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Searching... Dallas Public Library | YA FICTION - JOHNSON | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Victoria Secord, a fourteen-year-old Alaskan dogsled racer, loses her way on a routine outing with her dogs. With food gone and temperatures dropping, her survival and that of her dogs and the mysterious boy she meets in the woods is entirely up to her.
The author Terry Lynn Johnson is a musher herself, and her crackling writing puts readers at the reins as Victoria and Chris experience setbacks, mistakes, and small triumphs in their wilderness adventure.
Author Notes
Terry Lynn Johnson, author of Ice Dogs, Sled Dog School , and the Survivor Diaries series, lives in Whitefish Falls, Ontario where for ten years she owned a team of eighteen Alaskan Huskies.
www.terrylynnjohnson.com
Twitter:@TerryLynnJ
"
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Victoria Secord, a 14-year-old dog musher, has been struggling in the year since her father died. Her relationship with her mother is falling apart and her best source of comfort is the dog team that once belonged to her father. While out on a run with the animals, she finds and rescues an injured city boy, but after getting lost in a blizzard they both need rescuing. With the survival skills she learned from her father, Victoria must lead them all to safety. Written by a musher, this book is full of detailed descriptions of dog sledding and far northern survival. At times the technical details are more fully fleshed out than the character development, but they are never so complex as to break the flow of the story. Fast-paced plotting and suspense-filled writing will push readers along as the characters journey from dangerous disasters to lucky breaks. The high-stakes adventure and episodic nature of the chapters will make this book an easy sell for reluctant readers. Even in an arctic setting that can feel as foreign as a distant planet, Johnson keeps a sense of realism in this enjoyable adventure tale.-Elizabeth Nicolai, Anchorage Public Library, AK (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Johnson's second novel about dogsledding, after 2010's Dogsled Dreams, is a page-turner full of white-knuckle action. Fourteen-year-old Vicky Secord is determined to win the White Wolf Classic to solidify her late father's legacy as an expert musher. She misses him deeply and has thrown herself into mushing, neglecting her social life and resenting her mother, who Vicky is certain wants to leave Alaska for Seattle. During what was supposed to be a quick trip on the sled Vicky encounters a young stranger collapsed in the snow after a snowmobile accident. As Chris recovers, he reveals himself to be a smart aleck fresh in from Toronto with no knowledge of the outdoors. When their map is lost as a result of carelessness on Chris's part, they are lost for days with only Vicky's persistence and memories of her father's wisdom to save them. The unlikely team's bickering (and chemistry), the risks inherent to the wilderness, and the dogs' personalities are all skillfully rendered. Readers will be riveted until the end. Ages 10-up. Agent: Caryn Wiseman, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Distraught over her trapper father's death the previous year, fourteen-year-old musher Victoria Secord honors his memory, and her own passion, by devoting all her time to her Alaskan sled dogs and training for the upcoming White Wolf Classic race. Her single-minded determination isolates her from her mother and best friend. When her mom refuses to drive to a rival kennel so Vicky can buy a few extra dogs for her team, she puts together some basic supplies and a skeleton dog crew and sets off alone on the thirty-five-mile wilderness trek. On the trail she comes upon a bleeding and disoriented boy--a newcomer from Toronto named Chris--who has crashed his snowmobile into a tree; when she tries to take him home, they get lost. Thus begins a top-notch survival story as for five days the two deal with a blizzard, freezing temperatures, a burnt map, a lost compass, a charging moose, injuries to the dogs, hunger, and hypothermia. Debut novelist Johnson links character to setting by showing how Vicky uses her knowledge of the land and copes with the elements, creates shelter, and snares animals in order to survive. But she must also depend on Chris's friendship, a convincing decision that releases her from her self-imposed loneliness and creates a believable denouement. betty carter (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In late winter in the Alaskan bush, a top junior dog sled racer loses her way in this thoroughly engaging and incredibly suspenseful survival story. The day after 14-year-old Victoria Secord places sixth in a race that qualifies her for the coveted White Wolf Classic, she hooks up her dogs and sets off for what she thinks will be a four-hour run covering an estimated 35 miles. She's heard that a local competitor "may be getting out of dogs" and is determined to have first pick of his champion leaders. But things get out of hand quickly. She finds and rescues an injured snowmobiler (Chris, a city boy her age) and in her haste to get him home, takes an unfamiliar trail as a blizzard builds; they're forced to spend that night (and more) outside. Johnson (Dogsled Dreams, 2010), a former musher, clearly writes from a deep well of experience. She admirably depicts the emotional life of a self-reliant, introspective and angry young musher mourning the loss of her beloved father, a trapper and river guide, who died in an accident 14 months earlier. Worried about dehydration, hypothermia, and food for both dogs and themselves, Vicky draws on memories of experiences with her dad to guide them. Though Chris' ignorance of outdoor life often endangers them, their burgeoning, bantering friendship adds depth even as the well-paced suspense builds. Well-crafted, moving and gripping. (Adventure. 10-14)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In the year since 14-year-old Alaskan Victoria lost her father, she has felt isolated from her mother and her community. She pours herself into working with the dog-sled team she and her dad loved and runs in local sledding races, finding little else to engage her interest or energy. Setting out one morning with the team to a distant neighbor, she comes across a wrecked snowmobile and its unconscious driver, Chris, as a deadly snowstorm rolls in. Thus begins an adventure in the vein of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet (1987) as Victoria and Chris struggle to survive in the harsh Alaska wilderness. Johnson has crafted a vivid setting and cast of characters, teens and dogs, coupled with pacing that locks the reader in from the opening descriptions of a sled race to Victoria and Chris' semi-cooperative three-day attempt to make it home. Some gentle gender-role switching athletic but citified Chris can sew but doesn't know survival basics adds even more texture to this dynamic adventure. Emotionally satisfying and insightful, this story has staying power.--Goldsmith, Francisca Copyright 2014 Booklist