Autumn Bird and the Runaway

Melanie Florence and Richard Scrimger team up in their new middle grade novel told in alternating perspectives, Autumn Bird and the Runaway.

Autumn is trying to fit in with the popular crowd at school. Cody is just trying to stay alive. When things get bad for Cody, Autumn reaches out a helping hand, one she quickly regrets. This is a story that turns the usual on it’s head.

I really loved this story from start to finish but it was one I had a hard time trying to put into words. It’s a traumatic story containing physical abuse and blatant racism and I wondered how it would sit with some readers. It is also a story that flips the usual narrative around. In this story, Autumn Bird is Indigenous, living in a wealthy enclave of the city. Cody, white, lives in St. James Town and has not had the best start in life. Autumn is proud of who she is and saves Cody from an abusive home life only to be rewarded with blatant racism and micro aggressions from Cody. Cody’s not a bad person, just hasn’t been given very good tools and hasn’t had a good example of kindness in his life. The racist thoughts and words don’t come from a place of hate but a place of ignorance.

The chapters flow back and forth from Autumn’s voice to Cody’s voice so you really can understand the thinking behind the actions of each character instead of inferring. I think in a story such as this, it’s really important to understand Cody in particular to understand why he says some of the terrible things he says.

I love both characters but especially Autumn. She’s feisty and fierce but still makes a ton of mistakes in her pursuit of popularity. When she realizes who her real friends are she needs to work hard to regain their trust. What struck me about this book was how raw and real all of the characters have been written. These are characters readers could easily bump into in their own lives.

There will, unfortunately, be many readers who see some version of themselves in the characters in the story. Whether they come from abusive households, affluent ones, are striving for popularity or are just plain ignorant, there are many different ways readers will feel seen throughout the whole story.

I wanted to be sure that this book, although incredibly engaging, was also embraced by booksellers who vet books for their Indigenous content. I’m so happy to have found it available on Goodminds.ca who vets all books they sell through a very high lens. It’s definitely a story that should be widely available to readers but also warrants a trigger warning as some of the scenes could be disturbing for some readers.