Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

        Boulley, A. (2021). FIREKEEPER’S DAUGHTER.  Henry Holt and Company.

 

Daunis Fontaine is torn between two worlds and families: her white French/Italian mother’s side and her father’s Ojibwe Firekeeper’s side. Some backstory: Daunis has experienced major loss and grief. Her father died when she was seven years old, her Uncle David (mother’s brother) died just a few months before the story begins, and her grandmother (mother’s mother) had a stroke shortly after Uncle David’s death. Daunis defers her upcoming enrollment at the University of Michigan to stay with her mother, who has taken both losing her brother and her mother’s illness very hard.

The beginning of the story has a dark tone. You get a sense that something bad is going on in this community—Daunis’s best friend Lily’s ex-boyfriend is struggling with drugs, there is political unrest as the tribal election is underway, and it isn’t completely clear yet what happened to Uncle David. According to Daunis’s Gramma Pearl (dad’s mom), bad things always happen to people in groups of three.

Daunis’s brother Levi, the “hockey god,” asks her to befriend the new kid on the team, Jamie Johnson. Jamie and his uncle Ron have moved to town for Ron to fill Daunis’s Uncle David’s teaching position at the high school. As Daunis becomes close to Jamie, she realizes that his story just doesn’t add up. While Jamie has question after question for Daunis about her life and family, he reveals very little about himself.

One night, Daunis witnesses Lily’s boyfriend kills her and then turns the gun on himself. Daunis then finds out that “Jamie” is not a high school hockey star and transfer student, but instead a 22-year-old undercover cop who is part of an investigation into the meth being made and distributed by someone in Daunis’s community. Ron and Jamie confront Daunis about picking up where her Uncle David left off as their Confidential Informant (CI) in the investigation. Daunis initially balks at the request, but then agrees once she realizes that she can truly help her community by doing so. Daunis is a perfect candidate for this kind of work because she is a scientist, which means she is equipped to help the FBI figure out how someone is making this meth by practicing making the meth herself. Moreover, the FBI believes that whatever is making this batch of meth especially potent is coming from some traditional medicine—Daunis is practiced in her culture and traditions thanks to her Aunt Teddie on her Firekeeper’s side.

As the investigation intensifies, Daunis finds it difficult to see and understand what is true. What does come to light is that Jamie and Daunis have real feelings for each other that developed while they were “pretend dating” to cover up the amount of time they were spending together during the investigation.

When two of Daunis’s former teammates and friends who are also Native, Robin and Heather, die with meth on them, Daunis knows that they are overlooking something important. Daunis veers many times from exactly what Ron and Jamie want her to do as an informant, but she knows her strength in this investigation is that she is not just helping the FBI: Her real goal is to help her community.

Daunis’s search for the truth about the meth leads her away from the FBI’s ideas about hallucinogenic mushrooms being the added ingredient as she spends time with elders in her community and learns about the “Little People” who have been known to warn people who are getting involved in things they shouldn’t be. Daunis also learns about “bad medicine,” like the medicine she suspects Travis added to the meth he was making.

Daunis eventually uncovers the truth: her brother and his friends are making the meth and distributing it, along with a few parents in the hockey scene. Even the Tribal Judge, Levi’s mother, plays a part by covering up the meth operation. She kidnaps Daunis and Jamie in her efforts to protect her son and their money-making business, a scheme that leads to a police chase and Daunis’s hospitalization.

While Daunis grieves the betrayal of her brother and others in her community, she receives the gift of clear vision (seeing people for who they truly are).  Daunis and Jamie part ways before Daunis gets out of the hospital for the injuries she sustained during the kidnapping and subsequent chase, but they keep the possibility of being together someday open.

Ten months after the drug ring bust, Daunis announces her decision to attend the University of Hawaii to study ethnobotany and traditional medicine.  She is hopeful that she and Jamie will meet again someday, so she now keeps an open door to the past. 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It is listed as a Young Adult book but has mature themes and some violence.  I would recommend it for an older high school student or above.  Boulley is a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians located between the Great Lakes of Northern Michigan.  Boulley has had a long career in Indian Education. She also served as her tribe’s Education Director/Assistant Executive Director before becoming the Director for Indian Education at the US Department of Education.  Boulley highlights many issues that tribal communities are faced with, such as the impact of reservation casinos, the destruction of Native lands, discrimination, and how the unclear boundaries between tribal and governmental police enforcement can affect the ability to get justice. These issues transfer as the themes of navigating ancestry, embracing community, and the dangers of punitive justice.

Before I begin discussing cultural markers, I want to mention this from the author’s note. “Although FIREKEEPER’S DAUGHTER is rooted in my tribal community, it is a work of fiction and I have taken a great deal of creative license.  Among other changes, I chose to fictionalize a tribe facing issues in the realm of what my actual tribe, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, might experience.”  The author describes foods they eat, customs they follow, their beliefs, and ceremonies the characters participate in along with the ceremonial dress.  Their language runs throughout the book. One specific passage discusses skin color.  “I (Daunis) am so pale, the other Nish kids call me Ghost, and I once overheard someone refer to me as “that washed-out sister of Levi’s.”  When Lily lived with her Zhaaganaash dad and his wife, they kept her out of the sun so her reddish-brown skin wouldn’t get any darker.  We both learned early on that there is an Acceptable Anishinaabe Skin Tone Continuum, and those who land on its outer edges have to put up with different versions of the same bull****.” 

Through reading about different Native American Tribes’ cultures, I have noticed that in several, the owl has significance. In this story, there is an issue with some t-shirts that were ordered.  “(Auntie)”Gotta goes back to work.  T-shirts came in for next week’s immunization fair, and they have an owl saying, “Be wise, Immunize!””  “(Daunis)” In Ojibwe culture, the owl is a companion for crossing over when you die, I explain.”  “Not exactly the ambassador you want telling Nish parents to immunize their babies.”’ 

 

Goodreads Choice Awards Best Young Adult Fiction 

 

 NPR: “The author's love for and connection to her culture is so deeply engraved into the very heart of this book and it beats in rhythm with each new plot development. As a non-Indigenous reader, every depiction and explanation of Ojibwe philosophy and traditions felt like a gift, and every depiction of injustice felt like a call to action. There has long been a need for more books that depict Indigenous people as living people in our modern world rather than as a romanticized and often inaccurate fairytale of the past, and FIREKEEPER’S DAUGHTER carries that torch brightly. I can only imagine the impact it will make for teens who identify with Daunis and her cultural experience to see themselves reflected so beautifully in literature.”

Kirkus: “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.”

 

YA books like FIREKEEPER’S DAUGHTER by native and indigenous authors:

 

A SNAKE FALLS TO EARTH by Darcie Little Badger  ISBN 978-1646140923

HEARTS UNBROKEN by Cynthia Leitich Smith  ISBN  978-1536213133

GIVE ME SOME TRUTH by Eric Gansworth  ISBN 978-1338143546