For Readers

Character sketches – Heroes and Villians!!

Abedabun (uh-BED-uh-bun): Ojibwe daughter of Binesi, a prophet or seer

Amari Okafar (uh-MAH-ree ow-kuh-for): Hakima’s African father, a college professor who is working at Denver University. He, like Paul Profitt, is working with the environmental agency AWAKE and, like PJ’s dad, is in danger of attack from environmental criminals.

Bernie: A brave little Bassett Hound with a dark, mysterious past and a way of showing up where he is most needed.

Binesi (bih-NEH-sih): Ojibwe spiritual leader and healer

Colin: Mystery surrounds him. There are rumors about his long absence from school. He is a caring and heroic friend to PJ, her family and her friend Hakima. Colin is a year behind in school, yet self-assured and a bright, accomplished student. He is living with his mother in a rented apartment and doing odd jobs after school like walking a neighbor’s dog and doing grocery delivery to help ends meet.

Environmental criminals: They are linked to an international organized syndicate like those engaged in wildlife trafficking, pollution, illegal lumbering and illegal fishing. They are dark, powerful enemies whose agenda is to destroy members of AWAKE to keep them from uncovering their crimes.

Hakima (ha-KEE-ma): Her African name means wise or knowledgeable, sensible. PJ’s friend and school mate. She supports PJ amid attacks from their classmate Jennifer and her cruel friends. She is in the US with her father while he is working at Denver University and with AWAKE alongside PJ’s dad, Paul. Her eyes are the color of honey when sunlight shines through it. She loves her country and is so enthusiastic about it she grabs and holds her classmates’ attention when she gives a book report about it.

Jennifer: A school bully with silky long brown hair who has it out for PJ and who is stylish, rich and lives much of what seems to be a lonely life in her palatial home with her Russian Wolfhound and a cold, aloof and stern looking governess Ms. Black.

Megis: Ojibwe 4th great granddaughter of Abedabun, relative and pen friend to PJ’s grandmother

Members of Awake: Scientists and environmental experts, journalists and activists working for the international environmental agency of that name. Several have died mysterious deaths.

Paul Profitt: PJ’s busy dad, a college professor and diligent member of the environmental agency AWAKE. He has little time for PJ anymore. His life is in constant danger because of his work to uncover environmental crime.

Pearline Jane O’Connor: Ojibwe-Irish granddaughter of Abedabun, a journalist and social activist

PJ: She always wears ponytails below her ears to hide the fact her ears stick out from her head. She is a freckle-faced redhead and an insecure stutterer that becomes thru her journey of discovery a courageous and determined leader.

Red-haired runner: He works for a global security agency, is new on the job, and he is attempting to guard PJ and her family from environmental criminals.

Winnow: PJ’s friend and neighbor. Winnow is PJ’s mentor and guide as she battles the darkness threatening her, her family and ultimately her world. Her name means separating desired elements from unwanted ones, you might say truth from falsehood or good from evil. Winnow is a large, stout, eccentric woman who paints her house purple and yellow, who had been a costume designer for the movies and who wears very colorful clothes, even for gardening. Her sketches of children are magical and transport the chosen ones through space and time.

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Fictional Takes on Historical Events

The book’s fictional takes on real historical events explore current and past injustices through PJ’s eyes and the eyes of the children she meets as she travels through time and space.

Dakota Access Pipeline Protests

In 2016, thousands of people led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe gathered in North Dakota to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which was planned to carry oil under the Missouri River, the main water source for their reservation. They took the name “water protectors,” because they were convinced that a pipeline leak would eventually occur that would contaminate their drinking water. This movement became a larger protest that lasted for months and was supported by hundreds of other tribes, environmentalists, and allies, highlighting discussions about indigenous rights, who holds control of Indian lands, and environmental safety. While the protesters temporarily halted construction in late 2016, the pipeline was finished in 2017 resulting in a lasting debate over the dangers in the use of fossil fuels and the justice in the treatment of the tribes involved in the protest. The construction did destroy ancient sacred burial grounds as well as put at risk their drinking water.

The Baffinland Mine Protest

The Baffinland mine protest cccurred from February 4 to February 11, 2021 when a group of Inuit hunters held a peaceful protest blocking Mary River mine’s airstrip and the tote road. The Innuit are an indigenous people of northern Canada facing destruction of their habitat and way of life.

These protesters, who called themselves Nuluujaat Land Guardians stood in opposition to the expansion of the mine, because they were concerned the mine’s damage to their environment and their traditional ways of life. About seven hundred employees were stuck at the mine work camp for a week.

An annual gathering of indigenous peoples in Brazil where they work to advance the struggle for indigenous rights particularly threats to their territories and way of life. The 2025 Free Land Camp highlighted the connection between indigenous land rights and climate change.

Mining Collapses at Minas Gerais, Brazil

There were two mining disasters in Minas Gerais. The Minas Gerais mine disasters, specifically the Fundano in 2015 and the Brumadinho  in 2019 where dams built to contain by products of mining operations failed and flooded downstream villages.  Nineteen people died in the 2015 disaster and 270 people died in the 2019 collapse with 11 people reported missing. The Fundano displaced hundreds of families, contaminating water supplies for hundreds of thousands, and destroying riparian forests and biodiversity. The Fundano collapse is considered Brazil’s worst environmental disaster.

