Forever Birchwood by Danielle Daniel

The middle-grade debut of star picture-book author and illustrator Danielle Daniel

Adventurous, trail-blazing Wolf lives in a northern mining town and spends her days exploring the mountains and wilderness with her three best friends Penny, Ann and Brandi. The girls' secret refuge is their tree-house hideaway, Birchwood, Wolf's favourite place on earth. When her beloved grandmother tells her that she is the great-granddaughter of a tree talker, Wolf knows that she is destined to protect the birch trees and wildlife that surround her.

But Wolf's mother doesn't understand this connection at all. Not only is she reluctant to engage with their family's Indigenous roots, she seems suspiciously on the wrong side of the environmental protection efforts in their hometown. To make matters worse, she's just started dating an annoying new boyfriend named Roger, whose motives--and construction company--seem equally suspect.

As summer arrives, so do bigger problems. Wolf and her friends discover orange plastic bands wrapped around the trees near their cherished hangout spot, and their once stable friendship seems on the verge of unravelling. Birchwood has given them so much--can they even stay together long enough to save this special place?

With gorgeous yet understated language, Danielle Daniel beautifully captures an urgent and aching time in a young person's life. To read this astonishing middle-grade debut is to have your heart broken and then tenderly mended.

Paperback, 304 pages

Published January 18, 2022 

by HarperCollins

4.5/5 stars

I have previously read Daughters of the Deer by Danielle Daniel, so I was anxious to read this her debut middle grade Forever Birchwood.

Taking place in Sudbury, Ontario 12-year-old Wolf along with three of her best friends spend a summer trying to save their beloved Birchwood from destruction.

Though I started off reading the book, it wasn’t long before I grabbed the audio and finished it in a day. I don’t understand some other reviews that criticize the audio and the narrator, for myself I found it a pleasant listen.  The reader did a great job, I was captivated.

 Wolf is a strong girl, determined along with her friends. But she also has other things going on in her life, her mother‘s new boyfriend who just happens to work for the construction company set to destroy Birchwood. She can't help wondering if her real estate mother is also somehow involved.

As these girls sneak around trying to thaw the demolition effort they get more than they bargained for in this mining town.  I won’t go into what all these obstacles are for fear of spoilers.  But suffice to say I think this was a well written coming of age story, that shows determination, the importance of heritage and family along with standing up for something you strongly believe in.

This Canadian reader also loves the setting and hopes the author will continue featuring this great province.

This was part of my 2024 reading off my shelf challenge and my copy of the audiobook was obtained through CloudLibrary

Daughters of the Deer by Danielle Daniel

In this haunting, groundbreaking, historical novel, Danielle Daniel imagines the lives of her ancestors in the Algonquin territories of the 1600s, a story inspired by her family link to a girl murdered near Trois-Rivières in the early days of French settlement.

Marie, an Algonquin woman of the Weskarini Deer Clan, lost her first husband and her children to an Iroquois raid. In the aftermath of another lethal attack, her chief begs her to remarry for the sake of the clan. Marie is a healer who honours the ways of her people, and Pierre, the green-eyed ex-soldier from France who wants her for his bride, is not the man she would choose. But her people are dwindling, wracked by white men's diseases and nearly starving every winter as the game retreats away from the white settlements. If her chief believes such a marriage will cement their alliance with the French against the Iroquois and the British, she feels she has no choice. Though she does it reluctantly, and with some fear--Marie is trading the memory of the man she loved for a man she doesn't understand at all, and whose devout Catholicism blinds him to the ways of her people.

This beautiful, powerful novel brings to life women who have literally fallen through the cracks of settler histories. Especially Jeanne, the first child born of the new marriage, neither white nor Weskarini, but caught between worlds. As she reaches adolescence, it becomes clear she is two-spirited. In her mother's culture, she would have been considered blessed, her nature a sign of special wisdom. But to the settlers of New France, and even to her own father, Jeanne is unnatural, sinful--a woman to be shunned, and worse.

And so, with the poignant story of Jeanne, Danielle Daniel imagines her way into the heart and mind of a woman at the origin of the long history of violence against Indigenous women and the deliberate, equally violent, disruption of First Nations culture--opening a door long jammed shut, so all of us can enter.

Paperback, 304 pages

Published March 8, 2022 

by Random House Canada

4.5/5 stars

I grabbed this book because of the Canadian historical fiction theme and time period. What I really liked was discovering, after I finished reading, the link between the author and the story.

Beginning in 1657 I was treated to a compelling story with vivid description of life between the French and the Weskarkin Deer clan. Taking place in New France, Trois-Rivières to be exact, as tension mounts between the different groups inhabiting the land.

Daughters of the Deer is a well written story highlighting the early history of Canada, the paths taken by France to populate and the extreme measures they took. I loved the history lesson, the characters were real, hurting with their own desires and needs that were ignored. Frustrating at times to read but also rewarding.

A powerful story that I stumbled across on IG, so glad I did an impulse purchase. I have since learned the author has a MG novel, Forever Birchwood. I’ve purchased it also.

This book was part of my 2022 reading off my shelf challenge.