A young Indigenous girl searching for a sense of home finds strength and courage in her gifts, her deepening connection to the land, and her own cultural awakening in this moving coming-of-age story.

The last thing that twelve-year-old Misko wants to do is to move away from the city to spend time on the rez with her grandmother. She feels strangely compelled to go to the place where her dreams have been tugging at her to come home. Maybe she can finally find out what happened to her mother, who mysteriously disappeared when she was four years old. Misko discovers her unique ability to connect to a spirited horse named Mishtadim who is being violently broken in by the rancher next door and his son, Thomas. Although Misko and Thomas challenge one another, their friendship is forged through the taming of the wild horse. In the process, she realizes the true meaning of belonging and that you can never truly leave home.

She Holds Up the Stars is a powerful story of reconciliation and the interwoven threads that connect us to family, to the land, and to our own sense of self.

Sandra Laronde hails from the Teme-Augama-Anishnaabe (People of the Deep Water) in Temagami, Ontario, and resides in Toronto. As the founder and artistic producer of Native Women in the Arts, Sandra works as an actor, dancer and writer. She is a founding artistic director of Red Sky Performance. She has written for CBC Radio and is a play creator in residence at Canadian Stage.Sandraâ??s writing appears in Cultures in Transition (McGraw-Hill), Chinook Winds (Banff Centre Press), Gatherings (Theytus Books) and Crisp Blue Edges (Theytus Books). She is a co-editor of My Home As I Remember and Sweetgrass Grows All Around Her, both published by Native Women in the Arts. Sky Woman: Indigenous Women Who Have Shaped, Moved or Inspired Us is her first book with Theytus.

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