This book details the lives of Sami children that are forced to attend government run boarding schools. A look at how stripping people of their culture affect not only them, but those around them. A difficult and informative book on a subject that is all too fresh today as we navigate how we treat people and how we honor cultures.

As expected, a powerful novel about residential schools and Sami life across diff time periods. I loved the format of snippets in the characters lives and reminded me of FIVE LITTLE INDIANS. Watch out for content warnings. Despite the serious content, very poignant and beautiful snapshots of the characters.

Ann-Helén Laestadius' books are so accessible in dealing with some heavy issues. They characters coming to terms with what happened to them at these anti-indigenous boarding schools and who they've become today was suspenseful and written with empathy.

This book tells the story of 5 children of the Sami, an indigenous people of Sweden who were nomadic reindeer herders. Told in a dual timeline we follow the children through the 1950s as they are forced to attend a segregated boarding school meant to assimilate them into traditional Swedish society. However they face much abuse and terror at the hands of the militant housemother. We also see them as adults in the 1980s as they come to terms with their past and the decisions it has lead them to make as they try to move past it.

This book is primarily character driven and was definitely slow-paced as we watched the different stories unfold. I would have liked a little more of the history and culture of Sweden and that area during that time, but overall, I enjoyed this. I think the trick is to stick with it, because you might feel it bogging down a bit in the middle, but everything comes together as you get closer to the end. I am always excited to be exposed to a unique piece of history that I would otherwise not hear about.

Punished has become a must read, and it is clear why it is an international best seller.

Being from North America there are plenty of stories, accounts and retellings of the horrific treatment of the Indigenous, but Punished tells the tale of five Indigenous children in Sweden, Punished has multiple POVs that bring you from their school years and their present lives, chronicling how the mistreatment of their childhood impacted their adulthood and choices thirty five years later. It is a great example of how the Indigenous were forced to change their entire ways at a young age, and internally battling either assimilation or internally never giving up on where they come from. As adults, they learn that the past never really escape their childhood enemies.

I highly recommend Punished for all. It is a great translated, historical fiction. 5 out of 5 stars. I cannot wait to read Ann-Helen Laestadius' other book "Stolen."

Thank you Netgalley, Scribner, and the author for the opportunity in exchange for an honest review.

I will post to socials.

Punished, is based on a true story of indigenous children, forced to attend government "nomad" schools in Sweden. Starting at age 7, the children of Sami Reindeer herders were required to attend these boarding schools where speaking their own language was forbidden. Like similar schools in the U.S., cruelty, abuse and neglect were the norm. Away from their parents, community and culture, the treatment of the children was horrendous and hard to read. The story focuses on 5 of the children and the narrative of the impact of cruelty and trauma in their adult lives. The Immersive setting, and brilliantly written characters, this book is an important and fascinating read. Ann-Helen Laestadius is commended for bringing these stories to light. Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for the opportunity to read this 5 star book.

I think I needed to have read the first of these 2 books before reading this, because it was incredibly difficult to get into. I will come back to it after reading Stolen, I think

An outstanding companion to Laestadius's Stolen, this novel focuses on the older generation of the earlier book, offering a compelling look at state schools, the oppression of the Sami people, and how forced cultural changes are a kind of violence. Laestadius's writing is clear and forthright and a pleasure to read, and her characters have considerable depth and inner workings that readers find revealed a little at a time. A great book for this moment in history, and one to be shared and discussed at length.

A few years ago, author Ann-Helén Laestadius wrote “Stolen,” a powerful novel about the Sámi, the indigenous people of Scandinavia. It was revelatory about the culture and the inhumane hardships these people suffer at the hands of society. That book contained triggers relating to animal cruelty– specifically against reindeer. Now, in the second book of her trilogy, “Punished,” the abuse is unleashed on children.

The mistreatment of indigenous children in re-education boarding schools in the United States and Canada has striking similarities to the experiences of Sámi children. These children were forcibly removed from their homes and stripped of their language, customs, and even their names. The prevailing Social Darwinism of the time held that these people were inferior, and the only reasonable solution was to force their assimilation into society.

