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Niizh Eshkanag is a member of the first generation of Anishinaabe children required to attend a U.S. government boarding school--schools infamously intended to forcibly assimilate Native students into white culture. At the Yardley Indian Boarding School in northern Minnesota, Niizh Eshkanag endures abuse from the school staff and is punished for speaking his native language. After moving to a marginally better school, he befriends a new white student: the principal's nephew, Roger Poznanski. Though Roger is frightened of his Indian classmates at first, Niizh Eshkanag befriends him and teaches him to respect Anishinaabe ways. When a younger student runs away into a winter storm after being beaten by a school employee, Niizh Eshkanag and Roger join forces to rescue him.
About the author
Peter Razor (1928-2022) authored the award-winning
While the Locust Slept, a memoir chronicling his time as a ward at the State Public School in Owatonna, Minnesota, in the 1930s. He also authored
Wiijiwaaganag: More Than Brothers. He was an enrolled member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Nahgahchiwanong) and was a decorated Army veteran of the Korean War.
