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When We Were Alone cover
FEEL THE FISSURE RAISE THE FUTURE

When We Were Alone

by David A. Robertson

Why does grandma keep her hair long? Because they made her cut it.

For you if

your child is old enough to hear that some things were taken from people and that keeping them is an act of love

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$22 MSRP
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A young girl notices things about her grandmother — why she grows so many flowers, why she speaks Cree, why she keeps her hair long, why she wears bright colors. Each answer is the same: because at residential school, they took those things away, so now she keeps them close. Robertson is Cree and wrote this as a way to talk to children about residential schools without trauma being the whole story. The grandmother's answer is always an act of reclamation — here is what was taken, here is why I have it back. The most important Canadian Indigenous picture book and the gentlest possible entry point to a history that must be told.

Where This Book Lives

Setting
Canada • North America
Voice
Written by a Canadian author
Themes
cultural identityintergenerational trauma
Topics
canadian indian residential school system

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