Tag: missing and murdered indigenous people

Where They Last Saw Her by Marcie R. Rendon

- Stephanie

“We’ve been targets since the chimook arrived here. First war. Then boarding schools. Then foster homes. And Indian women have been targets all the way back since Pocahontas and Sacajawea. Teenage girls taken and used. Women taken and used.”
― Marcie R. Rendon, Where They Last Saw Her

Quill, a Native American woman who has lived on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota her entire life, is no stranger to what happens to people who look like her. Missing and murdered Indigenous women infiltrate Quill’s life on a daily basis. Violence is also prominent in her community. When she was young, a local man named Jimmy Sky jumped to his death off the railway bridge. Quill ran for help and has been running ever since. On an early morning training run through the woods, she is stopped short by a scream. Shaken to her core, Quill investigates the area, but only finds tire tracks, signs of a scuffle, and a single beaded earring. No sign of whomever screamed.

Determined to learn more about what happened in the woods that day, Quill enlists the help of two friends, Punk and Gaylen, to help her find the truth. When another woman is assaulted and a third is stolen, the three women are convinced that the group of men working pipeline construction just north of the reservation are responsible. When a fourth women goes missing, Quill hits her limit. Who is behind this? Why is this happening? Quill puts everything she holds dear on the line to find these women and the answers her community desperately needs.

When They Last Saw Her had me hooked from the very first page. It was dark and captivating while also dealing with critical social issues in a sensitive way. Readers will be pulled into the world of missing and murdered indigenous women, how communities are deeply affected by this, and what they are doing to address the injustices they face on a daily basis.

Find Her by Ginger Reno

- Stephanie

Have you ever had a book cover capture your interest and demand you read it? That’s how I felt when I saw Find Her by Ginger Reno while scrolling Libby late one night. The red hand covering the mouth is the identifying symbol for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons movement. This movement seeks to bring focus to the alarming issue surrounding the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous people in the United States, particularly women and girls. Knowing that Find Her is middle grade fiction, I wanted to see how the MMIP movement would be showcased to a younger audience, so I decided to give this a read.

Twelve-year-old Wren’s mother has been missing for over five years. Sadly she is one of the hundreds of missing and murdered Indigenous people in Oklahoma alone. Even though her father is the chief of police in her small town, this hasn’t helped them find her any quicker. Some days it feels like Wren and her grandmother are the only two who care that her mom is missing. Wren has a secret weapon though: her finder sense. Looking for ways to help find her mom, Wren decides she needs to sharpen her finder sense. She starts a pet finding business and soon finds her detective skills tested.

When one of the missing pets is found badly hurt, Wren is devastated. When more are found injured, Wren grows worried. Who is behind this animal abuse? Why aren’t the police moving faster? With the help of a friend, Wren decides she is going to find the person behind these crimes. If she can solve these cases, maybe then she’ll be able to find her mother. Taking this on means Wren is going to have to keep secrets from the two most important people in her family: her grandmother and her father. Hopefully they will understand.

This book destroyed me. Even though Find Her is middle grade fiction, it dealt with heavy topics that had me up late at night wondering why and how people could behave so cruelly to other humans and to animals. While I expected this book to wrap up all its threads in a neat bow, I was pleasantly surprised when the author left some questions unanswered. Definitely recommend for people of all ages!