Yesterday I finished one of the books I was reading called “My Name is not Easy” by Debby Dahl Edwardson- next on my list is to finish “A Tale of Two Cities” by Sunday (cross your fingers for me).  This text was very interesting to me because it was from a point of view that I (or many people) am not familiar with: Eskimos.  I never read a book or anything for that matter in this point of view.  The setting moves from Alaska to a Christian Boarding school where the Eskimos and Native Americans receive their education.  After finishing this text, I felt as if I knew more about those cultures and the education system they were placed in.

This novel incorporated themes/ideas of identity, religion, post colonialism, oppression, loss, friendship, brotherhood, etc.  Excellent to use in a classroom for those reasons and also because it is a multicultural text.  To me, the most interesting yet appalling part of the novel is when they show the experimentation of the boarding school students when they were forced to drink an Iodine substance.  I was shocked!  I never heard of something like this !  To think that in the 60′s Americans were experimenting on “minorities” in society makes me sick.  Although this is a fiction text, it is based on real events.  To be more specific, Debby’s husband, Luke, and his two brothers are the main characters in this novel so some of her information was taken from their lives.  But again, it is not all true.

How would I know this?  Well, Debby actually skyped my class today!  A real author skyped with us, it was really exciting.  She was so nice and answered all of our questions and because we talked to her this book means so much more to me.  I had no idea that her husband’s life was the basis of this text; he has a very interesting and hard life.  He is very lucky that he has a wife that would write a book about him and put his struggles out for the world to see the injustices these people faced.

Skyping in class was amazing because we were able to talk to a real, published author.  This has to do with technology in the classroom because with out computers and a big screen we wouldn’t be able to do this and we would have lost an amazing opportunity.  As an inspiring writer and author myself, this was so amazing to be able to talk to a professional one; very inspiring.  Thank you Debby for not only skyping with us, but also writing an awesome book!  Everyone should pick one up