Canadian Residential Schools for Indigenous Children

Canadian residential schools: Indigenous children, often as young as 4 or 5 years old, were forcibly removed from their families and communities and placed in these schools. Once at the schools, children were prohibited from speaking their Indigenous languages or practicing their cultural traditions. Attendance became compulsory in 1894 and the last federally funded one was closed in 1997.

The plight of the Baka people

The Baka people comprise a seminomadic group living in the Central African rainforest. Illegal logging is destroying their history culture and habitat. They are  hunter-gatherers. They are normally about five feet tall and are living semi-nomadic lifestyles which means they have a home but travel to different places at certain times during the year. The Baka are often discriminated against and marginalized from society. They are estimated to have existed for at least 40,000 years and believed to be among the earliest inhabitants of the Congo Basin in Central Africa.

Wildfires

Wildfires in the Western US are exhibiting an upward trend in both size and severity, with a notable increase in the number of large, destructive fires occurring in recent decades. Climate change, which is causing hotter, drier conditions caused by climate change make forests more susceptible to ignition and rapid-fire spread.

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From my bookshelf to yours

Fiction

A Wrinkle in Time by Madaleine L’Engle

Holes by Louis Sachar

Everywhere Blue by Joanne Rossmassler Fritz

Red Flag Warning by Claire Datnow

Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet by Barbara Dee

Arrow by Samantha M. Clark

The Sacred Stone Camp by Rae Rose and illustrated by Aly McKnight

We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade

Young Water Protectors: A Story About Standing Rock by Aslan Tudor and illustrated by Kelly Tudor

Non Fiction

We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade (Some consider this to be a work of creative fiction, others a work of lyrical non fiction. I have placed it in both categories.)

The Twenty-One: The True Story of the Youth Who Sued the US Government Over Climate Change by Elizabeth Rusch

How to Manage Your Eco-Anxiety: An Empowering Guide for Young People by Anouchka Grose

The Standing Rock Sioux Challenge the Dakota Access Pipeline by Clara MacCarald

Water Is Life: The Ongoing Fight for Indigenous Water Rights by Katrina M. Phillips

Note to teachers

Any teachers who have used good crossover middle grade or young adult books on eco anxiety or youth activism in the classroom, fiction or non fiction, and found them good thought-provoking reads, please email me the titles at joyce @ joycelmiller.com to share with others.

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Discussion Questions

The Author’s Purpose

1. Why do you think the author wrote this story? Is there a message in the story?  What is it?

Self-worth

1. What handicap did PJ have to overcome? Describe the scene where she was able to overcome it.

Relationships

1. How did PJ Profitt change during the story? How is she different? What changed her?

2. Pick a paragraph or a page that describes how one character treats another character. Would you treat a character the same way? Have you ever been treated in a similar way or seen someone else treated that way? Describe the situation.

3. Have you ever had an experience where your judgement of someone based on their behavior is tempered when you realize some of its underlying causes?  Explain. Did you feel differently about Jennifer’s bullying when you read PJ’s assessment of her relationship with Ms. Black? If so, in what way was your judgement altered?  If not, why did PJ’s assessment not alter the way you thought about Jennifer’s bad behavior?

4. Describe how the author addresses one of the following themes: friendship, loyalty, bullying, eco-anxiety, family, identity, youth environmental activism, hope, negativity.

Magical Realism

1. This novel is a magical realism genre that places characters in a world that is mostly real but with magical elements woven into the narrative. Every reader should be able to relate to PJ’s daily routine, family and friend issues, and concerns about the environment, but what of the magical elements that are present just below the surface of PJ’s world? What do you think of PJ’s reaction to her developing awareness that there are magical or unexplainable forces operating in her life? How do you think you would react to such a developing awareness?

2. Describe the aspects of this story that demonstrate the following elements of magical realism.

• Real-world setting
• Supernatural happenings — left unexplained

3. At what point in the story do the underlying magical currents cross over into the real world and indicate to PJ and the reader that PJ’s journeys aren’t merely dreams but are substantial?

4. Within a work of magical realism, existence is grounded in the real world, but fantastical elements are considered normal in this world. What was your first clue that in PJ’s world there are forces or elements beyond what the reader or the writer would classify as normal?

Coming of Age

1. PJ’s coming of age is evidenced in a growing awareness of the important bond with ancestors and her responsibility and ability to act against polluters. This awareness is highlighted in her remembrance of the words on her dad‘s desk: If not you, then who? If not now, then when? How do words such as this make you feel?  Do they motivate or paralyze you? Explain.

Environmental Concerns

1. The “at the same moments” scattered throughout the story are really urgent cries for recognition of the suffering that complacency on environmental concerns is causing.  Write “a moment” that addresses the suffering of an indigenous group or an animal due to pollution or unbridled development.

Historical Events

1. Can you name any historical events or current day battles related to indigenous rights and environmental degradation that could have inspired events in the storyline?

2. There are several fictional takes on historic events related to environmental issues. Discuss one or more of these events and consider why you think Miller included it.

• Dakota Access Pipeline protests
• Baffinland Mine protest
• Mining collapses at Minas Gerais, Brazil
• Canadian residential schools for indigenous children
• The plight of the Baka people
• Wildfires

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