My Name is Not Easy
SkyScrape, 2011
My name is not easy. My name is hard like ocean ice grinding at the shore or wind pounding the tundra or sun so bright on the snow it burns your eyes. My name is all of us huddled up here together, waiting to hear the sound of that plane that’s going take us away, me and my brothers….
This book grew from my husband George’s experience at a parochial boarding school in the wilderness of Alaska where he spent eight years of his life. In those days, kids from the many Native villages throughout the state were forced to travel hundreds, even thousands of miles from their homes in order to get an education.
Over the years I'd heard many stories of George's (and others') experiences at boarding school. Some of the stories were sad, some funny, and some bittersweet. Those telling these stories were my peers, but I never thought of writing a book about this until I attended George’s class reunion. Alumni, priests, nuns, and volunteers were all camped out at the site where the old Copper Valley School once stood and in listening to stories told, the stories I’d heard my husband tell over the years, I was struck by the strong strong sense of family I felt amongst these people who had grown up together far away from their homes here in this place.
On the last day of the reunion, a mass was held at a graveyard in the woods behind the school site. Skirting that graveyard was a low wall made of the broken pieces of painted cinder block that had once been a school. On each piece of brick was a name, the name of one of the ones who had since passed on. On the very bottom row of that wall, I saw a name I recognized: Bunna Edwardson, the brother-in-law I’d never known. At that moment I knew that I had to write this book.
Awards:
Junior Library Guild Selection
Best Children's Books of 2011, Washington Post
International Reading Association, Notable Books for a Global Society
ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults
Reviews:
"Debby Edwarson’s My Name is Not Easy brought me to tears as I remembered the loneliness and confusion I felt when I left my home and family in Arctic Alaska for boarding school thousands of miles away. This young adult novel evokes a time and place in the Alaska Native World that is important to remember, when far-off governments and powerful institutions made decisions that began to change our world, challenging us to find new ways to survive. It is an excellent work of fiction with important truths to be remembered." —William L. Iggigruk Hensley, author of Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People
"Edwardson crafts a multilayered story set in 1960s Alaska, told from the perspectives of children coming of age in a cultural contact zone . . . Edwardson distills a complex period in American history, examining the Cold War, the moon race, and the Kennedy era with cold, crisp illumination. Her beautifully styled prose offers strong descriptions of an isolated world and a mosaic of identities that must be sutured back together after being broken off at the root." —Starred Publisher’s Weekly
“It is rare that an author can write about a controversial subject such as this without prejudice. Edwardson is to be applauded for her depth of research and her ability to portray all sides of the equation in a fair and balanced manner while still creating a very enjoyable read.” —Starred School Library Journal
"There is a difference between a depressing book and a book where sad things happen; this is not a depressing book. Yes, things are lost; Luke’s name is not easy, and neither is his time at the school. There is also love, friendship, kindness, and survival. Not just survival, but triumph."
— A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy