Grade 5-7. Set in 1946 in a remote Alaskan village, this story chronicles the coming-of-age of a 12-year-old half-white, half-Tlingit girl who is sent to live with her native grandmother when her military father is posted overseas. Clearie comes to know herself and her heritage through her interactions with her relatives and with the community. At first feeling "frozen inside," she eventually opens her heart to her family and decides to learn the "old ways" of weaving, paddling, and fishing. The story unfolds rapidly with crisis after crisis as the villagers are forced to come to grips with problems of alcoholism and arson by standing up to the local whisky runner. Abandoned by her mother when she was five, Clearie now realizes that alcohol played a major role in her mother's behavior. Intertwined are a light romance between Clearie and a local boy, folktales, and great descriptions of life and wildlife in Southeast Alaska. The ending is rather pat but satisfying. Martin provides a glimpse of an earlier but not less complicated time. Jamie S. Bryson's The War Canoe (Alaska Northwest, 1990) tells of a troubled Tlingit teen who also finds self-awareness by learning about his heritage. Readers will find action, adventure, and a sense of place and family in this novel, despite its obvious lessons.?Mollie Bynum, formerly at Chester Valley Elementary School, Anchorage,
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr 6^-9. In August of 1946, 12-year-old Clearie's father sends her to live with her Tlingit relatives in Alaska while he is on duty in occupied Japan. Clearie's mother has disappeared, and her father is emotionally distant, but she takes to her solid and accepting grandmother, great-uncle, and aunt at once. It takes her longer to let herself thaw and see herself in their affection and remember and forgive her mother. The characterizations are not deep--all of the locals are wise and good, except for the town drunk, who sells hooch, sets fires, and threatens Clearie. Also, Clearie's understanding of herself and her mother's alcoholic past is a bit too easy in coming. The story is written with economy and grace, however, and fragments of Tlingit tales, the rhythms of the fish and the sea, the wool and the wood, are vivid and genuine. GraceAnne A. DeCandido
See all Editorial Reviews
(
