Alice Littlebird

When Alice Littlebird, a girl from the Cree Nation, is separated from her family and sent to the Black Lake Residential School, she loses everything. The nuns take away her clothes and shave her head. She is not allowed to speak her language and must pray to a God she does not know using words she does not understand. Even her name is taken from her: Alice Littlebird is now No. 47, just one of the children who cry themselves to sleep at night. Very quietly, because crying is forbidden. Alice is not even allowed to see her brother Terry, who lives in the boys' dormitory. But she refuses to accept this! When she finds two confidants in the rebellious Shirley and the cook Elli, she manages to meet Terry, who has already devised a plan: He and Alice Littlebird will escape! Grit Poppe tells a breathtakingly thrilling story of a risky escape. Alice and Terry are fictional characters, but the residential schools aimed at the re-education of Indigenous children in Canada were a tragic reality for far too long. With an afterword by the author.