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Division News

Northland presents "Talking with and listening to kids about Truth and Reconciliation” with Monique Gray Smith

Posted on March 23

Monique Gray Smith

Monique Gray Smith

Hello, students, parents/guardians, staff, and community members:

Northland School Division is pleased to invite you to a special presentation with award-winning and best-selling author Monique Gray Smith on Wednesday, March 23, 2022, from 5:00-6:00 p.m. via Zoom Webinar! The presentation is called “Talking with and listening to kids about Truth and Reconciliation.”

During this visit, Monique will share her personal journey of truth and reconciliation and how that journey has transformed her and her family. Throughout the evening, you will learn ways to have conversations with children and young people about Canada’s history, with a focus on Residential Schools. 

She will discuss the importance of your knowledge and understanding of Canada’s history and how you may be learning alongside the children/young people in your life. Monique will share stories and offer readings from her various books and will provide insight into how to use books, stories, and video as tools to support your discussions with children and young people. Monique will share information on stress and trauma and what happens in our bodies as adults and in the bodies of the children we love and care for when we experience stress and/or trauma. This will be an uplifting, informative, and inspiring evening. 

“Talking with and listening to kids about Truth and Reconciliation” Zoom Webinar Access

Please click on the link to join the webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86942100490

Biography: Monique Gray Smith

Monique Gray Smith is a proud mom of teenage twins and an award-winning, best-selling author. Her first published novel, Tilly: A Story of Hope and Resilience won the 2014 Canadian Burt Award for First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Literature. Since then, Monique has had 7 books come out that cover a broad spectrum of ages, topics and emotions. Woven into all of Monique’s writing, speaking engagements and online courses is the teaching that Love is Medicine. Monique’s novel, Tilly and the Crazy Eights was longlisted for Canada Reads 2021. 

She is currently writing the Young Adult Adaptation of Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, with a November 2022 release date. Also coming out in Fall 2022 is a picture book, I Hope with Orca Book Publishers. She is an appointed member of the Board of Directors of Royal Roads University and the Minister’s Advisory Council for Indigenous Women for the Government of BC and an elected Board member for the Victoria Native Friendship Centre. In 2019 Monique received the Victoria Leadership Award for Reconciliation. Monique is Cree, Lakota, and Scottish and has been sober and involved in her healing journey for over 30 years. She is well known for her storytelling, spirit of generosity and focus on resilience.

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