3.75 AVERAGE

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

3.5 stars

I’m glad that this is getting re-released, because I think that it deserves to find a new generation of fans. This book is very short (less than one hundred pages) and simply written, but I found it very affecting nonetheless.

The story opens with the Eskimo girl Miyax lost, alone, and starving in the Alaskan wilderness. Her only hope of survival is the nearby wolf pack, and the long ago memory of a tale that her lost father told: of one hard winter when he appealed to a wolf leader for help and was given aid. Desperate, Miyax begins to emulate wolf behaviors and communication. The wolves slowly begin to accept her presence, but she can’t rely on them for all. Miyax must unearth a hidden strength and the nearly lost wisdom of her ancestors to survive.

As the story unfolds, we learn that Miyax has another name and another life. In childhood, she left the warmth and tradition of the seal camp and her father, to join her aunt in a more developed town. There, she attended school, gained a pen pal in San Francisco, and became Julie. But at age thirteen, according to the Eskimo tradition, she agrees to marry the son of her father’s close friend. All seems well, until her husband becomes aggressive. Julie decides to flee toward the hope of San Francisco and a new life.

This is a powerful story of conflict between two identities and two sets of traditions. Julie loves the safety of home and people; she wants to have a place in society. But when Julie runs into the wilderness, her proprieties and her limits are stripped away. She loses her fear and uncertainty and she finds Miyax underneath it all. And she finds even more than that: a new family and a new home.

But can Miyax’s new home remain untouched? With the industrialized world expanding ever further into the north, her new life is not a stable one. The ending is bittersweet, but it feels like truth.

What’s most interesting to me is that I felt my own reactions to Miyax’s environment change right along with hers. In the beginning, I felt frightened for Miyax and a bit disgusted by the lengths that she was forced to go to in order to survive. But by the end, I was happily eating raw liver and packing my sled with caribou “chips” (aka, poop) for fuel right along with her. I rejoiced at the thought of Miyax turning her back on “civilized” life and surviving on her own.

Perfect Musical Pairing


Genesis – White Mountain

From the 1970 album, an epic song about harsh reality and adventure through the eyes of a wolf on the white mountain. Couldn’t be more perfect!

Julie, or when she goes by her Eskimo name Miyax, is a young Inuit girl, that ends up running away from her husband to escape a marriage she was not interested in. Her intention was to go to San Francisco to move in with her friend Amy. After spending some time in the Alaskan tundra she finds her true path, and it turned out it was not the path to San Francisco. Miyax learns the language of the wolf, and is adopted by a pack that is lead by a wise wolf she named Amaroq. The Wolf pack had saved her life on several occasions, and she was able to return the favor. This was a great story about self reliance, self discovery, respect for nature, and the movement between cultures.

I read this and My Side of the Mountain regularly. "For a bounty! For money, the magnificent Amaroq is dead!", breaks me every single time. :-(

I read this a while ago, but do remember kind of liking it.
adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I had to force myself to finish this. I'm not a huge fan of animal books to begin with, but even Part II, where it was talking about the protagonist's life before she ran off to the tundra, didn't interest me. The whole plot seemed far-fetched, and the ending was unsatisfying. I expect a lot out of the Newbery books, and this one was a disappointment.

I really, really adored this book when I was young. I was pretty sure that if I could manage to meet a wolf, I would be able to talk to her because I had memorized this story so well. I definitely had a thing for Young Native Woman Survivalist Novels (Island of the Blue Dolphin was another fave) and this one was extra fun because I was going through my weird wolf girl phase (why yes, it did coincide with my weird horse girl phase, why do you ask?).

Going back to it now, I was a little shocked by how bleak it is. It's a survivalist novel, yeah, but it's also a child marriage horror story with an attempted sexual assault right in the middle. There's a lurking story about native children being rehomed and forcibly re-educated into English culture and losing the ability to participate in their own culture, but the story being told through the eyes of a 13 year old did simplify that down a little bit.

But geez, this book made raw Caribou liver sound delicious so there's definitely some engrossing writing in there.

But! As an adult reader with a little more nervousness about representation, I am slightly concerned to find out that the author isn't native. It seems like she has a lot of expertise in the local nature and climate, but I did find a couple reviews online from native folks who actually live in this part of Alaska and they were not pleased with some of her inaccuracies. Apparently she got a lot of the language wrong ("amoraq" should be "amaguq" and there's no "X" in the Inupiaq alphabet, so "Miyax" is not a native name etc) and some of the basic geography and behaviors don't really make sense to actual native readers from Barrow and if they thing this story isn't good representation, I am going to defer to them.

So, loved it as kid, but as an adult it's a little cringe-y to see a white author writing about how this girl likes that starvation has made her cheeks hollow like a white girl's face. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I absolutely loved this! In fact, if this had been around when I was a young teen (it was published first in 1972 - I was a senior in high school), it would have so delighted me, I'd have read it over and over again. It is absolutely deserving of its 1973 Newbery Award.

The story opens in the tundra somewhere south of Barrow, Alaska in an unspecified but modern time. A 13 year old girl, Julie (English name) Miyax (Eskimo name), alone and starving, having run away from an abusive marriage. She's on a hillock watching a wolf pack, hoping to be accepted sufficiently that the pack shares food with her. Does this seem fantastical to you? It's not as we quickly learn.

We gradually learn that Julie Miyax spent her childhood with her widowed father in his seal camp learning the native traditions and respect for animals. This knowledge and lore allowed her not just to set off across the tundra on her own to escape an untenable situation, but to survive. Julie's voyage, not just of survival, but also her coming of age and knowledge of self, is beautifully and excitingly shared here. I found myself with Julie watching then interacting with the pack, foraging for food, building shelter, withstanding a snowstorm.

This is the first in a trilogy, and I've already borrowed the remaining series in the library. When you read this, get the most recent edition published by the author's children after her death - there are wonderful additional materials you must read.

Great book from childhood, with a lot of nature studies and observation, learning how the world works around us. I actually appreciated the author perspective more this time around. There was a foreword and afterword that were very interesting, detailing the author's travels and research efforts. Always a fan of nature survival stories, and always a fan of Jean Craighead George.