When I sat down to write Miya Wears Orange, I kept coming back to one question: what happens in a child's body when they learn, for the first time, that something terrible happened to kids who looked like them, simply because of who they were?
Miya isn't me, exactly, but she's close. She's every kid who has sat in a classroom on the last Friday of September, heard about residential schools, and quietly started to worry that it could happen to her, too. That worry is real, and it deserves a real answer — not a rushed one, and not one dressed up to make the adult in the room more comfortable.
I didn't want to write a book that scared children into silence. I wanted to write one that gave them somewhere to put the feeling — the same thing writing has always done for me. Miya's mother doesn't have all the answers, but she stays in the room with her daughter's sadness instead of trying to talk her out of it. That, more than any explanation, is what I think kids actually need.
Adults ask me, "How much should I tell them?" I don't think there's one right amount. I think the real answer is: tell them the truth, in language sized to them, and then don't leave the room. Sit with them in it. Let them ask the next question, and the one after that, whenever they're ready to ask it.
That's what I hope Miya Wears Orange gives families and classrooms — not a lesson to get through, but a way to stay present with a child while they feel something hard, and come out the other side still feeling safe.