4.5/5. WENJACK is a heartbreaking story of an Ojibwe boy who escapes the residential school he has been forced to attend due to the government's push to culturally assimilate the indigenous people into the white man's world at the expense of losing his own heritage. I read this novella in less than an hour, but I will remember the experience for a long time. Controversy has surrounded Boyden because he is not part of the Ojibwe community. Some have criticized him for writing from that point of view. Cultural appropriation is a thorny discussion point, and I know too little to speak about it here. The book was extremely sympathetic to the Ojibwe people and their plight, so one might argue that Boyden shouldn't have been criticized. What, however, if he hadn't been empathetic? The bigger problem lies in the fact that Boyden claimed to have indigenous DNA, but solid proof is nowhere to be found. It's the opposite effect of what June did in YELLOWFACE. There, she blurred her background (with the help from her editors) to possibly seem to be Asian. Here, Boyden claimed outwardly that he had indigenous blood when the research so far shows he doesn't. All of this controversy takes away from Chanie Wenjack's story, which I feel should still be told.

I was a young college student when I first heard the story of Charlie/Chanie Wenjack in a song written and sung by Willie Dunn. The haunting lyrics sung in a deep voice that reminded me of my friend, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, stayed with me, and to this day, 30 some years later, I can still hear the song in my head. Fast forward to 2020, the lyrics played through my mind as I read Wenjack by Joseph Boyden, a heartbreaking novella about little Charlie/Chanie and his attempt to run away from the cruelties of enforced boarding school to find his way home. He was one among many children who attempted to run away, and he made it farther than most, but not far enough. He died, cold and alone, along the railroad tracks that he hoped would lead him home, some 600 km away. He did not die in vain, as his death in 1966 sparked the initial investigation that would eventually lead to the closure of Indian boarding schools in Canada 30 years later in 1996. Charlie’s/Chanie’s story is just one among many, heartbreaking not only because of the singularity of his suffering and death, but also because he was just one little boy among the thousands of indigenous children who suffered the same fate. Written from the point of view of the Manitous, the spirits, as they inhabit each of the animals that observe little Charlie/Chanie on his journey, this short but beautifully written novella broke my heart. 5 stars