Weekend Pick for July 29, 2022
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Check out our weekly suggestions!
Are your students looking for book recommendations?
Send them to browse through the picks for this or past years.
For the picks from 2021 click here
For the picks from 2020 click here.
For older picks click from 2019 click here.
For the even older picks click here.
Dr. Shelly Shaffer presents her final weekend pick for July 29, 2022. She suggests to spend time reading The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline. Enjoy your favorite time with a book.
 Dr. Shelly Shaffer | Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves duology tells the regrettable, familiar story of the abuse and exploitation of Native Peoples by White colonialists, yet Dimaline adds a new twist—one of environmental disaster and fighting back. In The Marrow Thieves (2017), Dimaline introduces readers to Frenchie, who lives in a futuristic world where pollution, plagues, and natural disasters are rampant. Global warming has ravaged the earth and taken away people’s ability to dream. Only North America’s Indigenous Peoples can still dream. Their marrow can cure others, but the catch is that the Native People cannot share their marrow without dying. Not surprisingly, White folks decide to capture Native Peoples and harvest marrow from them unwillingly, reopening residential boarding schools to become bone-marrow factories. |
| This is the horrific reality for Frenchie, the main character of the novel. Frenchie is living in the wild, fleeing from recruiters who want to take him to the marrow stealing factories. Frenchie is alone since the recruiters caught up with he and his brother, capturing his brother. Frenchie is sure that his brother has been killed, so he hides and runs. On the run, Frenchie meets a group of other First Nation dreamers, and they band together to survive this dystopian world. |  CHERIE DIMALINE |
In the second novel, Hunting by Stars (2021), Dimaline continues Frenchie’s story in the world of this futuristic Canadian nightmare. This book digs deeper into Frenchie’s identity and roots, and readers can clearly see that Frenchie still has everything to live for--a family that he’s found on his own, that he can always count on, and that he will do anything to protect.
 The Marrow Thieves |  |
This duology is a must-read. It brings the abuses toward First Nation Peoples to the forefront and shows the selfish extremes that some people will go to for their own survival. Both novels have been honored with awards in both the United States and Canada. Looking for a spin on dystopia that critically examines the history of abuses toward Indigenous people, environmental disaster, and a great adventure? These are the books for you.
This selection concludes July weekend picks. We thank Dr. Shelly Shaffer and her students for the wonderful suggestions and enriching our lives with more YA novels.
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