In this telling, based on the author’s family background, the evil center is the school’s housemother, Rita. Her unforgiving nature is evident when she displays a fit of rage and permanently disfigures a boy's hand by stepping on it. Additionally, she callously mocks a girl's illness and delays sending her home, resulting in severe consequences.

The stories of five of the children are explored as they grapple with the shame, anger, and guilt that haunt them into adulthood. The psychological scars run deep, preventing them from discussing their shared trauma — not with their children, not even with each other. The repercussions do not fade.

After thirty years have passed, housemother Rita is back. She is physically limited now in her old age– but unapologetic. As bigoted as ever, she still expresses disgust toward those she was responsible for educating.

“Punished?” The children were punished for their heritage. Would they be justified in doling out revenge– punishment– to the personification of evil?

The repetition of cruelty in institutions, in disparate places like the Native American schools and the Irish Magdalene Laundries, is disheartening. How does the conscience remain insulated when acts of cruelty are carried out by institutions?

The novel's pace is a bit slow, which may be attributed to the in-depth development of five characters. While Rita's absolute wickedness may initially seem one-dimensional, history unfortunately has shown that such individuals, driven by religious self-righteousness, have existed. This serves as a crucial reminder of the consequences of a society that fails to embrace diversity and chooses forced assimilation over inclusion.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Many American readers will have at least a rudimentary familiarity with the horrors of Indian boarding schools, but few will know that similar schools existed in Northern Sweden, Norway, and Finland, to assimilate children of the Sami reindeer herders. In her new novel Punished, Ann-Helén Læstadius, a Swedish writer of Sámi and Tornedalian descent and whose mother attended one of the “nomad schools," brings such a school to international awareness, not only depicting the harsh realities of daily school life but also such schools’ long-term effects on their students.

The book opens as a school employee identified only as Anna walks through the school on her last day, thinking of individual students who have left that day for Christmas break and whom she assumes she will never see again. With this prologue, Læstadius briefly introduces Anna, the five central student characters as seen through Anna’s eyes, and the head mistress, called Housemother by the students, touted as the children’s “extra mother” by the press, but more commonly viewed within the school as the devil woman or witch.

The novel’s fifty-plus chapters that follow are set during two time periods—1950-1955 and 1985-1986. They are also divided among three girls (Else-Maj, Marge, and Anne-Risten) and two boys (Jon-Ante and Nilsa). To avoid any confusion, the author clearly titles each chapter with an individual student’s name and the year. As readers come to know each student in depth, they also meet an assortment of other characters: a few additional students including Else-Maj’s sister Sara and Nilsa’s brother Aslak along with an assortment of school employees including Anna and the Housemother in the 1950s chapters and the central students’ spouses, children, and a few others in the 1980s chapters.

Else-Maj, Marge, Anne-Risten, Jon-Ante, and Nilsa come to life with their differing personalities, school experiences, and psychological effects, such as fears and guilt. Some return to their home village while others flee to the city. Some embrace their reindeer culture while others adopt new ways of life.

As the 1950s become the 1980s and the young students find themselves middle-aged, Anna and Housemother (Rita Olsson) reappear, evoking repressed memories and, in the case of Housemother, sparking a need for revenge.

The five students, Anna, and Housemother will stay with me for months if not years to come. Stolen, the author’s first novel, was named Sweden’s Book of the Year and is now a Netflix Original movie. Punished merits a series and an international literary prize.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for an advance reader egalley of this outstanding book which I cannot recommend enough.

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This book is so moving, so informative and so desperately important! A must read for any serious reader.

This one was shocking an eye opening. I knew that indigenous children were forced to attend government run boarding schools in the US and Canada into the 20th century. And we are slowly coming to terms. I was shocked to learn that Sweden of all places was just as guilty. With their indigenous population the Sami. Even though this is a work of fiction it is based on real life events.

Thank you netgalley for the advance eARC of this translated novel. I read Stolen some time ago and really enjoyed it, and learning so much more about Sami people and their culture.

