A surprisingly short read, but there was still a lot of information and substance in it. While the panels weren’t crammed with details, they were still beautifully illustrated and colored, and it was nice to see the inclusion of different cultural practices and ceremonies into the character arcs. It took me some pages to catch onto what the meanings of the ghosts and malevolent spirits were, but I liked seeing the ancestors watching over Dez and Miikwan. That was very sweet. (And the malevolent spirits are warnings about when someone had bad intentions, but I’m also wondering if they’re tied into colonialist beliefs? I’m guessing yes, from when Dez showed her grandmother’s experiences with residential schools, but also from a moment in volume 2.) 

I appreciated the way different issues were incorporated into the main characters’ lives in a way that felt realistic. I particularly liked how Miikwan’s grief surrounding her mother was handled, how that tied into a message about keeping the humanity of MMIWG intact and not just keeping them in mind as a statistic, and how it dealt with when Dez ran away and it brought up Miikwan’s very real fear about the same thing happening to another one of her loved ones. (Also, that she got to process those feelings with the help of other characters! The support systems in these books are very strong.) I would’ve also liked to see more information provided on how the foster system treats Indigenous kids—while that was a large plot point, there weren’t other links and sources for reading like there was for information on MMIWG. 

Because of it’s shortness, I’ve read this and the second volume back-to-back. Not sure if that made them flow together, though, I didn’t know there was a slight time skip.