Warrior Girl Unearthed

Warrior Girl Unearthed (The Firekeeper's Daughter, Book 2) by Angeline Boulley     

                                                                                     Multicultural Thriller and Suspense for Teens

(from Amazon)  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.                                   

(My Review)

Perry stumbles into an internship working in her tribe's museum, and begins to learn more about stolen artifacts and the struggles to repatriate tribal artifacts that have been stolen by private, and even by scholarly collectors for hundreds of years.  The author is excellent at introducing and even educating readers to important multicultural information, without feeling you are being lectured.  The story also covers the very real topic of the high rates of disappearance among indigenous women. The characters are real and engaging.  There is a suspenseful mystery and even romance.  This was an excellent sequel, but could definitely be read as a stand-alone.