Eight-year-old Rene and her two brothers are forced to leave their family and go to a boarding school far from home. It's the law! In this austere place, they are prevented from speaking their language and are given a number instead of a name. At the end of the school year, the children return home and inform their parents of the appalling conditions in which they must live at the boarding school. Will they find a way to hide the children so that they never return?

Inspired by the life of Jenny Kay Dupuis' grandmother, I am not a number highlights a dark part of Canadian history in a way that raises awareness among children and allows them to learn a human and historical lesson from it.