When the COVID-19 pandemic starts, Malian, a young Wabanaki girl, is quarantined with her grandparents on the reservation, where she befriends a local dog and learns about her ancestors and how they always survive together. Simultaneous eBook. - (Baker & Taylor)

"Twelve-year-old Malian lives with her grandparents on a Wabanaki reservation during the COVID-19 pandemic"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

Renowned author Joseph Bruchac tells a powerful story of a girl who learns more about her Penacook heritage while sheltering in place with her grandparents during the coronavirus pandemic.

Malian loves spending time with her grandparents at their home on a Wabanaki reservation—she’s there for a visit when, suddenly, all travel shuts down. There’s a new virus making people sick, and Malian will have to stay with her grandparents for the duration.
Everyone is worried about the pandemic, but Malian knows how to keep her family safe: She protects her grandparents, and they protect her. She doesn’t go out to play with friends, she helps her grandparents use video chat, and she listens to and learns from their stories. And when Malsum, one of the dogs living on the rez, shows up at their door, Malian’s family knows that he’ll protect them too.
Told in verse inspired by oral storytelling, this novel about the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the ways in which Indigenous nations and communities cared for one another through plagues of the past, and how they keep caring for one another today.

**Four starred reviews!**
Boston Globe-Horn Book Fiction & Poetry Honor
NPR Books We Love
Kirkus Reviews Best Books
School Library Journal Best Books
Chicago Public Library Best Fiction for Younger Readers
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Finalist
Nerdy Book Club Award—Best Poetry and Novels in Verse - (Penguin Putnam)

Joseph Bruchac is a highly acclaimed children’s book author, poet, novelist, and storyteller, as well as a scholar of Native American culture. He is the coauthor of the bestselling Keepers of the Earth series with Michael Caduto. Bruchac's poems, articles, and stories have appeared in hundreds of publications from Akwesasne Notes and American Poetry Review to National Geographic and Parabola. He has authored many books for adults and children including Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two, Skeleton Man, and The Heart of a Chief. - (Penguin Putnam)

Booklist Reviews

Malian, a Wabanaki girl, can't go home to her parents in Boston because she must shelter in place with her grandparents on the rez, thanks to being caught there by the COVID-­19 pandemic during a weekend visit. She loves her grandparents but is often bored. That changes one morning when she wakes up and sees the rez dog outside, just as she had dreamed he would be. When it becomes obvious that he has adopted the family and become its self-appointed protector, Malian names him Malsum, the old name for a wolf. Noted Abenaki author Bruchac limns Malian's growing friendship with the dog in this accomplished novel in verse. Episodic in structure, it captures the family's daily lives and shares the grandparents' traditional stories, ensuring that a connection remains between them and the natural world. Readers also learn about injustices visited on Native peoples and hear Malian's white teacher's declaration that "we need to learn more of each other's stories." With this gentle book, Bruchac offers children another story to expand their worlds and hearts. Grades 3-6. Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews.

Horn Book Guide Reviews

In this verse novel, Malian, a Penacook girl, is visiting her grandparents on the Penacook reservation when shelter-in-place orders are given due to COVID-19. Malian misses her parents and friends, but she spends time with a dog that has mysteriously appeared, and she enjoys listening to her grandparents' retellings of traditional stories. They also tell her about some of the more difficult parts of their history that have affected their nation, such as boarding schools and forced sterilizations, all touched on by Bruchac (Peacemaker, rev. 7/21) in an accessible and age-appropriate way. Ultimately, Malian's grandparents remind her that their people have survived pandemics before, through caring for one another. Young readers will be able to understand Malian's situation, including technological struggles in connecting to her remote classroom. The book's ending -- in which Malian waits eagerly but with mixed emotions for her parents to pick her up -- raises relatable questions of home, friendship, and belonging. Copyright 2023 Horn Book Guide Reviews.

Horn Book Magazine Reviews

In this verse novel, Malian, a Penacook girl, is visiting her grandparents on the Penacook reservation when shelter-in-place orders are given due to COVID-19. Malian misses her parents and friends, but she spends time with a dog that has mysteriously appeared, and she enjoys listening to her grandparents' retellings of traditional stories. They also tell her about some of the more difficult parts of their history that have affected their nation, such as boarding schools and forced sterilizations, all touched on by Bruchac (Peacemaker, rev. 7/21) in an accessible and age-appropriate way. Ultimately, Malian's grandparents remind her that their people have survived pandemics before, through caring for one another. Young readers will be able to understand Malian's situation, including technological struggles in connecting to her remote classroom. The book's ending -- in which Malian waits eagerly but with mixed emotions for her parents to pick her up -- raises relatable questions of home, friendship, and belonging. Nicholl Denice Montgomery September/October 2021 p.90 Copyright 2021 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

When a Penacook girl and her grandparents must shelter in place at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak, a large dog mysteriously appears to protect them. Malian's winter stay with her grandparents is extended when everything is locked down. A big dog with two white spots over his eyes shows up at their house on the reservation. "Four-eyed dog," her grandmother calls him. They name him Malsum, meaning "wolf," and he makes himself at home. "When a dog like / that just appears / and chooses you, / it's not your decision." Although Malian misses her parents in Boston and online classes are difficult due to the poor internet connection, her grandparents entertain her with stories. She finds that even when she's hearing one again, there's "always / something in that story / that was more." Her grandfather tells her "that all the old stories / are so alive / that even when you hear / one of them again, / that story may decide / to show you / something new." Bruchac (Abenaki) tenderly braids traditional Wabanaki stories and, via Malian's family history, stories of atrocities visited on Native nations into Malian's lockdown experience. As early spring turns to summer and Malsum makes himself part of the family, she turns these stories into a school presentation, a process that helps her realize that, like her grandparents and the big dog, she's "a rez dog too." Hidden throughout this moving novel in verse, old stories are discovered like buried treasures. (Verse fiction. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus 2021 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

PW Annex Reviews

Bruchac (Peacemaker), who is Abenaki, pens a spare novel-in-verse that richly addresses an array of subjects, including Wabanaki legends and beliefs, residential schools, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the difficulties of online schooling with insecure Wi-Fi. Eighth grader Malian is quarantining with her grandparents after a short visit to their Penacook reservation is extended indefinitely due to shelter-in-place restrictions. Malian deeply misses her Boston-based parents but absorbs her grandparents' stories—including how social services forcibly removed Malian's mother from her parents to be adopted by a white family. When Malian finds a hound outside her door, one with white spots above its eyes that the Penacook people call a "four-eyed dog," she names him Malsum, Wabanaki for wolf. As Malsum becomes Malian's closest companion, Bruchac showcases how rez dogs are integral to Native community: "We humans were lucky/ they chose to live with us./ Or maybe it was the other way around—that we were the ones who chose/ to live with them." Employing the third-person perspective, Bruchac intricately interweaves past and present stories, displaying how Native mistreatment has been cyclical with a deft touch in this rewarding intergenerational narrative. Ages 8–12. (June)