The author Brittany Penner discusses her bestselling memoir Children Like Us: A Metis Woman’s Memoir of Family, Identity and Walking Herself Home (Doubleday, 2025), with Joseph Planta.
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Children Like Us: A Metis Woman’s Memoir of Family, Identity and Walking Herself Home by Brittany Penner (Doublday, 2025).
Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Children Like Us |
Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:
I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.
One of the more compelling books of the year is the one from Brittany Penner, Children Like Us: A Métis Woman’s Memoir of Family, Identity and Walking Herself Home. I spoke to Dr. Penner two and a half weeks ago about the bestselling book. In the book, she talks about growing up in a Mennoite family, and the feelings she contended with growing up. By the time she was seven, she has loved and lost twenty-one foster siblings, who like her were all Indigenous. There’s a loneliness that she feels at a young age, that she works through the book identifying and dealing with. It’s a lot for a child to contend with, especially later, when she’s born in 1989, near the end of the Sixties Scoop, and she seeks her birth parents. The book is a marvelous exploration of family, identity and belonging. As the author seeks home, in all its forms, the reader is enveloped in a generosity and hope that might belie the tough subjects in the book. I’ll ask Brittany about racism, and not just in reaction to her writing, but through her life. Brittany Penner is an author and practicing physician. She is also a lecturer with the University of Manitoba Max Rady College of Medicine. She is currently completing a Master’s of Liberal Arts at Harvard. The book is published by Doubleday. She joined me from Winnipeg. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Brittany Penner; Dr. Penner, good morning.
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