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Overview
Now in paperback: the acclaimed middle-grade novel tracing four generations of an Iñupiaq family in Alaska, which the Washington Post praised as "a rare and beautiful book."
ALASKA, 1917
Nutaaq adores her older sister, Aaluk, and the happy world of their close-knit Iñupiaq village. When Aaluk goes across the sea to marry a Siberian Inuit man, she gives Nutaaq a gift from her husband's people: two precious cobalt blue beads. Through the months that follow, as a great shadow falls over the village, the beads remind Nutaaq of the people she loves, and hold out hope that she might connect with her sister again.
ALASKA, 1989
Blessing's life in the city is unpredictable, with a mother who's sometimes wonderful and sometimes gone. When Mom finally can't take care of her anymore, Blessing is sent to live in a remote Arctic village with a grandmother she barely remembers. In her new home, unfriendly girls whisper in a language she doesn't understand, and Blessing feels like an outsider among her own people. Until she looks in her grandmother's sewing tin--and finds a cobalt blue bead.
How might Blessing discover her place in her family and community? And will Nutaaq's hope ever be fulfilled? Tracing four generations of bonds and breakage within one Iñupiaq family, Blessing's Bead is a lovely and surprising novel about trauma, survival, and the healing power of culture and stories.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781643795768 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Lee & Low Books |
| Publication date: | 06/28/2022 |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.50(d) |
| Age Range: | 11 - 14 Years |
About the Author
Debby Dahl Edwardson is the acclaimed author of three books for young readers: Blessing's Bead; My Name Is Not Easy, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; and the picture book Whale Snow. She married into and has lived for more than forty years among the Inupiat people of Alaska, of which she says, "It is not the culture I was not born into but it is the one I belong to, the one that has become home to me as a human being and as an artist." She lives in Utqiagvik, Alaska, the northernmost community on the North American continent, with her husband.
Read an Excerpt
Sheshalik, at first sight, is too big to believe--all the tents, the skin tents of our people, stretching out along the edge of the beach and reaching up inland for as far as the eye can see. Overflowing with the sounds of happiness--the kind of happiness that only comes of many, many people, all coming together as one.
This is my first impression of the Sheshalik trade fair, that all the people of the world must be here. Everyone in the entire world, all here at Sheshalik, preparing to trade.
People have indeed come from many distant places, each group bringing the specialties of its own region. We ourselves have sealskin pokes full of seal oil, and split walrus skins for boat-making, because our women are the most skillful at preparing these. We also have coils and coils of sealskin rope, strong enough to pull a whale. The rope our men make is always in high demand by those from other regions. We will trade these island things for stone from the People-of-the-Land, soapstone and jade from the mountains up inland, the kind used for lamps, seal oil lamps.
Aaluk will of course need a lamp of her own, now that she has become a woman. A pretty new lamp carved of jade, perhaps, or a smooth one of polished soapstone. A lamp to heat her own home, when she leaves ours for the home of her husband, whoever he may be. But not me. I have no use for a lamp, just yet. Nor for a husband.
I've been eying the Siberian reindeer skins, for the length of our trip together--white as snow and supple as water, piled high in the Siberians' boats. I am wanting a new parka, a pretty new parka of Siberian reindeer, soft and light and easy to run in. I would have it with a dark wolverine ruff and leather trim dyed red with willow bark, the way the inland people make it. I hope Papa will trade one of our seal oil pokes for enough skins for a new parka for me.
It doesn't take long to unpack our gear and soon our tent is snug as home with
Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions
Book 1
1. Nutaaq states, "How glorious it is when summer comes again!" What makes summer so special in this part of the world? Page 3
2. During the storytelling at Sheshalik, Uyagak says, "A new way has come with the new people [....] Those who fail to follow will die in the cold as if in a parka full of holes." What is he referring to? Page 14
3. Think about the time and place of this chapter. What changes might Nutaaq have witnessed during her lifetime? How would those changes impact the Iñupiaq way of life? Pages 14-15
4. Nutaaq says she feels tricked. Why does she feel this way? How would you feel if you were in her situation? Page 25
5. What did it mean to say goodbye to a loved one in 1917? How has that changed today? Page 32
6. Why does Nutaaq give Manu the bead? Page 51
7. Nutaaq says, "One of the boot-sole leaders has come." Who might she be referring to? Why did he want the remaining villagers to find new spouses and form new families? What would you do if you were in their situation? Pages 53-55
Book 2
1. Read the first few pages of Book 1. How does the voice and style of Book 2 compare to Book 1? What information does the new narrative voice give the reader? Explain that in the first book, Nutaaq seems to speak very good English but she would actually be speaking fluent Iñupiaq. Many of the characters in Book 2, like Aaka, don't speak English as well because their first language is Iñupiaq. Pages 61-63
2. Blessing describes the foods that Isaac has eaten (note that "Sailor Boy" is a type of cracker). She says, "He don't remember back to when Mom and me used to have seal oil all the time. Back before Stephan." What impact do you think Stephan had on their family? Page 79
3. How does Blessing know that Aaka is blind, or partially blind? How did Aaka compensate for her visual impairment? Page 82
4. Miss Colato teaches the students how to translate Village English into School English. Looking at her examples, what do you see as the similarities and differences between the two types of English? Are there differences between the way you communicate at school and at home or with your friends? Pages 92-93
5. Why did Blessing's mom want the bead to be buried with Grandma Nutaaq? Why did Aaka keep the bead? What did Isaac mean when he said, "Mom wanted to chase death away, right, Aaka?" Page 119 (Consider rereading page 51 to revisit Nutaaq's feelings about the beads chasing away death.)
6. Locate the Bering Strait on a map and tell students that a sea strait is a narrow navigable body of water that connects two larger bodies of waters. Remind students that the border between what was then the Soviet Union and the United States is in the middle of the Bering Strait. Read Aaka's description of the border on the bottom of page 120. How did the border closing affect the Iñupiaq? Pages 120-121
7. What does Mom mean when she says "Maybe it got lost somewhere," referring to her Iñupiaq name? Why do you think Blessing gave the bead to her mom? Where do you think the bead might go to next? Pages 166-168
8. Why did the author give such careful consideration to the names in this story? Pages 172-173