Book 2 in The Mighty Muskrats Mystery Series is even better than the first.
In the bright lights of the big city, the Mighty Muskrats search for Grandpa’s lost sister who was grabbed in the Sixties Scoop.
The Mighty Muskrats are four cousins from the Windy Lake First Nation, who are incredibly close and often find themselves solving mysteries. In book 1 The Case of Windy Lake, they found a lost archaeologist. Now they are off to the city (Winnipeg) to have fun at the Exhibition Fair. But the Mighty Muskrats get waylaid by other plans. On one of their first days in the city, they meet Brett at the mall. He’s a friend who recently moved away from Windy Lake, but the city has changed him and the kids find out the hard way.
Subtle and overt racism is present throughout the story, but Chickadee and her cousins also meet some great people who help them learn about how the government scooped up and adopted out Native kids to strangers without their parents’ permission. Grandpa’s little sister has been lost to him for decades but he’s started dreaming of her and Chickadee is determined to do what she can to reunite her family.
What I like about Hutchinson’s stories is that they are great mysteries that my son loves to read, and they contain hard truths about Canada’s treatment of First Nations people that all readers show know and understand.