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A life taken…a life preserved. Who decides the outcome of a child born to poverty, slavery, or simply the wrong skin tone or ethnic descent? At our core beats a heart, bestowing the gift of life, but who has the right to determine how that life should be lived?
Come with writer, Shari McGriff, on a powerful journey from modern day, back in time, to turn-of-the century Australia. A small child is chased down a dust-filled street and ripped from his mother’s arms. “Dust-to-dust”, they say, “when we pass from one life to the next.”
Vignettes explored, take the reader on ‘The Trail of Tears’, to the farms of wealthy landowners and the gas chambers of Nazi Germany. Families, decimated by greed and lust for power, stare at one another through tear-soaked eyes and a veil of forgetfulness. These are generations robbed of everything: their heritage, past and future, their family ties, and even their names.
Surely, today things are different, more humane and civil. There is no longer a ‘kill the Indian, save the child’ mentality…or is there? The poor, the uneducated, and the inconvenient are victimized, as in days past. We are all human. Are we perpetrating our own ‘stolen generation’?
Deeply moving and forcefully conveyed, this is a short story that will impact the way you look at love, life, and the need to embrace the human family. Free your mind from all earthly cares and spend a few precious minutes in the soul of a child, desperate to share the joys…and sorrows…that are our existence.
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Subjects
Allegory, Young Adult, Fiction, HistoricalPeople
Aboriginal, Native Americans, Slaves, JewsPlaces
Australia, USA, The South, Indian Territory, AuschwitzTimes
1750, 1835, 1887, 1944, Present DayShowing 1 featured edition. View all 1 editions?
Edition | Availability |
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1
Stolen Generation: A Short Story
2015, Song Sparrow Publications
Ebook; Paperback
in English
- First Edition
1511475986 9781511475983
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Excerpts
“Miss, we’re ready for you,” says a voice dressed in white scrubs, jerking me out of my thoughts. I stare down at my hands, sigh, and then follow her out of the waiting room.
Australia—1887
They call us the Stolen Generation. Not lost. Stolen. I’m not black. I’m not white. I’m a creamy half-caste—half-aborigine, half-white. They stole me from my mother when I was only eight. I never saw her again.
I still remember the day I was taken. I was playing with the doctor’s children when they came. The sher-iff and my mother’s cousin drove up in their dusty truck, sending dirt flying behind them. Dust to dust, they say, when we pass from one life to the next. I would have known my life was over if I’d read the signs, but I was too young. The fellow who looked like me was a traitor to our people—a trader of human beings.
He greeted my mother, “Kele mwarre, how are you?” She smiled and welcomed him to sit at the kitchen table as she brought him some tea. She was cooking for the doctor’s family. He fidgeted with his cup, and then asked about me, “How is the little fellow? I bet he has grown quite handsome, following in the footsteps of our grandfather.” He looked at my mother as he absentmindedly rubbed the circle of rope attached to his pants, “I’d love to see him.”
So she called me. Asked me to come in to see our cousin. She didn’t know he was an enforcer for the so-called Aborigines Protection Act. She was naive. She didn’t think one of our own was capable of such horror.
As soon as I came into the house he jumped up and grabbed at me. I ran. I ran as fast as I could. He chased me down the street as I tried to get away from him. I heard my mother screaming, “Run! Run! Run!” as the traitor lassoed me like a calf in the middle of downtown. He drove by the doctor’s house after that, sneering and waving to my mother. He yelled that he’d take good care of me . . .
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Feedback?February 2, 2023 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
July 15, 2015 | Edited by Shari McGriff | Edited without comment. |
July 15, 2015 | Edited by Shari McGriff | Edited without comment. |
July 15, 2015 | Created by Shari McGriff | Added new book. |