Julie of the Wolves (1973

I'm finding this one a bit harder to write about.  I liked Julie of the Wolves.  In some ways it was a female version of Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, in that one lone teen must survive the wilderness with limited tools.  But this book has much richer and deeper meaning woven through out.

In the first part of the book, entitled Amaroq the wolf, we first meet Julie, although she prefers her Eskimo name, Miyax.  She is half starved, living on the North Slope in Alaska, hoping to receive help from a pack of wolves she befriends.  She recalls the time she spent at seal camp with her father, Kapugen, and the things he taught her about nature and surviving.  It is very interesting learning about wolf behavior and how she learns to communicate in "wolf," and what she does to survive the harsh climate.

In part two, Miyax the girl, we learn how Miyax came to be alone in the wilderness, relying on wolves.  Her mother had died when she was very young.  In his grief, Kapugen had retreated with Miyax to seal camp, isolated from civilization (as we know it).  But eventually it found him in the form of Aunt Martha, who insisted on Miyax returning with her to go to school.  Kapugen arranged a marriage for her, when she came of age at 13, to his partner's son in Barrow.  When she found life intolerable with her aunt she accepted the marriage arrangement and flew to Barrow, only to find that the son, Daniel, "has a few problems, but he's a very good boy, and he's a good worker...He will be like a brother to you," says his mother. (p. 92) 

For a year all is well, until Daniel gets teased about not being able to "mate" his own wife and a very short try at forcing the issue frightens Miyax so much that she gathers her supplies and flees into the wilderness planning to make her way to San Fransisco, where she has a pen pal who has repeatedly invited her to come live.

The third part of the book, Kapugen the hunter, really talks about not just her father, but about the whole way of life of the Eskimo and the changes overtaking their society.  Miyax has to decide whether to remain Miyax the Eskimo girl, or to become Julie.

George, Jean Craighead. Julie of the Wolves. HarperCollins, 1972.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1972)

I really enjoyed this one.  Mrs. Frisby is the widowed mouse of Mr. Jonathon Frisby.  Timothy, her youngest son, has been very sick.  Mr. Ages, a mouse who is intelligent well beyond what a mouse should be, has given her medicine for Timothy, but said he should not be moved from their winter home in the farmer's garden to their summer home by the creek as his body is still too weak and it is still too cold at night.

Her new friend, Jeremy the crow, takes her to see the owl, whom all the crows go to for advice. Jeremy flies her to the owl's tree, and, though terrified to approach the owl, Mrs. Frisby does so for the sake of her family.  After telling the owl of her predicament, he tells her that he cannot help her.  But when he learns that she is the widow of Jonathon Frisby, he becomes very interested and tells her to visit the rats in the rosebush.  She is to ask to speak to Nicodemus.

So her adventure continues.  She learns of human experimentation on rats, and a few mice (including her husband) which gave them great longevity and human intelligence. The rats have a plan to move to a valley and develop a society independent of human technology.

I think children would really like this one.  A good storyline, characters and also some things to think about:  experimenting on animals, living on "borrowed" light, loyalty, courage, friendship.  No quotes jumped out at me as I read, but it was well-written.  Enjoy!

O'Brien, Robert C. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Simon & Schuster, 1971.

The Summer of the Swans (1971)

(Just as an aside, this book was written the year I was born.)

This was the worst summer ever! According to 14-year-old Sara.  She is gong through the very self-conscious time of early teen hood. She and her older sister and younger brother have been raised by her aunt since her mother died and her father lives several hours away.  She doesn't think her father really cares about them.  Also, her wants are often put aside for her special needs brother, Charlie. Charlie is mostly non-verbal and has the mental capacity of a young child, but physically functions fine.

One day swans come to the lake near their home and they go to see them.  Charlie is fascinated by the swans and doesn't want to leave when it is time to go. That night Charlie gets up and decides to go see the swans, but gets lost on the way. 

Sara, although often frustrated by Charlie, has a special bond with him and knows he is in trouble.  The police are called in, search parties form and fan out.  But it is Sara who finds Charlie late that afternoon. 

Quotes:
Sara's older sister trying to get her to not obsess about her appearance.  "I have perfectly terrible hands--look at my fingers--only I don't go around all the time saying, 'Everybody, look at my stubby fingers, I have stubby fingers, everybody,' to make people notice.  You should just ignore things that are wrong with you.  The truth is everyone else is so worried about what's wrong with them..." (p. 3)

"A picture came into her mind of the laughing, curly-headed man with the broken tooth in the photograph album, and she suddenly saw life as a series of huge, uneven steps, and she saw herself on the steps,...and she had just taken an enormous step up out of the shadows, and she was standing, waiting, and there were other steps in front of her, so that she could go as high as the sky, and she saw Charlie on a flight of small difficult steps, and her father down at the bottom of some steps, just sitting and not trying to go further.  She saw everyone she knew on those blinding white steps and for a moment everything was clearer than it had ever been." (p. 128)

Byars, Betsy.  The Summer of the Swans.  Puffin Books, 1970. 

Sounder (1970)

 



Sounder was a great coon dog whose voice boomed across the night when he and his master caught something.  But one cold season, no game was to be found.  Times were very hard for a sharecropper.  Night after night the man came home empty handed to his hungry wife and children.  Then one morning the children woke to the smell of ham frying.

 

The boy, oldest child, worries that something isn't right when he notices his mother humming tight-lipped, rather than singing. He was right to worry as later that night the sheriff and deputies come and arrest his father, and in the process, Sounder is shot.  The boy's mother doesn't think Sounder will live, but he does, missing a leg and an ear, and never again using the great booming sound he was known for.

 

Sounder tells the story of the boy as he searches for his father among work gangs, coming home to work in the fields when he can.  But the boy longs for more.  He wants to read.  Not just shop window signs, but books and stories and the Bible.  He knows the power of words.  In one of his journeys he meets a kind school teacher who takes him in, sees the thirst for knowledge this boy has and offers to teach him.

 

After many years, when the boy is home working one summer, the boy and his mother see a figure approaching in the distance.  The man is disfigured, dragging one leg, shoulder hunched.  But Sounder runs out to him, making his voice ring.  His master had finally come home.

 

I enjoyed reading Sounder.  It didn't take long, but left me feeling a mixture of sadness and hope.  One thing that is kind of odd about this book is that none of the human characters are named.  Just Sounder. 

 

A couple of quotes:

 

"He wished his mother or father could read.  And if they had a book, he would hold the lamp by the chair so they could see the words and never get tired. "One day I will learn to read," he said to himself.  He would have a book with stories in it, then he wouldn't be lonesome even if his mother didn't sing." (p. 18)

 

"He had learned to read his book with the torn cover better now.  He had read in it: "Only the unwise think that what has changed is dead." He had asked the teacher what it meant, and the teacher had said that if a flower blooms once, it goes on blooming somewhere forever.  It blooms on for whoever has seen it blooming.  It was not quite clear to the boy the, but it was now." (p. 114)

 

Armstrong, William, H.  Sounder.  HarperCollins, 1969.