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From Horn Book

January 1, 2023
Mia, a Tsimshian tween, is growing up in the 1980s in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. She describes not only making giggly prank calls and getting ill-advised perms but also microaggressions and racism. When her best friend Lara's bike goes missing, Lara's father says, "It must have been the Indians." Prejudice cuts both ways; one Native girl criticizes Mia for having white friends. Spencer goes a step further and addresses internalized racism as well: Mia's mom, who is Tsimshian, does not let Mia take thick-cut bologna sandwiches to school -- "Only Indians and poor people eat this kind of bologna" -- and Mia's aunt tells her cousin "not to marry an Indian." Mia is surrounded by rules that feel "like an order rather than a suggestion" and that come from all sides: her family's traditions; mainstream society's restrictions. But Mia does not allow herself to be limited by other people's "weird rules." She also feels pride in her family and her people, enjoying salmonberry-picking season and attending the All Native Basketball Tournament, for example. The book's chapters are connected bite-sized vignettes, easy to read but poetic and focused. Spencer (Ts'msyen First Nation) specializes in creative nonfiction, and this story, while fiction, rings true. Lara K. Aase

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From Booklist

October 1, 2022
Grades 4-7 Weird Rules to Follow is like a photo album but in text rather than in pictures. It features short chapters narrated by 10-year-old Mia, and the story is based on the author's own experiences growing up in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Mia is an observant narrator, wise beyond her years but still naive. Some chapters read like diary entries: accounts of a little girl's day out with the family, of playing Barbies with her best friend, Lara. Others are more pointed reflections on the warmth and strength of Mia's grandmother or the flippant cruelty of a racist comment. The stories are at once self-contained and interdependent, providing the reader with a layered, nuanced picture of Mia's life. Themes of racial awareness, shame, pride, financial struggle, and complex relationships are threaded throughout as Mia encounters confusing messages about Native identity from within as well as from outsiders. It is credible that there are no resolutions to these issues, keeping the reader as discomfited by them as Mia is.

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From Kirkus

Starred review from August 15, 2022
A coming-of-age story narrated by an Indigenous preteen living in British Columbia, Canada. It's 1985, and 10-year-old Amelia "Mia" Douglas lives with her mother and her grandmother in the small coastal town of Prince Rupert. Short chapters convey the many different aspects of Mia's life; she is sensitive but tough, fun-loving yet serious, and observant and analytical. Her wealthier best friend, Lara, a White Mexican Hungarian girl, lives in the same cul-de-sac, though Lara's house is a large white one with a view of the mountains and the ocean, while Mia's is an old wartime house with a view of a retaining wall. It is largely through this friendship that Mia slowly becomes aware of differences in attitude, outlook, and behavior between White and Indigenous people. She encounters racism and microaggressions. When Lara's and her brother Owen's bicycles are stolen and her father says, "It must have been the Indians," Mia says nothing, pretending she didn't hear those words. As the months, then years, go by, the girls slowly drift apart, but Mia makes new friends and develops a deeper understanding of the world around her. Readers will be left with a rich image of Mia's world and the family and people that surround her as well as a strong sense of how culture and class impact people's experiences. A touching exploration of identity and culture. (Realistic fiction. 9-12)

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