Book Reviews

Book Reviews–The Winter Walk and Two Old Women

The Winter Walk by Loretta Outwater Cox, published 2013, nonfiction, secondary students and older, winner of the Alaska Indigenous Literature Award This is the true story, more than a century old, of Cox’s great-grandmother’s walk to survival with her two young children. Cox’s great-grandmother was Inupiaq, and the older of the two children was Cox’s …

Book Review: Sled Dogs Run

By Jonathan London and illustrated by Jon Van Zyle, the Official Artist of the Iditarod, this book for 6-9 year olds describes a young musher’s experience raising and training sled dog puppies and her run with them on a sled in winter. Readers as young as 4 years old and as old as 11 and …

Book Study: Diamond Willow – A Novel in Poetry

Grades 5-8 (Lessons could be adapted for other levels) Diamond Willow is a young Alaskan girl of Athabaskan and European descent who wants nothing more than to be allowed to mush her team of dogs alone to her grandparents’ house.  When her first solo trip results in a horrible accident that blinds her family’s favorite …

Giving a Hero His Due by Kate Klimo

Dog Diaries #4: Togo by Kate Klimo is a fantastic story of Togo who, according to many historians, should get the most credit for the success of the 1925 Serum Run into Nome.  Balto was the lead dog who carried the serum into town, but Togo was the lead for the longest leg of the relay, almost …

Book Reviews–Iditarod, Tricia Brown and Dogteam, Gary Paulsen

Check this book, Iditarod™ by Tricia Brown, for nonfiction information about the historic Iditarod Trail’s role in Alaska’s Native Alaskan’s lives and the gold rush, an early dog sled race called the All Alaska Sweepstakes, the history and beginning of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race™, champs and record breakers, the dogs, and the women …

Book Reviews- Iditarod Dream & Woodsong

Two books for you to read!  The first is Iditarod Dream: Dusty and His Sled Dogs Compete in Alaska’s Jr. Iditarod. This is a photo-essay of Dusty Whittemore’s 1995 Jr. Iditarod race, his second. Written by Ted Wood, an introduction provides background information for this race for 14 to 17 year olds. Described as a  book …

Book Review–Akiak A Tale from the Iditarod

  Akiak A Tale from the Iditarod is realistic fiction by author and illustrator Robert J. Blake. Akiak (ACK-ee-ack) is a lead sled dog who hurts a paw during the Iditarod, causing her musher to drop her from the team at one of the race checkpoints. She is cared for by the race veterinarians, but …

Book Review–Foxy’s Tale: The True Story of a Champion Alaskan Sled Dog

Just in after walking my Siberian husky and moving on to this review of Foxy’s Tale: The True Story of a Champion Alaskan Sled Dog by Ed White and Donna Freedman and illustrated by Charles Lindemuth. My husky and I didn’t walk as fast as Foxy runs in this true story of a dog and …

Book Review–Ghosts in the Fog: The Untold Story of Alaska’s WWII Invasion

Ghosts in the Fog: The Untold Story of Alaska’s WWII Invasion ©2011 is the narrative nonfiction account of Japan’s invasion of the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Classified military information for years and too difficult for those who lived it to discuss, Samantha Seiple’s pen brings it all to light: the invasion and occupation …