This is an interview with children's author Peter Eyvindson about his new book published by Pemmican, called Kookum's Red Shoes. It looks at the story related to Residential Schools and how this history should be introduced to young children and the value of this story.
Peter met an elder grandmother many years ago who was always going to the local school to check on the children. He discovered the reason why she was so protective of the children. As a young child the Kookum was is taken away from her home to live in a residential school. Wanting very much to leave, Kookum decided that only by being good will she be released. After all, Kookum only wants to be with her parents and her baby brother and to wear her bright red shoes. The Shoes had been bought just before the authorities came to take her. Her parents gave her this gift after they had seen the Wizard of Oz in the local small town theatre.
Peter met an elder grandmother many years ago who was always going to the local school to check on the children. He discovered the reason why she was so protective of the children. As a young child the Kookum was is taken away from her home to live in a residential school. Wanting very much to leave, Kookum decided that only by being good will she be released. After all, Kookum only wants to be with her parents and her baby brother and to wear her bright red shoes. The Shoes had been bought just before the authorities came to take her. Her parents gave her this gift after they had seen the Wizard of Oz in the local small town theatre.
Peter Eyvindson's Kookum's Red Shoes is a story of one girl's strength in the face of oppression. Sheldon Dawson (Illustrator) has provided great pictures in vibrante colors to compliment Kookum's story. My children loved the book so much that they would not put it down.
The discussion talked about the church, how one goes about introducing such a dark story to small children, violence both surface and subsurface (Peter did not have any overt violence in the book), Peter's reasons for wanting to write the story and the length of time it took to find a courageous publisher willing to put this story in print.
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