lance crossley

An emotionally charged novel that depicts the devastating effects of residential schools, not as abstract Canadian history, but as felt knowledge.

"Raw... gritty...no single adjective can sufficiently describe the intensity of A Child is a Piece of Paper...Crossley has written a very powerful work of fiction...Poignant and painful...will stay with you long after the last page has been read."
— SPR Book Review

"I was absolutely hooked ... The characters are diverse and vivid ... [an] outstanding story of survival ... an emotional rollercoaster ... the ending had me in tears."
— Readers' Favorite (5-star review)

"A gripping, wrenching read...Fiction readers seeking enlightenment into the processes of cultural domination and transformation will find A Child is a Piece of Paper an important key to understanding cultural survival and recovery...thoroughly engrossing."
— Midwest Book Review

A six-year-old boy's idyllic childhood is shattered after being torn from his remote northern reserve and forced into a Catholic-run residential school at Dresden Lake. At Dresden, where the mission is to "kill the Indian in the child", he lives in a constant state of terror while trying to survive the ever-increasing cruelty of a depraved schoolmaster. When the brutality becomes unbearable, the only option is to escape, a decision which ultimately ends in tragedy. 

The ripple effects of this tragedy haunt him well into adulthood, where the destruction of his marriage mirrors his failure as a father and the slow, painful erosion of his identity. In old age, he is presented with an opportunity: a chance to reclaim something that was lost and to fix a longstanding injustice. But to do so he must first return to Dresden to face his past once and for all.

Heartbreaking and beautiful, A Child is a Piece of Paper explores the impact of Canada's cultural genocide against its Indigenous Peoples and the loss of innocence of a child, a culture, and indeed an entire nation.