I don’t
normally read Young Adult fiction but this book won the Governor General's
Literary Award for young people's literature and the 2017 Kirkus Prize for
young readers' literature.
Non-indigenous
people have lost the ability to dream whereas Indigenous People carry dreams in
webs woven into their bone marrow. As a
result, the latter are being captured and taken to marrow-harvesting facilities
modelled after residential schools.
Frenchie, a young Métis, finds himself alone and on the
run. He ends up joining a group of eight
others heading north to escape the reaches of the Recruiters.
This is a
coming-of-age novel so Frenchie is a dynamic character. Frenchie spends over five years with his new
family, and between the ages of 11 and 16, he matures. He becomes more resourceful and confident. As a child he was not able to protect members
of his family; as an adolescent, he shows great determination to protect the
members of the family unit he has become a part of. He develops a fighting spirit, becoming
determined to destroy the marrow-harvesting “schools”. As would be expected in this genre, he also
learns about love; there is a requisite romance with a feisty girl who joins
the group.
This is also
a novel cautioning against environmental negligence. The earth has been ravaged by climate
change: “The Melt put most of the
northlands under water” (25). Man is
also responsible for the devastation. The
“industry-plundered Great Lakes” are poisoned (11) with their waters “grey and
thick like porridge” (24); as they walk, the group notices “the trees tilted to
the north towards what was left of the natural landscape beyond the clear-cuts
stripped of topsoil” (20). There is a
description that reminded me of The
Chrysalids by John Wyndham: “In this
time, in this place, the world had gone mad with lush and green, throwing vines
over old electrical poles and belching up rotten pipelines from the
ground. Animals were making their way
back, but they were different. Too much
pollution and too much change” (91).
Of course,
the book is also an adventure tale of survival.
The group must hunt for food and clean drinking water while avoiding
being captured by Recruiters. Danger
lurks everywhere. Sometimes, this is the
weakest aspect of the novel; the novel is a bit slow-paced so suspense is
missing. Foreshadowing is used to
maintain suspense, but it is clumsy.
Chapters end with statements like, “If I had honestly known what was in
store for us . . . (107) and “Neither of us could imagine that everything would
change in just a few hours” (220).
I
appreciate how the book celebrates Indigenous oral story-telling tradition. Interspersed throughout the narrative are “Coming-to”
stories in which characters share the circumstances that brought them to the
group. The group also has a weekly
ritual of Story during which Miigwans, the group leader, passes on Indigenous
history.
I think
this would be a good book to use in classrooms.
It clarifies Indigenous history and shows what Indigenous culture has to
teach everyone. Certainly the references
to life-draining “schools” emphasize the impact of residential schools. Some might argue that whites are portrayed
rather harshly but there is justification for turning the tables on the typical
“cowboys and Indians” narrative. I love
the irony: whites who have been so
dismissive of Indigenous history and culture end up needing it to survive. Many issues of interest and concern to young
people are raised in the novel so interesting discussions could ensue.
There is
also food for thought for the adult reader.
Miigwans introduces a major theme when he asks his group, his family, “’What
would you do to save us?’” (54). Are “Anything”
and “Everything” (55, 231) acceptable answers to that question? Frenchie wonders, “What would I have done to
save my parents or [brother], given the chance?
Would I have been able to trap a child, to do what, cut them into
pieces? To boil them alive? I shuddered.
I didn’t want to know what they did.
And I didn’t really want to know if I’d be capable of doing it”
(48). Is Miigwans’ argument acceptable
when he says, “’sometimes you do things you wouldn’t do in another time and
place. . . . As long as the intent is good, nothing else matters’” (145)?
The book is
not flawless but its qualities outnumber its weaknesses.
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