My Name Is Seepeetza

March 3, 1997
This rather desolate autobiographical novel chronicles a girl's harsh upbringing in an Indian residential school in 1950s British Columbia. Sixth-grader Seepeetza, whose name has been changed to Martha Stone, was only six when she was ripped away from her cozy family farm and plunged into a spartan existence. She and her classmates are beaten with a strap by Sister Superior and threatened not to get out of bed lest the devils grab them and "drag us into the fires of hell." Related as entries in Seepeetza's private journal, this book has a devastatingly simple style and conveys tiny details only a person who had been through such a school could know: "Girls hide bread or raw carrots in their bloomer legs under the elastic. They take it out and eat it late at night when the lights are out. That's when we get really hungry." The story breaks out of rigid notions of right and wrong-Seepeetza is fond of her father although he drinks; her parents may have sent her away, but they are loving; the nuns are cruel but sometimes inexplicably kind; Seepeetza finds moments of happiness in her dancing amid the general oppression. Though the naive tone of the journal slightly distances the reader, the smoldering intensity and unvarnished details still assume a mature sensibility on the reader's part. This title was shortlisted for the Canadian Governor General's Literary Award. Ages 10-12.

March 1, 1997
Gr. 5^-10. Her name is Seepeetza, but at the Indian residential school in British Columbia, she is called Martha. She hates her white name, but she is beaten if she talks "Indian." Her long hair is cut off. At the same time, the other students pick on her because she has green eyes and looks white. When she wets her bed, the nuns make her wear the wet sheet over her head. She gets in trouble for daydreaming about the family ranch on the reservation that she was forced to leave to come to school. First published in 1992 in Canada, where it won the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Book Prize, this autobiographical novel is written in the form of Seepeetza's diary in her sixth-grade year in the 1950s. The drawback of the journal format is that the vignettes are sometimes static, repetitive, and disjointed. The great advantage is the immediacy of the child's voice and viewpoint. We feel her bewilderment and fear, her helplessness, and, above all, her longing for home. Few books dramatize this experience for young readers. Without preaching or rhetoric, the cruelty is laid bare. ((Reviewed March 1, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)