When eight-year-old Irene is removed from her First Nations family to
live in a residential school she is confused, frightened, and
terribly homesick. She tries to remember who she is and where she
came from, despite the efforts of the nuns who are in charge at the
school and who tell her that she is not to use her own name but
instead use the number they have assigned to her. When she goes home
for summer holidays, Irene's parents decide never to send her and her
brothers away again. But where will they hide? And what will happen
when her parents disobey the law? Based on the life of co-author
Jenny Kay Dupuis' grandmother, I Am Not a Number is a hugely
necessary book that brings a terrible part of Canada's history to
light in a way that children can learn from and relate to.