Bibliographic Information

Title: Firekeeper’s Daughter

Author: Angeline Boulley 

Narrator: Isabella Star LaBlanc

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Copyright Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 9781250779519

Genre

Mystery

Format

Audiobook

Running Time

14 hours, 13 minutes

Reading Level/Interest Level

Grades 10-12 (per NoveList Plus)

Awards or Honors Include

For the book:

• Printz Award (2022)
• Morris Award (2022)
• Edgar Award, Best Young Adult Novel (2022)

For the audio:

• Finalist, Audie Award, Young Adult (2022)
• starred review for audio from School Library Journal and Booklist (2022)

Plot Summary

I never thought about secrets being like a bull’s-eye. The smaller the circle, the bigger the secret. (Chapter 9, 2:08:19 mark)

Daunis Fontaine is half-white on her mother’s side – the wealthy, influential Fontaine family of Sault St. Marie, Michigan. Her father was local Sugar Island Ojibwe tribe hockey legend Levi Firekeeper, though he was never officially recognized on her birth certificate. Her birth was a scandal to both families, and she has spent her whole life navigating the complicated intersections of her white and Native worlds.

As the summer after high school graduation begins, Daunis plans to enjoy time with best friend Lily and learn more about the handsome and mysterious Jamie, a new player on her half-brother Levi Jr’s hockey team. But increasing drug use and tensions among the Ojibwe come to a violent head, and Daunis finds herself suddenly thrust into a dangerous undercover FBI investigation. Soon Daunis doesn’t know who she can trust or how she can face what she must do to keep her community – and herself – safe.

Content warnings for: Substance abuse, murder, grief, sexual assault, racism, kidnapping, death by suicide, gun violence.

Author Background

Angeline Boulley spent most of her career in education, serving on the Board of Regents at Bay Mills Community College, as her tribe’s Education Director, and as Director for the Office of Indian Education (OIE) at the U.S. Department of Education. She is from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians; her father is a traditional fire keeper (Angeline Boulley, 2024). Firekeeper’s Daughter is the first in what will now be a four-part series of interconnected stories set in the world and community of the book (Yorio, 2023b).

Critical Evaluation

Firekeeper’s Daughter is dense, beautifully written, and methodically structured. Boulley takes her time building the world of the story, plotting through all the complicated nuances of Daunis’ back story with her white and Native families and communities. Though the pace can sometimes feel slow, it’s not just the world that Boulley is building but the tension and emotional investment, as well. There are dozens of characters in Firekeeper’s Daughter, but each has a place, and the careful structure means the reader can understand their importance and why we should care about what is happening (and to whom).

Boulley’s seamless integration of the Ojibwe language into the text creates an immersive reading experience, and this is further enhanced when listening to the audiobook. Isabella Star LaBlanc’s interpretation of Daunis is open and empathetic, allowing listeners to easily connect with all of Daunis’ emotions, making her character feel authentic and relatable.

If I have one hesitation about this beautiful book, it sometimes feels bloated. Boulley tackles so many issues in Firekeeper’s Daughter. While they are each an important reality to many Native people and in many Native tribes, it feels impossible to cover every single issue with due diligence. It also might risk one issue distracting or detracting from another. As a whole, though, Firekeeper’s Daughter is a powerful and impressive book.

audio excerpt of Firekeeper’s Daughter:

Creative Use for a Library Program

A public library could run a program for youth explaining the importance of and guidelines for Indigenous land acknowledgement, with education about the specific area where the library is located. The Indigenous-led nonprofit Native Land Digital has an interactive map that could help with this.

Speed-Round Talk

Daunis has heard the whispers about drugs and violence in her Ojibwe tribe community, but it becomes all to real when she witnesses a shocking murder that upends her world. She’s suddenly thrust into an undercover investigation and must face terrible danger to help her people and fight for those who have already been hurt and lost.

Potential Challenge Issues and Defense Preparation

Here are some locations where Firekeeper’s Daughter has been put under review or removed altogether from school libraries:

• Collier County Public Schools, Florida for “content that ‘depicts or describes sexual conduct” (Friedman & Meehan, 2023)
• Brandywine Community Schools for “explicit material” (Richmond, 2023)
• Fort Worth ISD, Texas for “sexually explicit” content (Ruiz, 2023)
• Escambia County, Florida for depictions of “sexual conduct” (Tolin, 2024)

In these cases and many more, parents, students, and educators have come to the defense of the book. Larger organizations have sometimes gotten involved, like the Florida Freedom to Read Project and PEN America.

A resource like TeachingBooks.net would be helpful for defending Firekeeper’s Daughter. The site page for the book contains a comprehensive, well-sourced list of book reviews, excerpts, national awards received, 50 state award lists it is on, a detailed book resume, and more.

Reason for Inclusion

As the author herself has said, “There simply are too few stories told by and about Indigenous girls and women, especially from a contemporary viewpoint” (Angeline Boulley, 2024). Firekeeper’s Daughter is a powerful narrative from an young Indigenous woman’s perspective and sheds important light on the challenges faced not only by her community as a whole, but Indigenous women in particular. They are stories that need to be told, and stories that need to be read, and have a necessary place in a contemporary collection of materials for today’s teens.

Important resources for Firekeeper’s Daughter:

Book artwork source: Anishinaabe artist Moses Lunham (Graf, 2020)
click on each for larger image

• Ojibwe prayers and words used in Firekeeper’s Daughter
• book club kit, including printable bookmarks and a discussion guide
• teacher’s guide for Firekeeper’s Daughter