The Storytellers' Club: The Picture-Writing Women of the Arctic

"(T)his novel captures the world of the Inupiaq of Alaska…The book is set in the 1920s, but the tales are from the women's youth, around the late 1800s. The stories range from the everyday — favorite recipes — to legends of giants and spiders that live among the people. They are lessons in history, both because these are women who never learned to read and write, and because they record the history of the Alaskan Indians. Their power is that they contain universal themes: family unity, respect for others, welcoming strangers, building up the weak, overcoming difficulty, and wrestling with grief." — School Library Journal