Northern Ontario, 1960. A family on the Eabametoong reserve wakes to the sound of a floatplane on the lake. Within hours, six-year-old Wanisin and his sister Mitena are torn from their parents under a government order and flown to a residential school hundreds of miles away.

A Child is a Piece of Paper is a gripping, emotionally charged novel about a family ruptured by Canada’s residential school system — and a child’s fight to hold onto who he is in a system built to erase him. Written in a lyrical, image-rich style with the pacing of historical drama, the novel captures both the everyday texture of bush life and the violence of its sudden disruption by church and state.