The settler’s arrested development: Shuya Su, ‘Indigenous Girlhood, Radical Resurgence, and the Question of Settler Growth in Jen Ferguson’s The Summer of Bitter and Sweet’, Children’s Literature in Education, 2026 | settler colonial studies blog

The settler’s arrested development: Shuya Su, ‘Indigenous Girlhood, Radical Resurgence, and the Question of Settler Growth in Jen Ferguson’s The Summer of Bitter and Sweet’, Children’s Literature in Education, 2026

17Mar26

Excerpt: This paper examines Jen Ferguson’s YA novel The Summer of Bitter and Sweet (2022), arguing that it exposes the ongoing colonial violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada while articulating a framework of Indigenous-led radical resurgence that critically engages with the settler society. Narrated by Lou, a Métis adolescent in contemporary Alberta, the novel foregrounds the inherited colonial trauma shaping Indigenous girlhood. This includes her biological father’s history of sexual assault and the boundary-crossing behavior of her white ex-boyfriend, Wyatt. Lou’s skepticism about Wyatt’s potential for growth encapsulates a central tension in the text: whether settlers can experience moral development, and on what terms.

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