This book goes further back in time to the 1950s at a nomad school (i.e. residential school similar to those inflicted on indigenous people in the US and Canada) and follows five main children truth their experiences there, as well as their lives as adults in the mid 1980s and how the trauma affected them and their families. It's a heartwrenching read and reminded me of Five Little Indians by Michelle Good, which followed five fictional residential school survivors.

This is all about consequences. It moves back and forth in time to tell the story of five young people who were sent to the "nomad" boarding school at age seven, an experience that shaped them physically in one case but emotionally and psychologically for all. Now, Rita, the cruel woman who ruled their lives has moved back to their small town and they must cope with this. Jon-Ante has never married, feels different from his family, and is devoted to his car. Else-maj, who suffered perhaps the biggest loss, is raising her children and along with her husband who also went to the school refuses to speak of time there. Nilsa, the bully of the group, doesn't know how awful he was but his little brother.....Anne-Risten married a Swede and has denied her Sami heritage. And Marge, who finds herself working as a home health care visitor for Rita, has never married but just adopted a 6 year old from Colombia. All five are linked, all five feel very real. This is a an emotional heartbreaker about cruelty-and it should make us think about what we do to our children. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This became a page turner for me- it's a terrific read.

As expected, I found myself tearing up while reading this. The topic of boarding schools, separating little kids from the safety of their homes and their culture, will never stop upsetting me. Laestadius effectively explores the long-term impact of this trauma by not only painting a portrait of the multitudes of issues the kids faced, but also flashing forward to the modern times where we get a look at how everyone turned out as adults. I found this to be a fascinating study of how trauma impacted everyone differently amid shifting societal norms. I particularly appreciated the myriad of perspectives we got here, as the story didn't have a single main character. Laestadius also masterfully conveyed the urgency and intense emotions that arose as the traumatic events were happening, contrasting them with the different mutedness the survivors exhibited as adults.

If you haven't read it, Stolen by the same author is also excellent and i'm thrilled she has another book coming out later this year in Swedish, which makes me hopeful for a 2026 translation being available. Punished also pairs really well with the novel in verse Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson, one of my favorite reads from last year.

This heartwrenching novel follows the lives of 5 Sámi children from reindeer herder families who were sent to a nomad school suffering abuses and prevented from using their native tongue.

The narrative goes back and forth between the 50s and 80s, presenting the characters in their sad childhood with a racist and cruel headmaster and how after 30 years, they kept being hunted by trauma and having identity problems with stigmas preventing them from having a happy life.

The novel is well-written, but because of the multiple main characters and secondary characters, it was hard for me to recall the names, and it was a bit confusing at times because I'm wasn't familiar with these names.

It includes some words in Sámi, and I found it informative because even if I didn't know about this ethnic group before, I was able to get a whole picture about them.

This story based on real events made me think about all the indigenous people and minorities around the world and how they struggle to preserve their language and culture but also to think on how strong they are because despite all the oppression and injustices they have suffered in the past, their language is still alive.

I took my time reading this slowly because most of the novel includes misfortunate events, but there is a bit of hope in the last part, and I liked the different meanings behind this title.

If you like learning about other cultures and enjoying books with the themes mentioned before, you might find this book interesting. I love how literature is a bridge that can connect readers with a different culture and learn its history with the richness and sadness of the past, and I think this could be a good contribution to literature.

Thank you, Scribner and Netgalley, for this digital ARC

Character-heavy, wistful, immersive, and affecting…A book that generates both ire and optimism, asking the question, “If you had the chance to punish the one who damaged you as a child, would you?”

The story unfurls, alternating between the mid 1950s to the mid-1980s as we learn about a Swedish aboriginal tribe called Sámi, who were forced to send their children to the Nomad School to unlearn what it is to be Sámi during the 1950s. We meet and follow five main characters, discover the horrors that they experienced, and how those monstrosities made them become who they were and what they became at the hand of their nefarious housemother, Rita Olsson.

