From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up Willa Raedl, 17, feels totally alone since her older brother died. Her mother, a nurse, spends most of her time traveling from village to village, and her father is a wilderness guide. Ignored by both parents, but especially her dad, the teen thinks that she must measure up to her brother. Learning to fly Uncle Jordy's Cessna 185 gives her a sense of purpose and belonging. When she goes to visit her uncle and finds him drunk, she decides to fly solo from Sioux Lookout to Peawanuck, near Hudson Bay, where her mother is expecting to be picked up. This hasty decision has far-reaching consequences. When Willa flies into a storm and crash-lands, she begins an 18-day struggle to survive. Even though this is essentially a gripping survival story, it is also a well-written, thoughtful book about a girl's desperate efforts to gain her father's approval.
Sharon Morrison, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant, OK Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Gr. 6-9. When 17-year-old Willa, a licensed pilot, decides to fly her uncle's winter supply route without permission, she hopes that the bold act will shake her parents out of their distracted absorption in her deceased older brother. Instead, she crashes into the "vast, roadless reaches of northern Ontario" and must marshal all her resources to survive. Willa's extreme competence occasionally strains belief, and at times the details of building equipment from scavenged materials--snowshoes, fish trap, sledge--are chronicled with more care for accuracy than for dramatic effect. Nevertheless, the mortal challenges Willa faces make for a gripping narrative, one sharpened by visceral details: the slushy snot after a despairing sob, the cold so frigid that "inhaling air . . . was like trying to breathe ammonia." This promising debut, which will help introduce gender balance into the survival-adventure genre, will appeal most to older middle-graders and younger YAs who were riveted by Gary Paulsen's
Hatchet (1987).
Jennifer MattsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
