Speaking Our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation

By Monique Gray Smith

Canada's relationship with its Indigenous people has suffered as a result of both the residential school system and the lack of understanding of the historical and current impact of those schools. Healing and repairing that relationship requires education, awareness and increased understanding of the legacy and the impacts still being felt by survivors and their families. Guided by acclaimed Indigenous author Monique Gray Smith, readers will learn about the lives of Survivors and listen to allies who are putting the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into action.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
• Release date: Sep 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781459815841

Monique Gray Smith

Monique Gray Smith is a mixed-heritage woman of Cree, Lakota and Scottish ancestry and a proud mom of twins. Monique is an accomplished consultant, writer and international speaker. Her first novel, Tilly: A Story of Hope and Resilience, won the 2014 Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature. Her books for young readers include When We Are Kind, You Hold Me Up, Speaking Our Truth and My Heart Fills With Happiness, which won the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize. Monique and her family are blessed to live on Lekwungen territory in Victoria, British Columbia.

Reviews for Speaking Our Truth

[jennybeast · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an important book -- it explains a lot of challenging concepts and explores the hard truths of North American history in a way that is accessible and understandable to young readers. It's also a kind, thoughtful, challenging roadmap of the work we need to do as a species to do better in the future. While it is written about Canadian residential schools, it definitely transfers to the US as well.

[lindsay_w_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

With Raven by her side, Monique Gray Smith takes students on a very personal journey of reconciliation. Guided by honesty, love and kindness, Gray Smith starts with the truth of Canada’s collective history. A history that, for Indigenous people, includes colonization, the Indian Act, residential schools and other attempts at cultural genocide. She addresses the intergenerational trauma experienced by seven generations of residential school survivors. She covers the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and gives advice on how students can take the first steps towards reconciliation by becoming an ally to Indigenous People. Gray Smith includes helpful links for further research, but it is the sharing of traditional Indigenous knowledge that leaves the reader feeling honoured to have been invited on the journey.