12-year-old Misko is spending the summer with her grandmother on the reserve while grappling with the disappearance of her mother several years ago. Her grandmother's home is parallel to Thomas, a boy who works for his rancher father, who is physically abusive to Thomas. Misko feels a connection to the horse they are trying to break, and Misko sets out to save both Thomas and the horse.

I appreciate this story. We need more books written by and featuring characters who are Indigenous. There is so much going on in this story (grief, trauma, alcoholism, racism, MMIWG, residential schools...) and I think the author took on too much. Too many plot lines to follow make for a heavy read.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Annick Press for an advance digital copy.

After twelve-year-old Misko experiences a trauma in Winnipeg, she decides to spend the summer at her former home with her kokum on a First Nation reservation. As Misko revives relationships with former friends, she also reconnects with the Earth and nature, her language and culture, her spirituality, and her ancestry. Along the way, many reflections on the damaging impact of racism, residential schools, and murdered and missing Indigenous women (MMIW) emerge in context to the events of the story, particularly as Misko navigates her trauma and grief, and as she tries to convince a neighbouring rancher that it is cruel and unnecessary to break a horse's spirit to make it "useful."
She Holds Up the Stars is one of those stories that works well in theory, but less so in execution. The author tackles a lot of big topics, both narratively and thematically, which left me feeling like I'd just finished a meal of hors d'oeuvres: a lot to experience, but nothing to satisfy. (I simultaneously reflect on my own colonial views of narrative to ponder who is in the wrong here). While I was interested in Misko's healing from trauma and cultural reintegration, I found the plotline with the horse and neighbour to be distractingly unbelievable. Ironically, I most appreciated the unresolved storylines, as I imagine moving forward without resolution to trauma is, sadly, an ongoing reality for residential school survivors (and their families) and the families of MMIW. In spite of my humdrum response to the novel, I can see recommending this book to students: She Holds Up the Stars provides an entry point for curious young readers to reflect upon the ancestral and cultural heritage of First Nations people and the atrocities committed by the Canadian government.

This story is about 12 year old Misko who is coming to spend the summer with her grandmother on the reservation. She has been living in the big city of Winnipeg with her aunt to get a good education, but her aunt is working long hours and after an ugly encounter with a man who tries to abduct Misko, her aunt believes it would be safer on the reservation. Misko enjoys spending time with her grandmother and remembers the kids her age from when she lived on the reservation before, but she's most interested in the horse that lives with her next door neighbors who are trying to break the horse. There is lots of background information about some of the abuses that Indigenous people have lived with over the last hundred years and continue to live with. It was a quick read and kids will enjoy the connection between Misko and the horse.

She Holds Up the Stars connects to culture, land, and family of the Anishinaabe and Objiwe indigenous peoples of Canada and United States. Misko, a Anishinaabe, Objiwe indigenous girl, encounters a spirited horse named Mishtadim, wrestles a new relationship with a neighbor boy named Thomas, while embracing her inner cultural strengths and gifts.

I like that the author puts in Anishinaabe or Ojibwa words and then translates them. It’s also great that one is learning a little bit of a new language. The various traditions that were weaved into the story were interesting.I like how the story tells how Native kids were taken to boarding schools to break and change them. This story is set in Canada but it happened in the US as well. How people could think it was ok to take kids from their homes to schools that wanted to erase their culture and heritage because they wanted to re- educate the kids was wrong. To think one way of life is better than another is wrong. If White men in power had tried to learn and see the Native ways and culture weren’t that much different than their own; history would’ve turned out differently.