Ga’s/The Train

Callaghan (who is Mi’gmaq) crafts a quiet, informative tale following a black-haired, light brown–skinned Indigenous child learning about her family and community’s terrible years in residential schools. On a Canadian reserve, Ashley walks home from school and, when passing the abandoned train station, sees her great-uncle. Because Uncle wants her to know what was lost there, he recounts how the train would bring rice and potatoes, which were only available from the outside. One day, his Giju’ cried as she sent her four oldest children to the station, where they were loaded onto trains and taken to a residential school. “They told us we were no longer Native,” he tells Ashley. “And if we put up a fuss, we were hit, sometimes worse...” Emphasizing sensory details in the present day, the prose is straightforward; Uncle’s traumatic experiences are gently worded for the picture book audience. Lesley’s pastel-like drawings, rendered in a light color palette, vividly capture the story’s emotions in multiple close-ups of Indigenous characters. But it’s Wilmot’s side-by-side Mi’gmaq translation that leaves the deepest impression of the language and culture that was lost—and, thankfully, regained for Ashley’s generation. Back matter features a glossary and a brief note on Canadian residential schools. Ages 6–9. (Sept.)