Frenchie has several important relationships that help him on his journey into adulthood. Choose any three characters who have a positive impact on his coming-of-age experience and explain what he learns from each.

Frenchie's brother, Mitch, teaches him about self-sacrifice.

Miig teaches Frenchie that the word family has many different meanings, and French ultimately realizes that found family is just as important as blood family. When he finds his father, the group believes that he will leave them for his "real" family. But French tells them they are just as real as his blood family. Dimaline highlights this when French speaks of having two fathers—Jean and Miig—and when he is willing to leave his father to go after Rose. He also teaches Frenchie how to survive, as well as the importance of heritage and history.

Minerva teaches Frenchie about the power of language. Throughout The Marrow Thieves, author Cherie Dimaline presents language as a powerful tool for preserving identity, memory, and culture, as well as for resisting an oppressive system. A key example is one of the novel's most powerful moments: when Minerva destroys the Recruiters' marrow-harvesting system through a song in her native language. The song is made up of dreams which are recounted in her native language. Through Minerva’s miracle, Dimaline suggests that language is much more than a means of communication and expression. It is a carrier of cultural memory and ancestral wisdom, capable of confronting oppression and bringing down a “broken system.”