Dreaming in Color

by Melanie Florence

Overview

Jennifer McCaffrey has been working hard on her art for years and is thrilled when she is accepted to a prestigious art school. The school is everything she always thought it would be, mostly. There is one group of kids who seem to resent her and say she only got in because of her skin color. Jen, who loves to create new pieces of artwork that incorporate her Indigenous heritage, finds herself a target when the group tells her to stop being “so Indian”. The night before the big art show at school, Jen’s beading art project is defaced. Jen has to find a way not to let the haters win.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781459825864
Publisher:	Orca Book Publishers
Publication date:	09/22/2020
Series:	Orca Soundings Series
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	545,028
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.32(d)
Lexile:	HL580L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Melanie Florence is a writer of Cree and Scottish heritage based in Toronto. She was close to her grandfather as a child, a relationship that sparked her interest in writing about Indigenous themes and characters. She is the author of Missing Nimâmâ (Clockwise Press), which won the 2016 TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, Stolen Words (Second Story Press), which won the 2018 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award and the bestselling He Who Dreams in the Orca Limelights line, a story that shares the same setting and characters as Dreaming in Color. She lives in Toronto.

Editorial Reviews

Through the novel’s accessible language and short chapters, readers of all levels and backgrounds will be able to relate to and learn from Jen’s overcoming racial prejudice and intolerance. Readers will also gain a sense of empathy as they come to understand the struggles faced by Indigenous youth in contemporary society. Highly Recommended.

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

2020-05-16
A 14-year-old artist navigates her racial identity and anti-Indigenous racism.

Jen has brown skin like her Cree mother, but her older brother resembles their pale, redheaded Irish father. Though Jen has a loving and supportive family, she wonders if her life wouldn’t be easier if she were light-skinned. Once she’s accepted to a prestigious arts high school, Jen thinks she’s finally found a place where she belongs. But bigotry knows no bounds, and racist students accuse her of only getting in because of her heritage and mock the Indigenous influences in her work. When their racism manifests as destruction of property, Jen at first chooses not to tell any adults about the incident. Instead, she strives on her own to prove that she belongs at art school, possibly leading readers to believe the narrative is suggesting racism should be “overcome” by victims instead of putting the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrators. Jen gets a happy ending and, fortunately, is able to express herself through her art. The writing is sometimes clunky, but the representation of a contemporary biracial Indigenous girl is valuable. Rather than delving into the larger history of oppression of Indigenous peoples in Canada, the Scottish/Cree author offers a mirror to the sometimes painful emotions and everyday experiences of Indigenous teens of mixed heritage.

A rare and welcome reluctant reader title featuring an Indigenous protagonist. (Fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews

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