Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley Book Review

      






Written by Angeline Boulley

Published by Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) in 2021

ISBN:978-1250766564

Plot Summary: Daunis Fontaine is a mixed race child from her mother's French/Italian side and her father's Ojibwe side. Daunis has a very hard family life with lots of illness and death and she finds herself in the middle of a tough situation where someone is making meth and is distributing it to her people as well as the school around her. She becomes an informant for the police as she is very ingrained with the people at her school and she finds out that it is her brother and his hockey team friends who are the ones that are making and distributing it and she is kidnapped by the Tribal Judge who has a part in the operation. Daunis realizes that she wants to help people so she decides to go to college at the University of Hawaii where she is able to research ethnobotany and traditional medicine just like her ancestors did for many years. 

Critical Analysis (Including Cultural Markers): Daunis is the main character throughout the story and you can tell that she is always working hard to become better and it becomes apparent that she is on a hero's journey where she is able to bust up the drug ring as well as discover more about who she is with her personal growth and finding her place in the world. Daunis goes through a journey of reconciliation within herself as she feels that her mother's heritage and father's heritage will never be in sync within her so she doesn't feel like she is a part of either of them. The conflict shows us in Daunis love of science as well as her love of her father's traditional Native medicine but she is pushed away because she is not fully Native. 

Daunis knows that she has a responsibility to her community as a Native person but she also feels drawn to being an informant as she wants to get the drugs off the street and away from her community as well. Daunis is faced with many difficult decisions as she must balance prioritizing helping the FBI in their investigation vs. protecting people that she believes are innocent in the whole situation. Daunis spends a lot of time trying to see people for who they are as a whole person and not letting their actions define who they are as a person. She learns that she must trust her gut feelings and also her sense of self which develops throughout the story. Daunis learns when she must be a Fontaine and when she must be the firekeeper throughout the story and she feels like she is denying part of herself throughout the whole story as the line becomes blurred in tricky situations. 

Review: Kirkus Review 

Testing the strength of family bonds is never easy—and lies make it even harder.

Daunis is trying to balance her two communities: The Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, teen is constantly adapting, whether she is with her Anishinaabe father’s side of the family, the Firekeepers, or the Fontaines, her White mother’s wealthy relatives. She has grand plans for her future, as she wants to become a doctor, but has decided to defer her plans to go away for college because her maternal grandmother is recovering from a stroke. Daunis spends her free time playing hockey with her Firekeeper half brother, Levi, but tragedy strikes, and she discovers someone is selling a dangerous new form of meth—and the bodies are piling up. While trying to figure out who is behind this, Daunis pulls away from her family, covering up where she has been and what she has been doing. While dealing with tough topics like rape, drugs, racism, and death, this book balances the darkness with Ojibwe cultural texture and well-crafted characters. Daunis is a three-dimensional, realistically imperfect girl trying her best to handle everything happening around her. The first-person narration reveals her internal monologue, allowing readers to learn what’s going on in her head as she encounters anti-Indian bias and deals with grief.

A suspenseful tale filled with Ojibwe knowledge, hockey, and the politics of status. (Thriller. 14-18)


Connection: Students can learn more about the Ojibwe people and their customs at this website: 

https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn/native-americans/ojibwe-people

Another book by Angeline Boulley

Warrior Girl Unearthed  ISBN: 978-0861544226









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