Twelve-year-old Summer is on her way, driving, from Arizona to Canada with her mother and little brother to visit her mother’s people on the Cree Reservation in “Buffalo Dreamer” (Nancy Paulsen 2024) by Violet Duncan. They do this every summer, and her Apache father will join them soon. Before they arrive at her grandparents’ home on the Northern Alberta Cree Rez, Summer falls asleep.
The next short chapter sounds like a different voice, a historic voice, another 12-year-old girl who is running away when a blizzard starts up. She doesn’t want to be punished and thrown in the isolation bin, but someone named Ann has disappeared. The girl knows that Ann never would have left without her.
We’ll eventually discover that this is Summer’s dream. We return to contemporary times. Summer is hugging her cousin Autumn, and all her aunties and her grandparents are crowding around the newly arrived family.
Soon, Summer will ride her horse, Luna, a gift from her grandfather, Mosom. But first, this warm supportive family will eat a meal together outside. Together the family witness trucks headed for the old deserted residential school.
Summer doesn’t know much, but she knows that Mosom was kidnapped and forced to attend that residential school starting at the age of 5. He had a sister, but she was in the girls’ quarters, and he never saw her again once they’d arrived at the school. Because Autumn wants to become a detective, the girls eavesdrop outside the kitchen where .
