In fact, water gets a lot of mention in the book as a rare commodity. The very air is unbreathable with dirt and oppression, and clean, drinkable water is a luxury. Into this environment, climate change transformed North America into a hot, waterless, rodent-filled, mangled mess. The Indians die painful deaths, and their bone marrow is collected in test tubes and distributed. Recruiters hunt down Indians who are forced into residential “schools” which are really prisons in disguise. Only Indians dream with aid from their bone marrow, which is where the dreams reside. In this world set in the near future, half the population is dead, and humans can no longer dream which makes them insane. The story opens with narration by Frenchie, a 16-year-old Metis Canadian Indian who is running from the “recruiters” who kidnap American Indians, kill them and extract their bone marrow. And it smacks you across the head with an echo of the past. It’s a call to action of sorts, pointing out the ways that today’s indifference to climate change and bigotry could lead to tomorrow’s more broken world. It’s hard to read in spots with characters whose behavior make you sick. Yes, the book is true to its genre in many ways. The young adult novel, aimed at readers age 14 and up, is a family-centered love story. The futuristic novel is set in a dystopian world of misery, where everything is as bad as it can be, cruelty, bigotry and hardship reign, and life is bleak. One of the first matters to be clear about in “The Marrow Thieves” (by Cherie Dimaline, Metis) is an understanding of dystopia.
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