking place today.

[charlotte · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Passionately written, heart breaking and eye opening. I liked it .

[Valerie Cardinal · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well hola, was like being a parallel journey many of the characters. It's a must read.

[Kim Ring · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I thought this was a great book. As a Caucasian Canadian who grew up (in the 60's and 70's)close to a reserve I always felt my indigenous classmates distrust of myself and other Caucasian classmates, teachers, principles etc but was totally unaware of residential schools, so I struggled to understand why. After hearing about residential schools I started to understand but this book truly has enlightened me.

[Tracy Vicente · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I believe every Canadian whose family immigrated here should listen to or read this book. Truth and reconciliation is a responsibility of the community as a whole. I feel shame growing up in the 80’s and 90’s and not being aware of the residential school system.

[Shamila Tabe-mohammadi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

beautifully shared heart ranching stories of traumas experienced by indigenous children and their spiritual journey towards healing

[april wilkinson · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I cannot sit through the audiobook reading of this novel. The reader speaks with a strange, breathless cadence. I could not listen to it.

[Gabrielle Manning · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sad but true reality portrayed in the book. Well written.

[MarlaJim · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a terrible time for such little children. I cannot image there life.

[Kate Cavanaugh Towery · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Did this rip my heart apart? You bet! Pretty much all the trigger warnings as this book deals with 5 Indigenous children forced to go to a government school, where they faced horrible abuse at the hands of their caretakers. Clara, full of love, Lucy full of rage, Howie full of pain, Kenny full of demons, and Maisie, full of suffering. This book follows them from the school and out into a world they are ill equipped to handle, where some of them will lose their battles and some of them will find a better ending. Based on very real, and very recent history, this book is full of important stories and characters who will stay in your heart long after the book is finished.