Firekeeper's Daughter

 

Update:

For ALA (American Library Association) Award season 2022 this book received: 

• Michael L. Printz Award Winner
• William C. Morris YA Debut Award Winner
• American Indian Youth Literature Award YA Honor Book

My Thoughts:

I have been sitting on this review for a bit because I feel as an Indigenous reader and teacher, when something comes around that is meant to teach me something, even if it a book and not a person, the respect due to this momi, this pearl of wisdom given, is to sit with it in silence and let the process of the struggle for this knowledge seep into my marrow. Finally, there is a YA semi contemporary novel that uses both radical self honesty and nerdy girl scientist skills to tell an Indigenous story and to solve a good mystery using both science and culture. 

This book is getting a lot of mainstream love, so I just want to talk about this as an Indigenous teacher who has been teaching Indigenous students for almost 30 years now. In the English classroom, we have needed this. Some of my favorite BIPOC, AAPI authors over the years did not write the kind of YA book that I could bring into my classroom. What I was left with were books about versus books by (Island of the Blue Dolphins).  Publication companies uplifting Indigenous YA authors and giving them the same kind of book press is also fairly new. One of the benefits of this pandemic is that YA publishers have been inviting a diverse group of authors to their book launch panels. This is much better than just inviting BIPOC authors, or just inviting AAPI authors so that it becomes about the color of the author and not the interplay of their books to each other.  The audience, then is more diverse. 

As far as the story, what I appreciate are those cultural elements and author decisions that feel very authentic and touch on our own native Hawaiian discussions/arguments that address what of the culture is to be shared, what is just for those inside the community and what parts are ok to publish outside of the community. There is a point where Daunis figures out something, but she also knows that it is not the kind of information that can be shared with the FBI. She also acknowledges stereotypes from the outside and speaks back to those stereotypes with radical self honesty without making this story a lecture on culture and cultural misappropriation. Perhaps this is a newer issue, but I also noticed that the FBI sent two Indigenous agents to act as undercover agents. It brought back the memories of the recent TMT protest on Mauna Kea where law enforcement made a decision to arrest Hawaiian elders so they put together all of their Hawaiian law enforcement officers. It just feels like the government putting us all in the bucket and it is the other crabs who are pulling us down so we can try and get out of this bucket. What Boulley does just with that one decision to bring in the character of "Jaime" who may be Indigenous but is neither connected to his land or his community, and therefore has no identity, is to subtly talk about the idea that belonging to a community and a culture has nothing to do with blood quantum or something on your birth certificate. It has to do with how you carry your responsibility to your land, to your elders, to those that follow you, perhaps called seven generation thinking. 

Finally, I want this book read, but I do not want to give anything away, so suffice it to say that there are disturbing parts and disturbing realizations based on certain events that are sad but not untruthful and I really appreciate the author for not glossing over or trying to soften this story to fit into a romance or feel good book. This is a story that lovingly captures the complexity of a culture in a way that only someone from inside the culture can write about, and instead of making it strictly a cultural story, can instead just weave a good story using land, people and relationships with both. 

NetGalley/Bookish and Macmillan publishing have put out very good teaching guides that can help teachers to run book clubs or have book discussions in their class. 

From the Publisher:

Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team.

Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.

Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims.

Now, as the deceptions—and deaths—keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.