Julie

I really liked this book it seemed to follow up well with the other one but I found it very hard to follow like when she speaks in a different language but i thought that the author does a very good job describing every thing.

This unusual story of a 13-year-old Eskimo girl who survives in the Canadian Artic by ‘joining’ a wolf pack won the 1973 Newbery Medal. Julie of the Wolves is set in Alaska in what seems to be the early 1970s.

Miyax/Julie (they all had two names, Eskimo and English) leaves an arranged marriage

Show More

and sets out with some food to walk to her pen pal’s house in San Francisco. On the way, she learns self-reliance through the traditional ways, and finds her father.

Although it’s complimentary to the traditional Eskimos and their way of life: The people at seal camp had not been as outdated and old-fashioned as she had been led to believe. No, on the contrary, they had been wise. They had adjusted to nature instead of to man-made gadgets, and obliquely critical of the effect of the ‘gussaks’ on the Eskimo culture and society, there still seemed to me to be a bit of colonialism in the author’s presentation of Julie. Perhaps it’s only that the perspective is 40 years old.

Read this if: you’re interested in a period look at traditional Eskimo culture; or you’ve read Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf and want to try a fictional account of wolf life. 3 stars

Show Less

Fiction: Chapter Book
George, Jean Criaghead Julie. Illust. By Wendell Minor. HarperCollins, 1994. 227p.Middle-school
In this sequel to Julie of the Wolves, Miyax (Julie) comes to terms with living with her father, Kapugen, and his gussak wife, Ellen, in the village of Kangik, in North Slope, Alaska.

Show More

There they are raising musk oxen for their qiviut. When Kapu and his wolf pack threaten the musk ox, Miyax has to lead them away to find other food so they will not be killed. Lovely, realistic charcoal and pencil drawings accompany the narrative text. The poignant story is told with a narrative viewpoint. Themes are reconciliation and cooperation.
AK: Northern village life, musk ox, wolves
Activity: Ask children if they have seen musk ox and if so, what were they like? Have they seen qiviut? What does it look and feel like? (Show them images from websites if they haven’t seen it before.)

Show Less

Book on CD performed by Christina Moore.

Book two of the Julie of the Wolves series, has our heroine returning to her father’s home and trying to reconcile the traditional Eskimo ways with the newer structure of village corporations, industry and working with the white man.

Julie is a marvelous

Show More

character. Strong in body and mind, intelligent, resourceful, determined and loving. She’s also a young woman trying to find her place in the community after her year-long experience among the artic wolf pack she came to know as her family. She has a new stepmother, a red-haired Minnesotan named Ellen, whom she does not want to like. And she is taken aback to find that village life is very different from what she had remembered. Her father flies a plane, uses a snowmobile more often than his sled and dogs, and manages the village’s industry – a tiny herd of musk ox. Julie also faces a personal decision: to leave for more education to secure her future, or to stay and protect her wolf pack. And there is a possible romance that adds yet another element to consider in her decision-making.

The push/pull of old vs new, of childhood vs adulthood, of nature vs business form the central conflicts in the story.

The illustrations by Wendell Minor add a nice touch and support the scenes I had imagined from reading George’s descriptions.

Christina Moore does a fine job of the audio, although I did find the pace a bit slow. I probably read at least half the book in text format.

Show Less

I read this for the "A Title That Starts With The Letter 'J'" part of my 2019 reading challenge. This series has always been one of my favorites.

Miyax (Julie) has returned to her father after surviving on the arctic tundra by joining a pack of wolves (Julie of the Wolves). But her father, Kapugen, once a great hunter in the traditional ways, has adopted the ways of the white man. He flys a plane and rides a snow mobile, and he will kill

Show More

(and has killed) the wolves, if they threaten his herd of musk oxen. Miyax is torn between her love of her father, and eventually even her white step-mother, and her love of the wolf pack which saved her life.
Though written 20 years apart, this sequel flows perfectly from the original Newbery winning book, and is as good as, if not better, than the first.

Show Less