Author finds a way to educate a nation

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Nicola Campbell was studying to be a teacher when she heard her childhood aspiration calling.

She answered that call and as a result, fulfilled a promise she made as a little girl.

"I've wanted to write ever since I was little," said Campbell, whose first children's book Shi-shi-etko (Groundwood Books) was recently launched at the UBC First Nations Longhouse.

"I remember telling my friends at a very young age that I wanted to write my first book by the time I turn 30. That dream came true when I got an e-mail from the publisher two years ago telling me they'd like to publish Shi-shi-etko."

Brilliantly illustrated by award-winning artist Kim La Fave, Shi-shi-etko tells the story of the book's namesake, a young girl on the eve of being sent off to residential school.

Poetic and moving, the book details how Shi-shi-etko finds solace in everything around her-the dancing sunlight, the tall grass, each shiny rock, the tadpoles in the creek, and her grandfather's paddle song.

On the verge of great loss-something that Native people have endured for generations due to the residential school system-Shi-shi-etko carefully gathers valuable teachings from her parents and grandmother for safekeeping.

Campbell said her aunt Maria Campbell, whose autobiography Halfbreed was cited as having "changed perceptions of the Metis experience forever" by the Canada Council for the Arts 2004 Molson Prize in the Arts, was undoubtedly her biggest inspiration growing up.

"Halfbreed was published just a year after I was born," recalled Campbell. "Reading it as a child made me more aware of the impact of colonization."

Campbell said her mother, along with two of her eight siblings, went to residential school. The others were taken into the foster care system. Both grandparents on her mother's side also grew up in residential schools.

"To me the book is not just about people who have suffered residential school. Coming from a small community in the interior and moving to a big city, you have to remember who you are," said Campbell, who grew up in B.C.'s Nicola Valley and is now pursuing a bachelor's degree in creative writing at UBC.

"That's the intent of the story, to remember the good things and pass them on."

Originally enrolled in the Native Teacher Education Program (NITEP) at UBC, Campbell, whose mother and several aunts are educators, said the career change allows her to reach a much wider range of audience.

"Through writing you can influence people across Canada through the written word," said Campbell, who is now working on her first novel and some screenplays.

"I did a reading of Shi-shi-etko at the Aboriginal Literature Festival in Saskatoon, and some parents came up and asked me about the residential school system. They had never heard about residential schools," said Campbell.

"Hopefully the story opened their eyes, and those of their children. Being able to educate people, to have an impact, is why I became a writer.

"And reaching a goal that I set as a child, that's huge for me."