My Name is Not Easy

Edwardson, Debby Dahl. My Name is Not Easy. 2011. 248p. ISBN 9780761459804. Available at

In the 1960s, education in remote areas of Alaska consists of a few scattered schools. For most students, they must leave their families and their communities to attend a school hundreds of miles away. Luke and his brothers Bunna and Isaac are flying south to attend Sacred Heart School, run by Catholic priests and nuns. Isaac is immediately separated from the two older brothers because he is too young, and ends up adopted and living in Dallas, Texas.

Luke and Bunna join other students who are Inuit, Native Americans, and the odd White students. Racial tensions are high between the two groups of Alaskans, with whites being the outsiders. Chickie is the daughter of a White merchant who owns a store above the Arctic Circle, and she is likewise here to further her education. As the years proceed, these students encounter hardships and trials but manage to grow as individuals while learning to respect their differences.

Told from multiple perspectives and filled with Alaskan history from the period, including possible nuclear detonations to create harbors and ill-conceived scientific studies to inject iodine into people to test their resistance to cold, the stories of the students and teachers of Sacred Heart are able to empower themselves and effect change on their school and on society as a whole. Fans of realistic fiction will appreciate the struggles that they experience as well as the steps they take to address them.