Hopeless in Hope - by Wanda John-Kehewin (Paperback)

About the Book

Fourteen-year-old Eva's life is like her shoes: rapidly falling apart. With Nohkum in the hospital, Eva's mother struggles to keep things together and loses custody of Eva and her little brother. As Eva tries to adjust to living in a group home, can she find forgiveness for her mother within the pages of an old diary?

Book Synopsis

★ Among CCBC's Best Books for Kids & Teens list, a starred selection of exceptional caliber

We live in a hopeless old house on an almost-deserted dead-end street in a middle-of-nowhere town named Hope. This is the oldest part of Hope; eventually it will all be torn down and rebuilt into perfect homes for perfect people. Until then, we live here: imperfect people on an imperfect street that everyone forgets about.

For Eva Brown, life feels lonely and small. Her mother, Shirley, drinks and yells all the time. She's the target of the popular mean girl, and her only friend doesn't want to talk to her anymore. All of it would be unbearable if it weren't for her cat, Toofie, her beloved nohkum, and her writing, which no one will ever see.

When Nohkum is hospitalized, Shirley struggles to keep things together for Eva and her younger brother, Marcus. After Marcus is found wandering the neighbourhood alone, he is sent to live with a foster family, and Eva finds herself in a group home.

Furious at her mother, Eva struggles to adjust--and being reunited with her family seems less and less likely. During a visit to the hospital, Nohkum gives Eva Shirley's diary. Will the truths it holds help Eva understand her mother?

Heartbreaking and humorous, Hopeless in Hope is a compelling story of family and forgiveness.

Review Quotes

4.5 out 5 stars. A very moving and believable story revealing life for Indigenous people...but also kids who live in very damaged families...realistic and inspiring.

A tender and even humorous coming-of-age story...a resonant story of healing, belonging, and persisting despite the odds.

About the Author

Wanda John-Kehewin (she, her, hers) is a Cree writer who uses her work to understand and respond to the near destruction of First Nations cultures, languages, and traditions. When she first arrived in Vancouver on a Greyhound bus, she was a nineteen-year-old carrying her first child, a bag of chips, a bottle of pop, thirty dollars, and a bit of hope. After many years of travelling (well, mostly stumbling) along her healing journey, she shares her personal life experiences with others to shed light on the effects of trauma and how to break free from the "monkeys in the brain."

Now a published poet, fiction author, and film scriptwriter, she writes to stand in her truth and to share that truth openly. She is the author of the Dreams series of graphic novels. Hopeless in Hope is her first novel for young adults.

Wanda is the mother of five children, two dogs, two cats, three tiger barbs (fish), and grandmother to one super-cute granddog. She calls Coquitlam home until the summertime, when she treks to the Alberta prairies to visit family and learn more about herself and Cree culture, as well as to continuously think and write about what it means to be Indigenous in today's times. How do we heal from a place of forgiveness?

nicole marie burton (she, they) is a comics artist and children's book illustrator living on unceded Algonquin land. Born in the US and now based in Ontario, she is a founding member of the Ad Astra Comix publishing collective. nicole's work focuses on comics with social justice themes, including topics from Canadian history to the science of climate change. Her published works include The Beast: Making a Living on a Dying Planet, The Boy Who Walked Backwards, and a chapter in the anthology Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working Class Struggle.