Each Friday I share the link to a read-aloud preview of a book from our school library, with the SRCSA community. The “First-chapter Friday” selection for March 25, 2022, is Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley.
As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, 18-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. Daunis dreams of studying medicine, but when her family is struck by tragedy, she puts her future on hold to care for her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, certain details don’t add up and she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something.
Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into the heart of a criminal investigation. Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, but secretly pursues her own investigation, tracking down the criminals with her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine. But the deceptions — and deaths — keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home.
Firekeeper’s Daughter was the winner in 2022 of the Michael L. Printz Award, for excellence in literature written for young adults; winner of the William C. Morris Award, for a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens; and an Honor Book for the American Indian Youth Literature Awards, honoring the very best writing and illustrations by and about American Indians and Alaska Natives.