A powerful and distinctive residential-school story centers on a young girl who runs into her elderly uncle while walking home from school. He is sitting by run-down, inoperable railroad tracks, waiting. When prompted by his niece he tells her the sad story of a time when trains arrived every month, carrying rations for the Native families in the area. But one time, the train that came instead carried him, his siblings, and their cousins away, to a boarding school, where they were mistreated and stripped of their Native identities. The children were kept there for six miserable years. At the end of his story, he tells his niece is still waiting “for what we lost that day to come back to us.” Brightly colored illustrations alternate between showing the contemporary girl and her uncle, and more somber illustrations of the uncle’s memories. While the text is a bit longer than most contemporary picture books, the telling—and the story itself—are extremely powerful. The story is set on the Listuguj Reserve in Quebec, and the text is in Mi’gmaw and English (an English-language-only edition was published in 2021). (Ages 5-8)

The dual-language edition, in English and Mi'gmaq, of the Silver Birch Express-nominated title, The Train.

Ashley meets her great-uncle by the old train tracks near their community in Nova Scotia. Ashley sees his sadness, and Uncle tells her of the day years ago when he and the other children from their community were told to board the train before being taken to residential school where their lives were changed forever. They weren't allowed to speak Mi'gmaq and were punished if they did. There was no one to give them love and hugs and comfort. Uncle also tells Ashley how happy she and her sister make him. They are what give him hope. Ashley promises to wait with her uncle by the train tracks, in remembrance of what was lost.