Five Little Indians Themes

Clara, Howie, Kenny, Maisie, and Lucy were all taken from their families at the young age of six and sent to residential schools for Indigenous children in Canada. There, they endured years of suffering and abuse. Five Little Indians follows their attempts to navigate the world afterward, and their examples eloquently testify to the resilience of those who survived the Canadian residential school system. In addition to the abuse they suffered…

The victims of Canadian residential schools experienced severe cruelty and abuse while in the system, and Five Little Indians draws attention to and dramatizes this history. Illnesses, like the tuberculosis which the book implies killed Lily, were widespread. As Kenny and Howie’s need to forage for edible plants to keep from starving makes clear, malnutrition was common. Sister Mary metes out vindictive punishments, draping bedwetters in their urine-soaked sheets and shaving the heads…

A stable sense of home is yet another thing that the residential school system denied its victims. In Five Little Indians, the mission school isn’t a comfortable or sheltering place at all. But neither is home, once a child has been taken: back in his village, Kenny finds dilapidated houses and abandoned parks instead of the vibrant community he remembers. Howie must ask for directions to his childhood home because he recognizes nothing when…