Firekeeper's Daughter

1. General Impressions

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

• What did you find most interesting about Boulley’s portrayal of Daunis’s cultural heritage? How did your familiarity or lack of familiarity with these cultures impact your enjoyment of the story?
• Daunis’s story does not have a completely happy ending. Would you have enjoyed the story more or less if Boulley had chosen a more upbeat ending? How might a more classically happy ending have impacted your understanding of the story’s themes?
• Have you read Angeline Boulley’s 2023 novel Warrior Girl Unearthed? In what ways is this novel similar to and different from Firekeeper’s Daughter? What other works does this one remind you of?

2. Personal Reflection and Connection 

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

• Daunis often feels torn between the two sides of her heritage. Feeling torn between loved ones’ opposing expectations is a fairly common experience. Would you have handled it the same way Daunis does? How have you seen similar situations play out in the lives of people you know?
• Daunis and Jamie develop strong feelings for one another during their work together. How did you feel about this relationship? Do their ages and the power imbalance bother you, or did Boulley construct the relationship in such a way that these things do not seem to matter?
• Daunis experiences repeated traumas, but in the end, she is able to maintain her focus on her health and her dreams of the future. What do you think makes some people able to maintain this focus even after experiencing serious trauma?
• Daunis feels tremendous responsibility to her community. What do you think it is reasonable for a community to expect of its individual members? What kinds of sacrifices would you, personally, draw the line at?

3. Societal and Cultural Context 

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

• The FBI uses Daunis in what could be a very dangerous role. What are some real-world cases where the authorities have recruited teenagers to help in their investigations? Based on your knowledge of cases like this, does Daunis’s participation in the FBI investigation seem realistic? What does the novel suggest about the acceptability of using teenage civilians in this kind of work?
• Many members of Daunis’s community are struggling with drug use. What is “generational trauma,” and how is it related to this community’s experiences with drugs?
• Violence against Indigenous women is a serious problem in the United States and Canada. What are the dimensions of this problem, and what are some of its causes? Is anything being done to address the problem? How are these issues reflected in Daunis’s experiences?

4. Literary Analysis 

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

• The novel ends with Daunis participating in a jingle dance. What is the symbolic significance of this dance—both within Daunis’s culture and within the world of the novel? How does Daunis’s regalia support your interpretation of this symbolism? What larger themes does the jingle dance scene support?
• After reading a reliable Ojibwe source’s explanation of the Medicine Wheel, how do you interpret the four-part structure of Firekeeper’s Daughter? What evidence from the story supports your interpretation?
• Firekeeper’s Daughter is a thriller with a strong element of mystery. How does Boulley use genre conventions like misdirection, suspense, cliffhangers, and foreshadowing to maintain the reader’s interest and avoid giving away answers to the plot’s central mystery too soon?
• What are the various names that Daunis identifies herself by? What are the names’ significance, and how does each impact her? What is the larger meaning of names in this novel?
• In what sense is Firekeeper’s Daughter a coming-of-age novel? How does Daunis grow and change from the beginning of the story to the end? What are the most important contributors to this growth and change?

5. Creative Engagement 

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

• At the beginning of the story, Daunis is worried about telling her grandmother that she needs to depart from the life plan her grandmother has laid out for her. If you were able to write a letter to Daunis to give her some advice about this situation, what would you tell her?
• Daunis tells Jamie that a dancer’s regalia tells her story. If you were to assemble an outfit for an activity that is important to your identity, what would this outfit be? How would its various elements tell your story?
• At the end of the story, Daunis chooses not to be with Jamie for the immediate future because she knows he is not ready to be a good partner to her. If you were to write a sequel to the story, would you bring them back together? Why or why not?

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