Fire Keeper's Daughter Review 4

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Book: Fire Keeper’s Daughter

Author: Angeline Boulley

Publishers: Henry Holt and Company

Reviewed by: Nonqaba waka Msimang


Daunis, the teenager in the book is a science student and a health freak. She runs most mornings and ends up in a nursing home, where her white grandmother, is a resident. Her paternal grandmother is Ojibwe and lives in Sugar Hill, an Indian reservation.

“My Zhaaganaash and Anishinaabe grandmothers could not have been more different. One viewed the world as its surface, while the other saw connections and teachings that run deeper than our known world. Their push and pull on me has been a tug-of-war my entire life.” Pages 10-11.

In the three reviews before this one, we said the book is anchored in hockey and mushrooms, representatives of the pull and push Daunis is talking about. Then there’s a problem. Meth, a hard drug finds its way into hockey towns and Indian reservations.

Lily, Daunis’ best fried is shot by Travis her boyfriend, who was using meth. The drug was also found in an Indian Reservation in Minnesota, where 13 kids ended up in hospital, having identical hallucinations.

Law enforcement calls the drug Meth-X because it seems to be blended with mushrooms that grow on Sugar Island, the Indian Reservation in the book, where Daunis goes to visit her Anishinaabe grandmother.

Daunis tells readers that Anishinaabe means indigenous people, like the Ojibwe. Zhagaanaash means white. The answer to Meth-X finding its way to hockey towns and Indian reservations lies in Daunis’ dual world, Anishinaabe and Zhaaganaash.

Miigwech. Thank you in Ojibwe.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang. 

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