THE MARROW THIEVES: Internationally Recognized YA Fiction from Canada

When I was a teacher-librarian, I read quite a bit of Young Adult fiction.  Since I’ve retired, I’ve read very little; however, there’s a title that I think I will be picking up: The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline.  Dimaline recently won one of Canada's oldest and most prestigious prizes, the Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature ($25,000) and took home the 2017 Kirkus Prize for young readers' literature.  The American award comes with a purse of $50,000 U.S. (approximately $64,370 CAD).

Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks.  The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream.  In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands.  For now, survival means staying hidden … but what they don’t know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.

For the full Kirkus review, go to https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cherie-dimaline/the-marrow-thieves/, and for a Kirkus interview with the author, see https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/cherie-dimaline/.

To listen to Shelagh Rogers's interview with Dimaline on “The Next Chapter”, listen at http://www.cbc.ca/books/the-marrow-thieves-1.4195121.