Stacey, the heroine, feels the changes of approching adulthood as she finishes her last year of high school and prepares to attend university. She struggles with a major epidemic in her community, deaths, and the realization of what she has and does not have. She matures throughout the book, learning to take her power for herself.
Canadian Lee Maracle writes from the perspective of a seventeen year old as though she was still there herself. She captures the confusion and excitement, the questions and the fears experienced by everyone who feels their childhood sliping away.
Maracle provides a critical look at the division of white and native cultures. She also examines such issues such as spousal abuse, literacy, lesbianism, predjudice, and the roles of women in a thought provoking way.
My only criticim was the lack of development of Celia, a lesser character in the novel. Celia starts out with great potential that is never fully realized, and infact, she disappears at some points in the story.
Dispite my criticizm, this book illustrates how you can be loved, smart, brave and driven, but that does not change the fact that life is full of questions and is not always easy.
Ravensong is a short, thoroughly enjoyable read.
"Ravensong" is a powerful book about what it means to be the marginal "other". It is also a book that gives a little bit of Salish history, and perhaps First Nations history in general. In other words, "Ravensong" especially through the use of the flu (both literal and metaphorical) shows how the natives throughout Canada have been treated by whites. This book also begins to re-appropriate identity through the main character, Stacey. Stacey at first yearns for the material wealth of the whites in white town. She also doesn't value her own culture. But as the book progresses, Stacey begins a transformation. She begns to decolonize her mind, and finally reaches appreciation for where she has come from.