Author Michelle Good, seated, signs books and greets guests at her talk at the North Battleford Library earlier this week. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

North Battleford Library presentation

Celebrated author Michelle Good shares insights during NB visit

Mar 31, 2023 | 9:40 AM

It was an emotional time at North Battleford Library when acclaimed author Michelle Good visited this week to give a talk on her book “Five Little Indians.”

The event was well attended, with many people staying at the end to share their experiences, and how the book helped them on a personal level.

“It’s these conversations that ultimately will make a difference in the world,” Good told those gathered. “It’s people coming together with open hearts, open minds and a willingness to learn to understand, and to challenge the things that they think they know.”

Good, a Red Pheasant Cree Nation member, hopes her book helps people learn more about the residential school experience, the pain Indigenous people suffered there and continue to suffer.

A woman from Onion Lake Cree Nation discussed how the book, focusing on residential school abuse, helped her with her family’s grief and sense of loss.

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A young man said one of the characters in the book spoke to him, as he shared the challenge of a time when he was living in a small town as a two-spirit person.

Good was previously awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction in 2020 for this novel that deals with the impact on survivors of residential school abuse.

She was also previously honoured with Amazon Canada’s First Novel Award, and the 2021 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.

Good spent nine years working on her first novel. Before focusing on her writing career, she was previously a practising lawyer.

The Saskatchewan Library Association selected “Five Little Indians” for its 2023 ‘One Book, One Province’ program. Libraries, book clubs, and people across Saskatchewan are coming together in March to read this book, and take part in discussions about this story.

Good recently returned from France where her novel “Five Little Indians,” published by a French publisher, is the first book in a new Indigenous Voices series.

She said people often ask her why she decided to write “Five Little Indians.”

“I wrote it out of a deep sense of frustration,” Good said.

During her law practice of over 20 years, most of her work involved advocating for residential school survivors.

She said she often heard the words, either in the context of litigation, in comments in newspaper articles, or elsewhere: “Why can’t they just get over it?”

Good said she heard this remark over and over again, and it deeply troubled her.

“I realized that anthem of annoyance was coming from a deep failure to understand what residential schools were, and how they impacted the Indigenous community, and how those impacts continue to resonate through our communities,” she said. “So, I thought: ‘I think I’ll answer that question. I think I will write something that hopefully will elucidate [why that is]. I’m going to tell this story.'”

Close to a decade later, Good’s groundbreaking book, “Five Little Indians,” came out of that effort.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow