This is a true story of a little girl and her very important orange shirt.
Phyllis was excited to go to school when she was 6 years old. She didn’t understand why her orange shirt was taken away and why no one listened to her. She was hungry, mistreated, and she missed her grandmother.
Phyllis Webstad is Northern Secwepemc (Shuswap). She believes that we must learn from our past and listen to these important stories. Phyllis went home to her grandmother after 300 days, but not every child was as lucky.
Each year on September 30th, many people including Phyllis wear bright orange shirts to honour residential school survivors and their families.
September was described as the “crying month”. It was the month that all the First Nations children were taken away from their families to go to residential schools.
This book is an important tool to help your children understand this sensitive and difficult history. Orange Shirt Day is one way that we can come together in our communities, in the spirit of reconciliation and hope for our future generations.
“When we wear our orange shirts on Orange Shirt Day, we reaffirm that every child matters—the children from every nation around the world, the residential school survivors, and the First Nations children who didn’t come home.”
Every child matters.
For more information visit: www.orangeshirtday.org
Helps with: learning the true history of Canada’s First Nations people, anti-racism, bullying, activism, and Residential School reconciliation.
Author: Phyllis Webstad
Publisher: Medicine Wheel Education, 2018