February 6, 2023
Interweaving horror elements and wry humor, Dimaline (The Marrow Thieves), who is from the Georgian Bay Métis Community, crafts a macabre tale about a lonely girl who falls in love with a ghost. Sixteen-year-old Winifred Blight has lived on Toronto Winterson Cemetery’s grounds with her crematory operator father, who is white, ever since her Métis mother’s death during childbirth. Winifred is often bullied at school for her family’s graveyard residence, resulting in few relationships beyond her father, whose worries surrounding the cemetery’s imminent closure cause tension at home. When a passerby notices Winifred roaming the tombstones at night, they spread rumors about the cemetery being haunted, prompting a local ghost tour administrator to offer the family money in exchange for adding Winterson as a stop on the route. Winifred is happy her father agrees, but when she meets and falls for Phil, the ghost of a 15-year-old girl who died nearby, she fears the increased scrutiny will jeopardize their budding relationship. Contemplative prose excels in its portrayal of a reclusive protagonist longing for connection and overcoming grief while living in a neighborhood that shuns her for perceived shortcomings, presenting a textured narrative about loss and love. Ages 14–up. Agent: Dean Cooke, Cooke-McDermid.
March 1, 2023
First-person narrator Winifred, a Canadian teen of Metis and European descent, lives in present-day Toronto with her father, who is a crematory operator, on the grounds of the cemetery, between "the grubby and the austere" -- a ravine where drug users hang out, and the gentrified neighborhood of Cabbagetown. Winifred is ostracized at school because of her morbid surroundings, and as she sees it, she has "lived a fairy-tale childhood. Like, a Grimm's fairy tale." Her own mother's ashes are half buried in the cemetery and half kept in the house, and her father lives a "half-life, " yearning for his lost love. Ghosts haunt Winifred, both figuratively and literally, but Dimaline's (The Marrow Thieves) intense, bittersweet, and often funny novel is more than a ghost story. Extended portions about the life and death of Phil, a sympathetically rendered ghost character who becomes one of Winifred's first loves, allude to the real-life neglected epidemic of MMIWG2S (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People). Through this novel, Dimaline (Metis Nation of Ontario) honors those lost; as Winifred's Metis auntie says, "So lucky, you, to live in this place with so many people. Imagine a world without your dead? I'd be so lonely walking around by yourself like that." Lara K. Aase
(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
Starred review from February 1, 2023
Nearly 16-year-old Winifred Blight's life is forever changed when she falls in love with a ghost. Business is bad at Toronto's Winterson Cemetery. This means trouble for Winifred and her father, Thomas, the chief crematory operator. If the cemetery closes, Thomas will lose his job and they'll have to move out of their apartment above the admin offices. It's just been Winifred and her White father since her mother, Mary Kalder, who was M�tis from Georgian Bay with Romanian traveler ancestry, died during childbirth. Now, Winifred tries to find a way to save her home while navigating the humiliating and humbling trials that come with growing up in a cemetery, including being ostracized at school by peers who call her Wednesday Addams. As things look increasingly hopeless, a man who runs local ghost tours inquires about adding the cemetery to their itinerary. It would bring in money, which would be a good thing. But is the cemetery truly haunted? The "ghost" tourists spotted was actually friendless, bereft Winifred, dressed in a cape and curled up at the base of an obelisk. Complicating matters, she falls for Phil, the apparition of a 15-year-old girl who died of an overdose on the cemetery grounds. Winifred is an engaging lead with an emotional and fulfilling journey. Artfully melding horror, deadpan humor, and an impossible romance, this well-crafted narrative from Dimaline (M�tis) follows lived-in characters who are tortured by grief. Atmospheric, intimate, and melodic; the rich storytelling sings. (Fiction. 14-18)
COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from October 20, 2023
Gr 8 Up-A haunting coming-of-age novel centering Indigenous girls struggling with heartbreak, disappointment, and grief. Almost-16-year-old Winifred (M�tis and white) has grown up in the apartment above the crematorium, living with her father, who has never recovered from his wife's death, which happened when Winifred was born. With the crematorium in danger of closing, the teen hatches a plan with her con artist cousin to convince the town that there's a ghost in the cemetery, hoping that the proceeds from a ghost tour would keep them from leaving the only place she's ever known, the same place where her mother's ashes are buried. However, Winifred meets the real ghost of another Indigenous girl, Phil, who died decades ago in the ravine nearby. The two girls become friends as Phil slowly recounts her life, including how she died. Soon, the young women become more than friends, but misunderstandings and impossibilities get in their way. Dimaline's prose is magnetic, and her storytelling skills are on full display. Readers will be as entranced by Phil's tale as Winifred, hoping that her story doesn't end in tragedy while already knowing the ending. The complex characters are fully developed, and though the conflicts aren't resolved neatly, the book's conclusion comes together realistically. This contemporary novel with hints of a magical realism recalls the missing and murdered Indigenous women of North America, a very real and current epidemic of violence. It explores drug abuse, sexual assault, and racism, but also identity and first love. Both girls are queer. VERDICT A tough, heartrending ghost story that will seep into readers' bones and never let them go.-Shelley M. Diaz
Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
January 1, 2023
First-person narrator Winifred, a Canadian teen of Metis and European descent, lives in present-day Toronto with her father, who is a crematory operator, on the grounds of the cemetery, between "the grubby and the austere" -- a ravine where drug users hang out, and the gentrified neighborhood of Cabbagetown. Winifred is ostracized at school because of her morbid surroundings, and as she sees it, she has "lived a fairy-tale childhood. Like, a Grimm's fairy tale." Her own mother's ashes are half buried in the cemetery and half kept in the house, and her father lives a "half-life," yearning for his lost love. Ghosts haunt Winifred, both figuratively and literally, but Dimaline's (The Marrow Thieves) intense, bittersweet, and often funny novel is more than a ghost story. Extended portions about the life and death of Phil, a sympathetically rendered ghost character who becomes one of Winifred's first loves, allude to the real-life neglected epidemic of MMIWG2S (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People). Through this novel, Dimaline (Metis Nation of Ontario) honors those lost; as Winifred's Metis auntie says, "So lucky, you, to live in this place with so many people. Imagine a world without your dead? I'd be so lonely walking around by yourself like that."
(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)