Sixties Scoop

For decades, "scooping up" (taking) Indigenous children from their families for placement in foster homes or adoption, was commonplace. this is the story of one of those 20,000 children.

This book for students examines a child welfare policy in Canada that began in 1951 in which Indigenous children were taken from their homes and put into the care of non-Indigenous families. These children grew up without their birth families, cultural roots and language. Many tried to run away and some died in the attempt. The taking of the children became known as the Sixties Scoop. The term “Sixties Scoop” makes explicit reference to the 1960s, but the policies and practices started before the 1960s and lasted long after. Today, Indigenous children are over-represented in the Child Welfare System across Canada in shocking numbers. Indigenous communities got organized and fought back for their children. In 1985, the Kimelman Report was released, condemning the practice of adopting Indigenous children into non-Indigenous families and for taking so many children out of their communities. In the 1990s, lawsuits were filed against the governments who had supported taking the children. In 2018 and 2019, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba apologized for their roles in supporting the adoption programs. In 2020, the Canadian government agreed to a settlement for survivors of the Scoop. Through hundreds of photos and primary documents, readers will meet many survivors of the Scoop. They’ll also learn how Indigenous communities fought back to save their children and won, and how Indigenous communities across Canada are working towards healing today.

During the 60s Scoop, over 20,000 Indigenous children in Canada were removed from their biological families, lands and culture and trafficked across provinces, borders and overseas to be raised in non-Indigenous households. Ohpikiihaakan-ohpihmeh delves into the personal and provocative narrative of Colleen Cardinal’s journey growing up in a non- Indigenous household as a 60s Scoop adoptee. Cardinal speaks frankly and intimately about instances of violence and abuse throughout her life, but this book is not a story of tragedy. It is a story of empowerment, reclamation and, ultimately, personal reconciliation. It is a form of Indigenous resistance through truth-telling, a story that informs the narrative on missing and murdered Indigenous women, colonial violence, racism and the Indigenous child welfare system.

Privileging Indigenous voices and experiences, Intimate Integration documents the rise and fall of North American transracial adoption projects, including the Adopt Indian and Métis Project and the Indian Adoption Project. Allyson D. Stevenson argues that the integration of adopted Indian and Métis children mirrored the new direction in post-war Indian policy and welfare services. She illustrates how the removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities took on increasing political and social urgency, contributing to what we now call the "Sixties Scoop." Making profound contributions to the history of settler colonialism in Canada, Intimate Integration sheds light on the complex reasons behind persistent social inequalities in child welfare.

A NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER! A 2021 Alex Award winner! The 2021 RUSA Reading List: Fantasy Winner! An Indie Next Pick! One of Publishers Weekly's "Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2020" One of Book Riot’s “20 Must-Read Feel-Good Fantasies” Lambda Literary Award-winning author TJ Klune’s bestselling, breakout contemporary fantasy that's "1984 meets The Umbrella Academy with a pinch of Douglas Adams thrown in." (Gail Carriger) Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light. The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours. "1984 meets The Umbrella Academy with a pinch of Douglas Adams thrown in." —Gail Carriger, New York Times bestselling author of Soulless At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Raw and honest, Bearskin Diary gives voice to a generation of First Nations women who have always been silenced, at a time when movements like Idle No More call for a national inquiry into the missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Carol Daniels adds an important perspective to the Canadian literary landscape. Taken from the arms of her mother as soon as she was born, Sandy was only one of over twenty thousand Aboriginal children scooped up by the federal government between the 1960s and 1980s. Sandy was adopted by a Ukrainian family and grew up as the only First Nations child in a town of white people. Ostracized by everyone around her and tired of being different, at the early age of five she tried to scrub the brown off her skin. But she was never sent back into the foster system, and for that she considers herself lucky. From this tragic period in her personal life and in Canadian history, Sandy does not emerge unscathed, but she emerges strong—finding her way by embracing the First Nations culture that the Sixties Scoop had tried to deny. Those very roots allow Sandy to overcome the discriminations that she suffers every day from her co-workers, from strangers and sometimes even from herself.

A novel of love and betrayal dealing with the biggest issues facing Canada’s Indigenous peoples today. In the summer of 1972, a float plane carrying a team of child welfare officials lands on a river flowing through the Yellow Dog Indian reserve. Their mission is to seize the twin babies of an Indigenous couple as part of an illegal scheme cooked up by the federal government to adopt out tens of thousands of Native children to white families. The baby girl, Brenda, is adopted and raised by a white family in Orillia. Meanwhile, that same summer, a baby boy named Greg is born to a white middle-class family. At the age of eighteen, Greg leaves home for the first time to earn money to help pay for his university expenses. He drinks heavily and becomes embroiled in the murder of a female student from a residential school. The destinies of Brenda and Greg intersect in this novel of passion, confronting the murder and disappearance of Indigenous women and the infamous Sixties Scoop.