Warrior Girl Unearthed

Warrior Girl Unearthed

Angeline Boulley

Holt, 2023

396 pages

Grades 9-Up

Mystery

Perry Firekeeper-Birch loves her life as a tribal member of Ojibwa Indians living on Sugar Island in Michigan. As summer begins she is looking forward to fishing and taking it easy. After an accident that messes up her truck, Aunt Daunis forces Perry to join the same internship program as her ambitious twin Pauline. Pauline is assigned the plume role at Tribal Council, while Perry is sent to the local museum with the eccentric director. A meeting for the re-appropriation of tribal artifacts at a local college brings Perry face to face with the Warrior Girl, the skeleton of a long-deceased ancestor. The artifacts and actual remains of previous members of Perry's tribes are scattered all over the region--and even all over the globe. As Perry's eyes open to this travesty, she gets angry and decides to take matters into her own hands, leading to a bad decision that lands her in a new placement. Now it is Perry at the Tribal Council and Pauline reassigned, because of inappropriate advances made by the chief. Perry is now assigned to the tribe's second in command, who is sympathetic to her cause to reclaim their ancestors and historic possessions. When Perry discovers some atrocities, she comes up with a plan to retrieve the sacred items, possibly putting herself and those she loves in danger. Throw in a murder, missing girls, and a possible love interest and you have another winner from a Printz winning author.

Boulley revisits the same family and location of her award winning book Firekeeper's Daughter. It is ten years later and though Daunis is a character in the story, we now are focused on her twin nieces Perry and Pauline. The relationship between the two girls is interesting and both grow a lot during the story. I learned about Indian Repatriation of artifacts and human remains. I really had no idea of the extent of the theft from native peoples and now that my eyes are open I will be more cognizant moving forward. Not as much of a sequel, but more as a companion novel, readers can dive into this story without having read the first, but certain characters and items are richer with prior knowledge. The plot is super absorbing and I was instantly swept up and enjoying the twists and turns of Perry's crazy summer. For some reason both this book and the predecessor are not big hits with teens readers in Bergan County New Jersey. Although practically all of the libraries in my consortium bought them, very few are out. I think in this case the cover does not help the book and it may require some handselling. Both mysteries, the missing girls and the murder, are solved by the book's end in a satisfyingly manner and readers will have closure. Set in 2014, maybe next the author will skip ahead to the present and we can see the fate of the Warrior Girl.