Swift Current Library hosting One Book One Province in-person event on March 27

Swift Current will play host to one of six in-person events to celebrate the 2023 One Book One Province book “Five Little Indians” by Michelle Good.

Presented in partnership with the Saskatchewan Library Association, an Author Tour and Talk with Good will be hosted at the Swift Current Library on Monday, March 27 starting at 7 p.m.

The province-wide One Book One Province program encourages individuals and books clubs from across Saskatchewan to read the book during March and gather to share discussions about the story.

“Five Little Indians” was released in April 2020 and has earned a series of awards including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction plus the Amazon First Novel Award. It was also one of the top 10 bestselling Canadian books in 2021.

The Saskatchewan Library Association provided the following description of the book:

“Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school,

Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.”

“Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.”

The One Book One Province is a province-wide initiative was launched back in 2017 as a way to increase literacy and “create a reading culture by providing opportunities for residents to become more socially engaged in their community through a shared story.” Previous One Book One Province selections were: 2022 – Arab Cooking on a Prairie Homestead by Habeeb Salloum

2021 – Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun by Paul Seesequasis

2020 – A Geography of Blood by Canada Savage 2019 – Just Pretending by Lisa Bird-wilson

2018 – Out of Old Saskatchewan Kitchens by Amy Jo Ehman

2017 – The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Memoir by Joseph Auguste Merasty with David Carpenter.