Shannen and the Dream for a School (A Kids' Power Book 2011, 4) Paperback – October 1, 2011

I would tell the children not to be afraid, to follow their dreams. I would tell them to never give up hope. Get up, pick up your books, and go to school (just not in portables).” These passionate words were spoken by Shannen Koostachin, a fourteen-year-old activist from the Attawapiskat First Nation in Ontario. Janet Wilson so compellingly recounts Shannen’s story in Shannen and the Dream for a School that not only do I develop a tremendous appreciation for Shannen, but I also become a believer in her dream for safe and comfortable schools for all First Nations young people.What if your school had closed because of a fuel spill that had happened twenty years ago? What if you and the young people in your community had only portables in which to attend school? What if after waiting eight years for a new school, the government cancels its plans? If you were eighth-grader, Shannen Koostachin, you would protest. You’d organize all your schoolmates and then picket with signs, write letters, create videos for YouTube, and speak at rallies. Wilson movingly portrays how Shannen becomes an activist. One of the most moving moments happens, when Shannen and her eighth-grade class decide that instead of celebrating their graduation by partying at Niagara Falls and Toronto, they would visit Ottawa and talk directly to the minister of Indian Affairs.While I felt moved by reading of Shannen’s activism, I also enjoyed discovering how much Shannen felt like a normal teen too. Shannen came from a full family, one where she loved to chase her younger siblings. While she loved the traditional Cree foods her great-grandmother made, she also found it boring to pluck the feathers of the geese the men killed and thought following recipes would be an easier way to prepare bannock. Shannen had lots of friends, ones with whom she could talk campaign strategies but also get excited about graduation travel plans. Maybe for graduation, the eighth-grade class could visit Canada’s Wonderland or the Nightmare Fear Factor or….? She cared about whether her favorite teacher would leave or stay, whether the graduating class would have time to shop or attend a boring camp, and whether she could have a regalia of her own or have to share.Perhaps what most endeared me to Shannen was reading of all the obstacles she had to endure in her fight for a school. Imagine convincing your peers to give up their graduation plans to travel to Ottawa, only to have the Minister of Indian Affairs tell you that it might be another fifteen years before building you a new school becomes priority. Moreover, imagine that when you ask the Minister to visit your community to see the reality of your situation, he declares his schedule is too busy and then abruptly says he has another meeting to attend. These setbacks were understandably enough to make Shannen cry. When later, the old school got demolished and people started complaining of headaches and students start falling sleep at their seats, Shannen felt her hope slipping away. I don’t think that I could have kept up the good fight as long as her, much less somehow renew my strength. That Shannen never gave up makes her an inspiration and role model to young people and adults.A librarian friend of mine likes to regularly post on Facebook about mighty females. Shannen Koostachin is a young person whom I plan to tell her about. Thanks to Shannen’s never-ending fight, the rest of Canada learned of the plight of First Nations schools, which receive less funding per student than Provincial and Territorial schools, and zero dollars for things like libraries, computers, languages or extracurricular activities. Moreover, many of their schools are plagued by serious health concerns such as extreme black mold contamination, high carbon dioxide levels, rodent and reptile infestations, sewage fumes in schools, and unheated portables.Besides Shannen and the Dream for a School being a powerful story, there are also many extra features which round out the book, including historical notes, timeline, a glossary of Cree words, photo credits, and acknowledgments. In her research for this story, Wright also interviewed family and friends of Shannen. Shannen and the Dream for a School is a book anyone with a heart should read.

This is a great book. It is a chapter book, about two hundred pages long but with big font and small pages. The story tells of a young native girl who dreams about having a real school instead of the small portable classrooms they have to make do with. In the winter the children walk through ice and snow to get between rooms. Children aren't allowed to wear boots in school but the teacher has a special code (two fingers up in a peace symbol) to tell the children that it is okay to wear boots because the classrooms are freezing. Not all the students graduate grade eight and few enough go on to graduate from highschool that grade eight grad is a big deal, celebrated with a class trip. Shannen thinks maybe if they had a real school more students would be interested in their education. The government has said that there won't be a new school for them, it just isn't a big enough priority, but thirteen year old Shannen thinks maybe if they keep asking, and keep asking, and never give up, they might be able to get one.The book is called Shannen and the Dream for a School. It is written by Janet Wilson and it starts in 2008, just four years ago. It tells of how Shannen and her classmates decided to use their grad trip to visit Ottawa and how when the Minister of Indian affairs walked into the meeting room and started the conversation with "How do you like this room?" Shannen blurted out "This room is bigger than our whole portable. I wish we had a classroom as nice as this office. Kids would be there every day." When the Minister of Indian affairs said it would probably be another fifteen years before a school would be built, Shannen shot back "We are not going away. The children are not going to quit. We are not going to give up until we got justice."Shannen came from Attawapiskat, a community along the James Bay, in Ontario, Canada. It is a place that made the news in November of 2011 when their Member of Parliament, Charlie Angus, released a video showing their housing crisis, and in response the government of Canada slapped the tribe with punitive measures, imposing an expensive third-party management in what commentators say was a measure to keep other tribes quiet. UN officials have criticized Canada for allowing conditions there to grow so desperate.Yet the book Shannen and the Dream for a School is in many ways an optimistic book. The book talks about the excitement of the yearly goose hunt. It talks about their snowmobile Christmas parade and about families encouraging each other. It talks about Shannen's determination, and her caring for her classmates and younger siblings.The book describes Charlie Angus coming to talk to the school class. It describes him asking if a student and his father went out into a bush in the winter, how long would they survive? The answer is a long time. There is an acknowledgement that the people are incredibly skilled people. (Mr. Angus goes on to point out that if he went out he wouldn't survive very long at all - but that if the students went to Parliament without a guide, they wouldn't survive long, so he's there to help guide them.)The book points out that the campaign for a school was a group effort. It was a classmate who first suggested they travel to Ottawa and Shannen was one of several to speak. Her older sister too had been part of lobbying the government before, and when Shannen was nominated for the Children's Peace Prize she was concerned about what her classmates would think, as they had worked so hard.The school Shannen dreamed of was finally started in Feb of 2012. Unfortunately Shannen died in a traffic accident while away at school in the South, so she won't be able to see her younger siblings attending the school when it opens in 2013. Nor is her dream completely realized, in that first nations students still suffer from a lack of funding and resources. Visit the Shannen's Dream webpage for more information.This book should be mandatory reading material for middle school students. It is a gentle introduction to the way in which Canada has failed to live up to its treaty obligations.

I purchased this book for my son to complete his novel study as he's learning online. It was shipped super fast and the price was reasonable. The story is beautifully written and much needed in the Canadian narrative to highlight Indigenous inequities.

This is a great book but, it was arrived damaged. It seems like it has had something spilled all over it.

i tried to cancel to say its not acceptable and they ignored me

Loved the book.

Great book but cover was damaged when it arrived