Friday, October 18, 2013

Red Wolf by Jennifer Dance

My review of Jennifer Dance's new teen novel, Red Wolf, has been published today (Oct. 18, 2013) in the online magazine Canadian Materials, www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol20/no7/redwolf.html

Red Wolf is a wonderful and troubling novel about the impact of the Indian Act of 1876 and the residential schools system upon First Nations people in Canada. The novel centres on Mishqua Ma'een'gun, or Red Wolf, and follows him from the age of five, when his family goes on a reserve, to his mid-teens when he is released from a residential school. The co-protagonist is an actual red wolf who is the boy's friend and companion,  whose pariah status and hard life parallels the boy's, and who underlines the connection between the boy and the natural world.

Jennifer Dance excels in getting inside her characters, and also in conveying levels of meaning. There are many more good things I could say about her novel, but I have said many of them in the review, and urge you to read it, and to read the book.

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