Bibliographic Information:
Title: Firekeeper’s Daughter
Author: Angeline Boulley
ISBN: 9781250766571
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co./MacMillan
Copyright Date: 2021
Genre: Thriller
Format: Print book
Awards: 2022 Printz Award, 2022 Morris Award, 2022 Walter Dean Myers Award (Teen category)
Reading Level: 14+ (Stewart, 2021) though I personally feel it’s best for older teens given the fairly graphic content relating to drugs, alcohol, sex and sexual assault, and violence.
Plot Summary: Daunis Fontaine has always stood astride two worlds: that of her Ojibwe family, and that of her old-money, traditional white family. Tragedy has struck her family, and she’s setting aside her college plans to help take care of her mom and grandma. While it’s hard pause her dreams, she’s happy to have a little more time to spend with her aunt and cousins, and to learn more about the native traditions on the Firekeeper side of her family. Not to mention the cute new boy who just moved to town to play hockey on the same team as her younger brother. But accidental deaths keep happening in her town, until she realizes that they may not be accidental, or unconnected.
Soon she’s an undercover informant helping the FBI find the source of a meth lab, and trying to figure out who she is becomes harder than ever before. Where do her loyalties lie? Can she help her community and the government at the same time? Will she ever feel like true Firekeeper’s daughter? And, most importantly, can she stay alive?
Author Background: Angeline Boulley is also a Firekeeper’s daughter, of the Chippewa tribe, from Sugar Island near Sault Ste. Marie in what is now Michigan (Boulley, n.d.). If she has ever been an FBI informant, she’s not telling, but was formerly the Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education. Firekeeper’s Daughter was her first published novel.
Critical Evaluation: This thriller will keep you turning pages as fast as you can, but it also digs deep into questions about what it means to belong, to be a strong woman (or strong man), to respect your elders, to grieve loved ones, and to support your community. While the scenes of life on an Indian reservation feel very specific and true, many of these questions are relevant for everyone, indigenous or not. Boulley’s pacing is like that of a long-distance runner, like Daunis: she knows when to speed up, when to take a breather, when to fall into the rhythm of the pages. This is not a lightweight book; though it’s a thriller, it tackles very serious topics. Grief stalks the pages: grief for lives lost, love turned away, elders gone, others taken too young. But the wisdom of Daunis’ elders also weaves throughout the book, and all of us leave the last page a little wiser.
Creative Use for a Library Program: Readers will have a lot to talk about after this book. I think a discussion group to process all that’s going on (loss, violence against women, drugs, identity) would be very empowering. Participants can be encouraged to create a diagram showing their intersectional identities and share what happens in the overlapping places (Magee, 2021).
Speed-Round Book Talk: Daunis has always felt like an outsider: Ojibwe, but not a registered member of the tribe; a Fontaine, but with decidedly non-white parentage. So when she’s asked to help the FBI figure out who is cooking meth in her community, she feels like she can’t win. Can she help her people without ratting them out?
Potential Challenge Issues: Some parents may feel that the depictions of drugs and violence are too much. I feel that the important and empowering messages far outweigh that, and will help teens deal with issues that are already part of their understanding if not (hopefully) their lived reality.
Reason for Inclusion: Powerful, beautifully written, and full of insights into a culture not often portrayed in YA literature. A total slam dunk.
Want more? Margaret Noodin, a professor at UW-Milwaukee, has created a resource page related to the book on Ojibwe.net, with recordings and translations of important phrases and prayers used by Daunis throughout the book. If you loved Firekeeper’s Daughter, you should also read Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It is most certainly not a thriller; it’s a collection of nonfiction essays by a woman who is both native and trained in Western botany. It reads like something Daunis would write when she grows up, informed by her knowledge of indigenous plants and ceremony, as well as her training in Western scientific thinking. These essays use indigenous ways of thinking about community and knowledge to explore the natural world. It’s a beautiful, powerful book, similar to Firekeeper’s Daughter in its message and very unlike it in delivery!
For those of us who don’t speak Anishinaabemowin, the audiobook, read by Isabella Star LaBlanc, will add further layers to the book. Here’s a sample of the audiobook:
References
Boulley, A. (n.d.) About Angeline. Retrieved from https://angelineboulley.com/aboutangeline
Magee, K. (2021). A teacher’s guide to Firekeeper’s Daughter. Retrieved from http://www.mackidsschoolandlibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Final-FKD-TeachersGuide.pdf
Ojibwe.net (n.d.) Firekeeper’s Daughter [online resource]. Retrieved from https://ojibwe.net/firekeepers-daughter/
Stewart, K. (2021). BOULLEY, Angeline. Firekeeper’s Daughter. School Library Journal, 67(3), 104. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A654790352/AONE?u=csusj&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=ed74f0d0
Leave a Reply