Although it is a bit heavy in its character development, you soon realize that its most important players lives are super easy to follow. Those of the lives of Else-Maj, Jon-Ante, Marge, Anne-Risten, Nilsa, Aslak, and Anna are the only ones you will remember. Don’t get too distracted (like I did) by the secondary and tertiary characters mentioned throughout the book or it will become too cumbersome, and you may just abandon it. Just let it unfold to its rewarding ending. It is a rapid read.

This book will be published on February 4th, 2025. I would like to thank author, Ann-Helén Laestadius; publisher Simon & Schuster; and netgalley for providing me a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed above are wholly my own.

Historical fiction based on true events about Sámi Indigenous experiences, based on the author's family experiences.

Punished follows five Sámi children forcibly sent to a government boarding school in 1950s Sweden & explores their trauma and different coping mechanisms 30 years after their shared experience. It's written in multiple perspectives from the five former students which was actually easy to follow. I loved the background of each family being introduced before the bomb is dropped - they confront the abusive housemother who returns decades later.

Read for:
Then & now timeline
Intergenerational trauma & how it's handed in different people
Indigenous resistance
Healing and confronting past abuse
Revenge & consequences

3.5 stars.

I really liked Stolen. It was my first fictional introduction to the Sámi people, and being from the US, there were a lot of parallels between how Native Americans and Sámi were treated, and are still being treated today, under colonization.

Punished is another good story about the Sámi community, exploring how a group of Sámi children were treated in a nomad school (hint: it was abuse), and how they fared as adults. I think this book is more for lit fic lovers. There were parts that were quite slow and were more character studies than actual plot.

Each character had their own family lives to contend with, and I really liked how this story spanned at least three generations for some of the characters (their parents both in the past and present, and the characters' young children).

I also liked the back-and-forth time jumps between childhood and adulthood. The chapters were labeled clearly so you know the era and the character POV, so there wasn't any confusion there.

While I did like how each character's experiences had both similarities and differences to one another, there were one too many character POVs to keep track of. Else-Maj and Anne-Risten's childhood chapters were a lot stronger than their adult chapters. Marge's adult chapters were great, but I barely remember anything from her childhood. And Jon-Ante and Nilsa's childhood and adulthood chapters were the most memorable.

The storyline with Housemother didn't really satisfy me at the end. She was a central figure in the characters' experiences at nomad school, so I expected more of a climax. But I suppose what happened was more realistic.

I did love the actual ending though. It felt very cathartic to see some of the characters start to slowly heal from their traumatic childhoods.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for this arc.

Content warnings: child abuse, death, cancer, cultural genocide, miscarriage

Punished is the second book in the Sapmitrilogin and Ann-Helén Laestadius delivers again. A powerful, deeply moving work of art that makes you wonder what you would do if you encountered someone who hurt you so deeply in childhood.

Five children, Else-Maj, Jon-Ante, Nilsa, Anne-Risten, and Marge, are forced to go to a nomad school in 1950s northern Sweden as part of an assimilation effort by the Swedish government. As part of a cultural genocide. All experience trauma from their housemother, Rita. If the children dared to speak up, they were punished into silence, and those who helped the children were also punished. The children are forced to learn Swedish and punished for speaking their native Sámi, punished for joiking, punished for simply being who they are: Sámi.

Thirty years later, the children are now adults and coping with their experiences in different ways. Some turn to religion, others embrace their heritage but hold onto anger and act out in destructive ways. Others hide their identity and hope that others don't find out who they really are, raising their children in the Swedish culture instead of the Sámi one. They continue to cope, until Rita the housemother returns into their lives. How do they cope with Rita coming back? You'll just have to read to find out.

While I wish I could say that this work was entirely fictional, it is based on real events the author's mother went through. This book was an emotionally heavy read, but a necessary one. It provides awareness to the struggles that the Sámi have gone through for an English-speaking audience, much like the first book in the trilogy, Stolen. It goes deeper back into the dark history, exposing the harsh realities of nomad schools. It tackles the complex ways trauma affects everyone. Each character processed it differently and it made me look into how I process things.

While I know the third book in the trilogy, Skam, is yet to be published even in Laestadius's native Swedish, I am already looking forward to the English translation.