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These two should look alike.
	Ixisabviat

Martha Stackhouse of Barrow

Book Review on Julie of the Wolves
By Jean Craighead George

Jean Craighead George lives in the eastern part of United States. However, she has family who have lived in Barrow for many years. Therefore she comes to Barrow at least once a year to visit. She makes a point to visit her grandson's classrooms whenever she comes in. Recently, I browsed through our middle school book fair and there were a number of her books for sale. I couldn't help but noticed that in one of her more recent books, the Inupiaq word for wolf (amaguq) was still miss spelled as "amaroq."

The book Julie of the Wolves, was printed in 1972 and it won a Newberry Award in 1973. It is often listed as one of the Battle of the Books through out the nation. The book has the thirteen year old Inupiaq girl, named Miyax, trekking from Barrow to Pt. Hope in order to catch the ship called the "North Star." The Inupiaq alphabet does not have the letter "x" so Miyax is definitely not an Inupiaq name. I wondered why she bothered to walk to Pt. Hope to catch the North Star when the ship also goes to Barrow. She had hopes of catching a ride in the ship to San Francisco, where her pen pal lived. She had grown up in Nunivak Island where she was forced to leave her father in order to get educated. This was a prime example of a forced education. She lived with her mean aunt while she was being educated. In order to get away from her aunt, she married the son of her father's friends, whom she later found out was simple minded. She decided to leave Barrow and started walking to Pt. Hope, roughly 400 to 450 miles away.

During this trek, Miyax began to starve. She ate lemmings, which was very misleading, as Inupiaq people do not eat lemmings. However, she feasted on eighty lemmings. She didn't start snaring birds until she was quite close to Pt. Hope. She befriended the wolves who eventually gave her their "cuds" like they give their young until they are old enough to eat meat. She doesn't begin snaring ptarmigan until the very end of her journey and never fishes in the numerous lakes and rivers. Once she was able to take food away from the wolverine with the use of antlers for protection. This is inaccurate information, as wolverines are quite strong and will not permit any animal, much less a young girl, from taking their food away. They are known to hunt down animals much larger than themselves. Nevertheless, Miyax was able to do it.

There are other misleading references through out the book. The author talked about lemmings going crazy because of the built up of the antifreeze in their systems. The lemmings committed a mass suicide in the middle of December. I have never heard of mass suicides in the middle of the winter. I have witnessed them coming through Barrow once in the 1950's in the middle of summer. Summer is the time when lemmings become numerous. They are almost never seen during the winter, although they may be seen once in a while. There may be anti freeze in their systems but I had never heard of it being the cause of the mass suicide.

I especially did not appreciate the blending of the Yupik words and culture, as she was talking about the Inupiaq region. The author used the word "kuspuk" when we used "atikjuks" for the outer covering of a parka. She also used "Gussak" which is also a Yupik word for a white man, derived from the Russian "Cossacks." Our Inupiaq name for white man is "Tanik." She talked about the bladder festival. Again it is derived from a Yupik celebration, not Inupiaq.

The stereotype of an Inupiaq image was projected when Miyax happened to look into the water to see her reflection. She was starving and had become quite lean. She was overjoyed to see that her face had become thin like those pictures she had seen in the magazines and movies of the Gussak girls. I wondered what impact it would have on our Inupiaq adolescent girls. Would they start to dislike their healthy round faces? My hope is that they would respect themselves enough to know they are beautiful, just the way they are.

Another misrepresentation occurred when Miyax got very close to Pt. Hope. She started seeing willows that were close to the ground level. She was very excited about seeing them once again, as Barrow did not have willows. There have always been willows near Barrow for as long as I have lived here. Elders have stories about using it as traditional medicine. They also picked it and dipped it with seal oil.

One more misconception was when the tundra makes geometric shapes. The author points out that it is caused from freezing in the winter and it "pops"; when in fact it is caused from constant freezing in the winter and thawing in the summer, year after year. This is an Arctic science that is studied by our school children. Another misconception that was written was about the midnight sun. It was described as being as bright as the noon sun. The noon sun is very high but the midnight sun is red and orange like any other setting sun. It starts to go down but it never quite goes below the horizon and makes its way up again after midnight. There is a definite difference between the noon and midnight sun.

The book is at a 5.8 reading level. There are not that many illustrations but what was there, were pretty accurate. They looked like pencil drawings.

With all due respect for Jean Craighead George, I humbly would not recommend the book to be put on school shelves. I know it is hard work to write books, but when misinformation about the Arctic are numerous, one must say something about the book. When something is written down, it is often believed to be true by their readers. It is a book that is widely read by school children all over our country and they believe many things that are written in there.

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