10-12 11-12 12 8-9 9-12 Fiction Young Adult

Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley

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Published: 2023
Series: Firekeeper’s Daughter (Book #2)
Author: Angeline Boulley
Illustrator: N/A
Genres: Young Adult, Mystery, Fiction, Indigenous, Contemporary, Thriller, Fantasy, Native American, Mystery Thriller, Realistic Fiction
Audience (Grade Levels): Grades 8-12
Number of Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Goodreads Link: Warrior Girl Unearthed
Triggers / Content Warnings: Mentions of rape, death, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP), and the exploitation of ancestral remains.
Review By: Kendra Napierala-Myers

Publisher’s Summary:

Goodreads Choice Award: Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Young Adult Fiction (2023)

Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep. Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all.

But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors’ remains, and Perry and the Misfits won’t let it go on any longer.

Using all of their skills and resources, the Misfits realize a heist is the only way to bring back the stolen artifacts and remains for good. But there is more to this repatriation than meets the eye as more women disappear and Pauline’s perfectionism takes a turn for the worse. As secrets and mysteries unfurl, Perry and the Misfits must fight to find a way to make things right – for the ancestors and for their community.

Review:

Angeline Boulley does it again with this mystery thriller! With familiar characters from her first best seller Firekeeper’s Daughter, Boulley captures our attention with the gripping story of a young teen trying to do everything she can to be a warrior, saving ancestral remains and battling the adults and institutions that have wrongfully kept them for so long. Warrior Girl Unearthed highlights the important issues of what institutions are or aren’t doing to return tribes artifacts and people back to them. Each week of Perry’s internship is separated with facts and quotes from organizations showing the gravity of this issue. It also highlights the ongoing problem of missing and murdered indigenous women and people (MMIWP) and how little the world is doing about it. Perry cares for her people but also feels the pain of the world around her. Boulley weaves the topics of family competition and identity through Perry’s relationship with her practically perfect twin. Though Perry was always the overlooked sister, she finds ways to use her skills as a fisher and hunter to shine in her own way. I highly recommend this exciting, craftful read that I finished in a day! I would read Firekeeper’s Daughter first to fully grasp the connections between characters, but it also could be a stand alone read. A great fit for any mature upper middle or high school student!

Classroom & Curricular Connections:

  • ELA (English Language Arts): A brilliant mentor text for high school English or AP Literature courses to analyze companion novel structures, evaluate unreliable elements within thriller subgenres, and study how authors weave non-fiction data headers into realistic prose.
  • Social Studies, Law & Government: Integrates seamlessly into secondary civics or U.S. history units looking at federal Indian law, analyzing the direct sociopolitical mechanics of NAGPRA legislation, and auditing the dark histories of global museum curation practices.
  • SEL (Social-Emotional Learning): Offers crucial curricular pathways for exploring healthy sibling rivalry, managing high-stakes academic perfectionism, defining individual identity outside of family expectations, and channeling personal grief into active community advocacy.
  • Extension Activity / Library Application: Perfect for an interactive school library choiceboard application or secondary media center seminar. Utilizing the NAGPRA and MMIWP facts embedded across the novel’s chapters, librarians can coordinate a “Repatriation and Media Literacy Research Exhibit.” Students can work in small groups to audit how museums or universities in their own state handle ancestral repatriation, building a digital timeline or informational awareness campaign detailing modern indigenous human rights advocacy.
  • Diversity & Representation: The book models elite standards of diversity, equity, and inclusion by providing an authentic, multi-layered look into contemporary Anishinaabe life. Rather than framing Indigenous experiences through a monolithic historical lens, Boulley celebrates vibrant modern teen agency, centers the global crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP), and addresses systemic institutional biases. This provides an invaluable literary mirror for Indigenous youth and a transformative window of equity for the wider student body.

Readalikes:

  • Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell
  • Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley
  • We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds

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