Happy book birthday to Dreaming In Color by Melanie Florence, out today from Orca Book Publishers!
“Offers a mirror to the sometimes painful emotions and everyday experiences of Indigenous teens of mixed heritage. A rare and welcome reluctant reader title featuring an Indigenous protagonist.” –Kirkus Reviews
“Through the novel’s accessible language and short chapters, readers of all levels and backgrounds will be able to relate to and learn from Jen’s overcoming racial prejudice and intolerance. Readers will also gain a sense of empathy as they come to understand the struggles faced by Indigenous youth in contemporary society. Highly Recommended.” — CM: Canadian Review of Materials
Jennifer McCaffrey has been working hard on her art for years and is thrilled when she is accepted to a prestigious art school. The school is everything she always thought it would be, mostly. There is one group of kids who seem to resent her and say she only got in because of her skin color. Jen, who loves to create new pieces of artwork that incorporate her Indigenous heritage, finds herself a target when the group tells her to stop being “so Indian”. The night before the big art show at school, Jen’s beading art project is defaced. Jen has to find a way not to let the haters win.
Melanie Florence is a writer of Cree and Scottish heritage based in Toronto. She was close to her grandfather as a child, a relationship that sparked her interest in writing about Indigenous themes and characters. She is the author of Missing Nimâmâ (Clockwise Press), which won the 2016 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, Stolen Words (Second Story Press), which won the 2018 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award and the bestselling He Who Dreams in the Orca Limelights line, a story that shares the same setting and characters as Dreaming in Color. She lives in Toronto. Melanie is represented by Amy Tompkins.