Kerri heads north for book pick

Kerri Miller's book pick this week is "The Orenda," a novel by Canadian author Joseph Boyden.

From the National Post of Canada:

The Orenda weaves together the stories of Snow Falls, a young Iroquois girl, with that of Bird, a Huron warrior who takes Snow Falls prisoner after her family is massacred, and Christophe, an idealistic Jesuit missionary who has come to the New World to try and convert its native peoples. The novel was an immediate bestseller when it was published last September, garnering both commercial and critical acclaim; the National Post said it was a novel "born a classic" while the Globe and Mail hailed it as "a great, heartbreaking novel, full of fierce action and superb characters and an unblinking humanity."

"I wanted the average Canadian not to think of First Nations before first contact as a bunch of Indians huddling around the fire, waiting for civilization to discover them and help them," said Boyden. "I wanted Canadians to understand that long before the Europeans arrived there were incredibly complex and beautiful societies and complicated societies already here."