Listen, I’m part of a book club. Again. It keeps happening, because I like books a lot. But I haven’t been a great book club member in the past because I kept not reading the book. One time I didn’t even remember what book we were supposed to read before we met to discuss! That’s when I dropped out. But I’m back, in a group that chooses books that are more aligned with the ones I’m reading anyway, such as Children Like Us by Brittany Penner. The subtitle of the book is: “A Métis woman’s memoir of family, identity and walking herself home.” So you can see how I’m interested in her pursuit of, well, all of it.
This is not a review. These are my notes that I took while reading, so that I can refer to them when my book club meets. Feel free to take a peek!
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Sunday, September 21st, 2025.
I have decided to spend the day reading through the book at the top of my pile (because it is our most recent acquisition) — Children Like Us by Brittany Penner — and blog about it.
1:49pm — on the balcony, with a glass of cold water. Let us begin.
It’s now 3:06pm and I’m on page 56. Is that fast or slow? I’m still a little concerned that I am a slow reader. I like to linger, reading and re-reading certain lines. Sometimes I realize that I’ve looked up from the page in a thoughtful pause and have been staring at the shapes of the clouds in the sky for I don’t even know how long. Andrew has poured me a glass of red wine. I stopped to put the washed clothes into the dryer.
And to write, here.
Did I tell you that Andrew and I attended Brittany Penner’s book launch at McNally Robinson? (The events at said event inspired this Unger Review post.) So I had the chance to hear the author read from her own book, before reading it myself. It helps give me an idea of tone, and of care.
I was initially interested because of her Steinbach connection — she grew up here, and continues to live in this community. I have never met her before, but based on the kinds of people who were very interested in this, her first book, I felt that it would be a worthwhile read. And then I learned what it’s about: her. Or, I would say, her pursuit of identity. Growing up and wondering “who am I and where did I come from?” I feel like I identify with this pursuit. Of course our stories are pretty different — she is Métis, adopted by a white couple, her dad Mennonite and her mom of Ukrainian descent. So here I am, reading with her on this journey. Already I feel the heaviness she experienced as her first known siblings had to say goodbye. This had been spoken about at her book launch, but now I am reading her words and she traces her past back in time, using old photos, camcorder footage, and her own memory.
3:22pm — reading again. Chapter eight. I started out trying to identify which church she’s describing. It is a Steinbach church. But not one I am familiar with, as she states they sang in German. I lament the fact that I have only ever experienced church in English. I have not felt attached to church very much either, despite always having attended, and that is something to unpack another time. My point is that I started out reading this chapter about church with eager anticipation and curiosity… ending in horror.
It’s 3:36. Reading on. It’s just that… I identify with her quest for identity. Though our stories take place in the same locale, and touch on Mennonite-ness, they are not the same. The horror mentioned above has not been mentioned again. Yet. And she writes with a lot of love and attachment of her upbringing. She writes of her desire to belong. Of her love of the outdoors and how that is where she finds God — not in church. I identify with that. The difference is, I always quietly assumed everyone felt the same way I did, and assumed that the trick is, we all just struggle to put that feeling into words.
4:12pm. Page 82. I feel an affinity for what Penner is going through. I’ve long felt like I didn’t belong, and sought an identity and to interrogate my past. However, that feeling that you might suddenly be taken away? It’s not something I ever had.
6:39pm — had to stop for supper. But in my time away from the book (I read up to page 138) I was able to reflect on how Penner holds the very hard parts and the very soft parts very honestly and tells of it all so compellingly. She makes me long for those moments of being outside with kin, smelling the earth and the grass and hearing the wind in the trees… and then stare at the page with intensity as violence erupts, seemingly out of nowhere.
I also have to give recognition to the specifically Steinbach moments in time — Penner Foods, Don’s Bakery, Stylerite.
7:55pm — page 199. Okay, a lot of big things have happened in terms of sexuality, depression, and the assumptions Steinbachers make about anyone who looks Indigenous. And how that plays out with teenage peers. It’s like I’m stepping into a world that exists alongside my own but I never knew about it. I don’t think I know how to talk about any of this. I think at this point I would say that this memoir is bold and honest and important.
8:32pm — reading again, up to page 213. I had to stop with surprise and delight. Is it giving it away if I say what it was? When she declares to some idiot at the bar, “You fucking wish you were a Mennonite.” The strength, knowledge, and also sass just makes me want to high five her.
Now it is a few days later. 7:57pm — picking it back up.
I’m now at the part of her book where Brittany is a medical student, working long shifts, delivering babies at a hospital in Winnipeg… and her experience with Indigenous mothers, the treatment she witnesses, and how it is contrasted with that of white people, and how it affects her — all of this is important. At one point she writes that at the end of the day these are stories she carries quietly with her. With no place to put them. And I feel like I understand. (I do not understand, obviously. But, she has written in such a way that I feel I can connect to her experience. She is a fantastic writer.)
Several days later… I’m reading again. What is it about reading someone else’s story that makes you think of your own in a different way?
I appreciate her observations of Mennonite culture from within and without, simultaneously. “Mennonites are nothing if not stoic and reluctant to complain.” Or ask for help.
I fall into the trap of trying to match the unnamed people and places to people and places in real time. I don’t think this is how I’m supposed to be reading this.
When my book club meets to discuss this book, I just know they will all pull out far more deep and insightful observations than I am posting here. Nevertheless, here’s what I have chosen to record:
306 – “I sense there is a window within her, a piece of a story that needs to be heard.”
321 – “… tactics that disconnected them from their histories and identities…”
322 – “… my great-grandmother’s story. Something deeper, more meaningful for me to have held onto. Something to help me feel connected to the women who came before me.”
326 – “‘Sometimes it still feels like I understand myself so little,’ I wrote. ‘The shame still awakens from its slumber every so often […] I suspect it will be a lifelong journey, but I’m thankful I’m further along and finding greater comfort in my own skin than I had at the start.'”
I take note of this because I identify with it in my own journey of trying to figure out who I am and where I come from. Knowledge displaces shame.
I don’t understand her parents’ angry reaction at her piece that was published in the Globe and Mail. They didn’t speak to her for five months! And even then, only broke the silence to request her help navigating the medical system. (326)
327 – “I also knew that writing anything about my experience that wasn’t steeped in gratitude might cost me my family.” Wow. The online feedback is awful. And sounds very familiar.
329 – makes Bannock for the first time and thinks it tastes like schnetke. I thought that too when I was a kid and made Bannock in school.
356 – “You just need to find your way home to yourselves… and each other.” The way she heals herself by walking. By sitting with younger versions of herself. Of coming to know herself, her history, recognizing that there are so many different threads and she can hold them all.
364 – “Dad, I know there’s a high likelihood you’re not reading this.” Nestled in the acknowledgements at the very back of the book, this may be one of the most startlingly heartbreaking lines I’ve read in this book. (Which really, only means I should read it again. Because this book is filled with heartbreak. Honesty. Healing. And self-respect.)
I feel like the acknowledgements are a kind of epilogue. Beautiful. I teared up.
The fireflies at the end!
Read it.