Citation: Dimaline, C. (2017). The marrow thieves. Dancing cat books.
Content Warning: Genocide, death, racism, violence against children, sexual assault, rape.
Set in a dystopic future, North America’s Indigenous people are the only ones left who can dream and their marrow is a cure for the dreamless.
While struggling to avoid the “recruiters” hunting them for the marrow “factories”, French and his newfound family rely on the stories of the past and dreams of being reunited with loved ones to keep them going.
Similar to speculative stories such as Station Eleven (St. John Mandel, 2014) and Moon of the Crusted Snow (Rice, 2018), there are strong themes of climate change and colonialism which can be easily linked to present day realities. Dimaline does a fantastic job illustrating that the loss of culture and grief experienced in this book is not a thing of the past, and thus it is recommended for readers ages thirteen and above. As a shorter novel, The Marrow Thieves offers readers a thoughtful experience of topics that should continue to be explored.
Check out our review other review of The Marrow Thieves, or of the sequel, Hunting by Stars.