A visually stimulating and emotionally gripping graphic novel about the Métis people.
A sequel offers a teenager’s further adventures through Métis history.
In Vermette’s (Pemmican Wars, 2018, etc.) graphic novel, Métis teen Echo Desjardins is starting to fit in a little better at Winnipeg Middle School, making friends and getting involved in the Indigenous Students Leadership group. But she still spends most of her time listening to music on her cellphone and getting swept up in the lectures that her teacher gives on the history of the Métis people. This volume covers the 1869 Red River Rebellion—or Red River Resistance, as Echo’s back-in-time friend Benjamin calls it, because “there will be no violence.” After the Hudson Bay Company sells the land on which the Métis people live to the government of Canada, Métis leaders Louis Riel and Ambroise Lépine attempt to halt the inevitable flood of settlers. They establish a provisional Métis government for the Northwest Province. Though the Métis take great pains to negotiate peacefully with the incoming Canadian government, troublemakers both inside and outside of their territory—including the anti–Roman Catholic, anti-French, anti-Indigenous Orangemen—may make the violence that Benjamin promised would never occur impossible to stop. As Echo witnesses one of the great what-ifs of North American history fall apart, the tragedy is reflected in the pain she feels in her personal life back in the 21st century. As in the previous volume, the story is accompanied by beautiful, full-color artwork by the team of Henderson and Yaciuk (Pemmican Wars, 2018, etc.). This book has less of Echo’s own life in it than the first novel, and the historical portions, with their many bearded 19th-century leaders, feel perhaps more didactic and less dramatic than the author’s account of the Pemmican Wars. Even so, this underexplored portion of North American history should prove intriguing and affecting for readers, particularly those living in the United States, where the struggles of the Métis people are largely unknown. By contrasting these historical events side by side with Echo’s story, this installment does a wonderful job showing how the ripples of past policies have shaped the current day and how political decisions always have a personal cost.
A visually stimulating and emotionally gripping graphic novel about the Métis people.Pub Date: March 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-55379-747-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This engrossing Indigenous tale remains a tribute to the missing and murdered and a clarion call to everyone else.
A debut YA graphic novel finds a teenager emotionally and then physically adrift as her home life worsens.
Miikwan and Dez are Indigenous Canadian teens. Miikwan, who is Anishinaabe, has lost her mother. Dez, who is Inninew, lives with her grandmother (or kokum). The girls are best friends—like sisters—who completed their yearlong Berry Fast together (which teaches girls entering womanhood patience). One day, Dez learns that her diabetic kokum might need to have her foot removed. Further, Dez would have to live in a group home. In school, the girls choose to present their Berry Fast for a class Heritage Project. Before starting work on the project, they visit the city mall, where Miikwan’s mom “always used to tell me to be careful.” When the girls notice the predatory stares of older men, they leave and visit the Forks historical area. The last time they were there, they attended a rally for No More Stolen Sisters. A memorial sculpture dedicated to missing women reminds Miikwan of her own beautiful mother, whose spirit still guides her. Later, Dez returns home only to see through the window that a social worker speaks with her kokum. Devastated, she wanders into a park. Her cellphone dies, and she curls up on a bench as night falls. In this harrowing but hopeful tale, illustrator Donovan (The Sockeye Mother, 2017) and author Spillett spotlight the problem of “Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People.” While this is a global issue, the graphic novel focuses on the Winnipeg area and highlights for its target audience situations that may pose risk. While Miikwan travels alone on a bus or in the city, readers see both benign and ghoulish spirits present. Spillett knows when to hold dialogue back and allow Donovan’s superb facial expressions to carry the moment, as when Dez spots the social worker in her home. Radiant colors and texting between characters should draw teens into the story, which simply and effectively showcases the need for community solutions to society’s worst ills.
This engrossing Indigenous tale remains a tribute to the missing and murdered and a clarion call to everyone else.Pub Date: March 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-55379-756-2
Page Count: 56
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
An illuminating, self-assured graphic novel anthology in which every panel reads like a radical act.
Indigenous authors share tales from Canada’s past in this compendium.
Dystopian visions have become increasingly common in mainstream culture, but as Tuscarora writer Alicia Elliott asserts in her foreword to this graphic novel anthology, “as Indigenous people, we all live in a post-apocalyptic world.” Survival against all odds is a common thread in these intriguing stories, as are resistance, self-determination, and respect for traditional ways of life. Métis author Katherena Vermette tells the tale of Annie Bannatyne, a Métis entrepreneur who, in 1868, reacted to a newspaper article disparaging Métis women by treating its author to some frontier justice. Cree writer David A. Robertson explores the life of legendary World War I sniper—and later chief of the Wasauksing Nation—Francis “Peggy” Pegahmagabow, who earned a level of respect from whites in the military he could not have hoped for in civilian life. Anishinaabe author Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair recounts the experiences of an Indigenous youth coming-of-age during the Indigenous resistance to the Meech Lake Accord and the subsequent Oka Crisis—an armed standoff between the Canadian government and Mohawk activists—in 1990. Standout pieces include “Rosie” by Inuit-Cree writer Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley and Scottish-Mohawk author Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley (with stunning images by GMB Chomichuk) and “Red Clouds” by Ojibway writer Jen Storm (illustrations and color by Métis artist Natasha Donovan). The “Red Clouds” images feature thin lines and flat, broad patches of orange, white, and gray, lending the tale a picture-book quality that perfectly fits its ghost-story plot. The anthology hops around in time, geography, and narrative style. But the repetition of certain illustrators and colorists gives it a cohesive, though not overly uniform, look. For those interested in the sparsely covered history of Indigenous Canada—and the contemporary Indigenous graphic novel scene—this should be a must-have book.
An illuminating, self-assured graphic novel anthology in which every panel reads like a radical act.Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-55379-758-6
Page Count: 296
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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