Club Book Episode 124 Angeline Boulley

Angeline Boulley is a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and former director of the Office of Indian Education at the US. Department of Education. Her upbringing and first-hand knowledge of Native life inform Boulley’s blockbuster YA debut Firekeeper’s Daughter. The instant #1 New York Times bestseller centers around Daunis Fontaine, a biracial Anishinaabe teenager described by the author as “an Indigenous Nancy Drew.” Fontaine finds herself part of an undercover FBI operation to root out the source of a lethal narcotic ravaging the Ojibwe reservations in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly praises the novel for its treatment of “hard issues such as citizenship, language revitalization, and the corrosive presence of drugs on Native communities.” Higher Ground – the production company of Barack and Michelle Obama – is currently adapting Firekeeper’s Daughter for a series on Netflix. Boulley’s debut is also one of 2021’s young adult picks for Reese Witherspoon’s popular Hello Sunshine Book Club.

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