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    Fatty Legs (10th anniversary edition)
    Fatty Legs (10th anniversary edition)
    Fatty Legs (10th anniversary edition)
    Ebook154 pages1 hour

    Fatty Legs (10th anniversary edition)

    By Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton, Christy Jordan-Fenton, Liz Amini-Holmes and Debbie Reese

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    About this ebook

    The beloved story of an Inuvialuit girl standing up to the bullies of residential school, updated for a new generation of readers.

    Margaret Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton’s powerful story of residential school in the far North has been reissued to commemorate the memoir’s 10th anniversary with updates to the text, reflections on the book’s impact, and a bonus chapter from the acclaimed follow-up, A Stranger at Home. New content includes a foreword from Dr. Debbie Reese, noted Indigenous scholar and founder of American Indians in Children’s Literature, while Christy Jordan-Fenton, mother of Margaret’s grandchildren and a key player in helping Margaret share her stories, discusses the impact of the book in a new preface.

    With important updates since it first hit the shelves a decade ago, this new edition of Fatty Legs will continue to resonate with readers young and old.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnnick Press
    Release dateApr 14, 2020
    ISBN9781773213521
    Author

    Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton

    Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton is an Inuvialuk elder and artisan who spent her early years on Banks Island in the high Arctic. She now lives in Fort St. John, British Columbia.

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      Book preview

      Fatty Legs (10th anniversary edition) - Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton

      FattyLegs10_cover.jpgA True Story; Fatty Legs 10th Anniversary EditionA True Story; Fatty Legs 10th Anniversary Edition by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton. Artwork by Liz Amini-Holmes. Published by Annick Press

      © 2020 Christy Jordan-Fenton (text)© 2020 Liz Amini-Holmes (illustrations)© 2020 Debbie Reese (foreword)

      Page 107 constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

      Original publication:

      © 2010 Christy Jordan-Fenton (text)

      © 2010 Liz Amini-Holmes (illustrations)

      Edited by Maggie DeVries Copyedited by Pam Robertson Proofread by Laura Edlund Cover and interior design for original edition by Lisa Hemingway Updated cover and interior design for 2020 edition by Paul Covello Cover art by Liz Amini-Holmes

      Annick Press Ltd.All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      Distribution of this electronic edition without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions. Annick Press ebooks are distributed through major retailers. We appreciate your support of our authors’ rights.

      This edition published in 2020 by

      Annick Press Ltd.

      388 Carlaw Avenue, Suite 200

      Toronto, ON M4M 2T4

      We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, and the participation of the Government of Canada/la participation du gouvernement du Canada for our publishing activities.

      Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council logos

      Published in the U.S.A. by Annick Press (U.S.) Ltd.

      Distributed in Canada by University of Toronto Press.

      Distributed in the U.S.A. by Publishers Group West.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Title: Fatty legs : a true story / Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton ; artwork by Liz Amini-Holmes.Names: Jordan-Fenton, Christy, author. | Pokiak-Fenton, Margaret-Olemaun, 1936- author. | Amini-Holmes, Liz, artist.Description: 10th anniversary edition.Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190167440 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190167890 | ISBN 9781773213507 (softcover) | ISBN 9781773213514 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781773213521 (ebook)Subjects: LCSH: Pokiak-Fenton, Margaret-Olemaun, 1936-—Childhood and youth—Juvenile literature. | LCSH: Inuit—Biography—Juvenile literature. | CSH: Inuit—Canada—Residential schools—Juvenile literature. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.Classification: LCC E96.5 J65 2020 | DDC j371.829/9712071—dc23

      annickpress.com

      Dedication

      for my three inspirations—Qugyuk, Aklak, and Paniktuaq. I wrote this for you to be proud of who you are and where you come from—a long line of brave, resilient survivors and thrivers. For Olemaun: your courage is unparalleled. Thank you for sharing this journey with me and with the world, and for being your grandchildren’s greatest hero. For my Morris Crow/Yellow Thunder family, and for all the survivors and spiritual mentors past and present who have guided me to my own healing and taught me how to carry these stories in a good way. Ni-Kso-Ko-Wa All My Relations.

      —Christy

      
for my late husband, lyle, who helped me to work through the many fears I carried with me from residential school. Your love gave me courage. And, for our children, their husbands and wives, and our many grandchildren.

      —Margaret-Olemaun

      A Note on the Right to Silence

      The authors would like to ask readers to be mindful of the Right to Silence. While Margaret-Olemaun is open about sharing her experiences at residential school, it is important to stress that many residential school survivors will not wish to talk about or revisit what they experienced. Best practices include respecting their silence. This extends to all experiences of Indigenous trauma. We are overwhelmed by the level of inquisitiveness that has replaced a century and a half of horrific secrecy, but encourage those who want to know more to seek out sources where knowledge has been shared freely, and to accept what is shared on the terms by which it is given.

      Table of Contents

      Foreword

      Preface

      Introduction

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      After the Story

      Afterword

      Acknowledgments

      Oleuman’s Scrapbook

      Photo Credits

      A Note on Language

      A Note on the Writing Process

      An Excerpt from A Stranger at Home

      About the Authors and Illustrator

      Copyright

      Foreword

      Dear Reader,

      You are about to read a rare story! In your hands (or on your e-reader) is Fatty Legs. It is rare because it is written by a Indigenous person and it tells the truth about history and the experience of Olemaun, the little girl in Fatty Legs.

      Most of the children’s books, television shows, movies, and lessons in your schoolbooks do not tell the truth about what happened to Indigenous Peoples when Europeans came onto Native homelands several hundred years ago. Most of the stories are biased. That means they show things in favor of one group over another, in a way that is often inaccurate and unfair.

      People who are not Indigenous have been writing biased stories about Indigenous people for hundreds of years. You have probably read a lot of books like that already. In many schools, children in third and fourth grade read Little House on the Prairie. This series of books makes it seem like Laura Ingalls and her family were doing a good thing, settling America, but it ignored the fact that the land they were settling on belonged to Indigenous people and their families.

      White people did terrible things to Indigenous people when they came to what they called the New World. To the Indigenous Peoples who were here, it wasn’t a new world at all! We had been on our lands for thousands of years, building towns and establishing trading networks. At first, Europeans took Indigenous land and forced many Indigenous Peoples to reserves (more commonly called reservations in the United States)*. In the 1800s and 1900s, they took Indigenous children away from their families. The children were taken to schools that tried to make them give up their language and culture. Olemaun went to one of these schools.

      Today, more Indigenous people are writing stories about their lives and history. Fatty Legs is one of those books. I am glad that it was written, and I am glad that you are reading about Olemaun. If you want to read more books by Indigenous writers, take a look at The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. She’s Ojibwe. If you like detective stories, look for Tim Tingle’s Doc and the Detective in Graveyard Treasure. Tingle is Choctaw. And when you get to middle school, you can read Rain Is Not My Indian Name by Cynthia Leitich Smith. She’s Muscogee Creek, and her stories are about Muscogee Creek girls and their families.

      Government leaders in the United States and Canada wanted Indigenous people to stop being who we are, but we are persistent! Our lives as Indigenous people mean a lot to us. People like Olemaun care about their lives as Indigenous people. They want their children and grandchildren to have stories that tell the truth, and they want others to know those truths as well. I hope that you tell your friends about Olemaun. I hope you tell them to read

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