It’s enough to know that these people are considered ‘other’ and useful only for what they can provide to the government.

The dystopian nature of this novel is really only the story’s framework. Frenchie joins this ad hoc family and his adventure begins.

So north is the direction Frenchie heads and it isn’t long before he meets a group of travelers. The characters in The Marrow Thieves are all too aware of their rocky history with the Canadian government, and sharing those stories is part of what keeps them focused on getting to safety, which in this case is north where they hope they will find fresh water and clean air and freedom. But then the recruiters show up, and the boys are separated, and Frenchie finds himself on the run once more. When Cherie Dimaline’s YA novel The Marrow Thieves opens, Frenchie is holed up in a tree house with his older brother, Mitch. It’s sometime in the not too distant future and we’ve pretty much wrecked the Earth. Your DNA weaves them into the marrow like spinners….That’s where they pluck them from.” That’s where they live, in that marrow there.” “Dreams get caught in the webs woven in your bones. Pretty much every Indigenous person is because their bone marrow holds the key to dreaming, which is something white folks no longer have the ability to do. Francis, though everyone calls him Frenchie, is on the run from the “recruiters”.

The marrow thieves pages