Wenjack & The Break: Book Club Guide

Our February box included two novels, The Break by Katherena Vermette and Wenjack by Joseph Boyden. I absolutely loved both of these novels and I hope you did too! Since both of these books have a similar theme, it made sense to combine them into one book club meeting but you could easily host two events. In all honesty, I had a lot of difficulty deciding what food to serve at this meeting. It pains me to say that I don’t have any Aboriginal friends who could advise me on what to make. If you do know someone of Native American descent, I encourage you to ask them more about their culture and bring those cultural aspects into this meeting. 

The Theme:
I kept this meeting simple and cozy. I focused on candlelight and natural elements.

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The Food:

• As I mentioned, I could not find a recipe for a traditional Native American dish (if you have any suggestions please link a recipe below!) so I went with standard book club food.
• I served marble chocolate covered popcorn that I made by drizzling popcorn with melted milk and white chocolate.
• I didn’t follow a recipe for the popcorn because it was very straight forward but you can find some more complicated popcorn recipes on our Pinterest board. This stuff was SO good, I made the popcorn the evening before and it was a real struggle not to eat it all before I took the book club guide pictures! 

The Atmosphere:

• I chose to bring in the nature theme of our box by setting the table with natural objects such as the coasters found in February's box and some wooden candle holders I bought from an independent shop. I also went a little overboard with the candles but I love that they make everything more cozy.
• You could also use a sage smudge stick like we see at the end of The Break. 

Discussion Questions:
Wenjack:

1. Had you heard about Chanie Wenjack before this book or Gord Downie’s The Secret Path became popular?
2. It is unbelievable to me that the last residential school in Canada didn’t close until the mid-90s. Do you remember learning about residential schools in class? Do you feel that it was discussed enough?
3. This book was written in a very unique way. What did you think of the writing style?
4. What was the most heart-wrenching part of this book for you?

The Break:

1. What did you think of this book? Did you like it? 
2. There were so many characters in this novel, did you have trouble keeping track? Which one did you relate to the most?
3. Phoenix’s story was very interesting to me. Did your opinion of her change from the beginning of the book to the end? Were you expecting that twist?
4. I was thrilled when I found out that The Break is part of Canada Reads this year. Will you be watching? I know which book I’m rooting for!

I hope you enjoyed both of these books! Join our discussion on March 15th in our online book club group. All are welcome!