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.

The Dream

McLay, R.K. The Dream. Book 1 of the Rahtrum Chronicles series. 2016. 328p. ISBN 978-1-927083-37-6. Available at FIC MCL on the library shelves.

For thousands of years, Nature has been in balance and Rahtrum, the Great Binder, has ensured that the world functions properly. But the rise of the Cargoth, two-legged animals who lack fur except on their heads and who have developed large objects and created gashes in the land has threatened this balance. The environment is deteriorating, and the speed of change is increasing.

Up past the Arctic Circle, caribou are spending the winter months in their grazing range south of the Beaufort Sea. Boo and his mother, Taiga, are part of a large herd. A yearling, Boo is spending his first winter away from the Sea, but he looks forward to returning to the calving grounds, a migration the herd makes every year. For a caribou, Boo is very inquisitive, and his mother knows that he is different from the other in the herd, and even from herself.

When Rahtrum appears to Boo and his mother, it is to entrust the young caribou with a mission. He must find a small flower that blooms but one day in a secret location unknown to all. By consuming this flower, Boo can become Rahtrum’s champion and rights the balance, making the Cargoth understand the value of the environment around them.

Unfortunately for Boo, however, a dark and violent enemy is also bent on acquiring the flower for his own purposes. Watched by spies but protected by an unlikely alliance of gnomes, fairies, eagles and wolves, Boo and his mother travel through the immense Yukon wilderness, seeking answers to Rahtrum’s quest. Upon his success depends the fate of all animals and of Nature itself.