Blessing's Bead

by Debby Dahl Edwardson Narrated by Aaluk Edwardson

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Author of the picture book Whale Snow, Edwardson's first novel is a lyrical piece of historical fiction that focuses on Iñupiaq culture in Alaska, narrated by two teenage women, generations apart. In 1917, Nutaaq's beloved older sister, Aaluk, falls in love with a visiting Siberian and disappears with him across the ocean, leaving her sister with a pair of blue beads and a promise to return. Soon after, Spanish influenza devastates Nutaaq's village (“The silence of death has become as familiar as family. I recognize it instantly”). Seventy years later, Blessing (Nutaaq's great-granddaughter) and her younger brother are sent away from their alcoholic mother in Anchorage to live with their grandmother in a traditional Iñupiaq village where they initially feel like outsiders. But as Blessing absorbs their stories and traditions (“When they stamp their feet, the drums pound louder and the voices rise higher and it makes me want to jump up and dance with them”), she begins to identify with her culture. Narrating in a heavy dialect, Blessing makes an emotional journey of self-discovery, as Edwardson weaves a fascinating portrait of a family's rich history. Ages 10–up. (Nov.)

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up—In 1917, Aaluk is drawn away from her small Alaskan village by a handsome young Siberian, tempted by his beautiful blue beads and wooed by mysteries across the sea. She leaves her sister with two beads and a promise: she will be back with a bead for every person in her Inupiaq family. Nutaaq watches the ocean and waits, year after year, but she never sees her sister again. In 1989, 14-year-old Blessing and her younger brother are taken away from their abusive stepfather and loving, but irresponsible and alcoholic mother in Anchorage to live with their grandmother and uncle in a village "up North." Blessing misses her mother, but she is fascinated by the stories about her great-grandmother Nutaaq. Blessing's story is tied irrevocably to those of her ancestors. She adapts to life with her kind and intuitive grandmother. Nested in her grandmother's sewing basket is a blue bead. Surreptitiously she pockets it and at once it becomes her talisman. She learns the seasonal tempos: to dance to the drums, to celebrate the whale harvest, to sew, to carve caribou antlers, to make a yo-yo, and, at long last, to greet the Siberian visitors who, after decades of the politically enforced Ice Curtain, are able to reunite. Pivotal to the power of the novel are the shifts between Nutaaq and Aaluk's time and Blessing's present. This unique and fascinating tale is told in an evocative voice that includes Village English, school English, Native language, and colloquialisms.—Alison Follos, North Country School, Lake Placid, NY

Kirkus Reviews

In 1917, two Inupiaq sisters are separated when one marries a Siberian and crosses the Soviet "Ice Curtain." In 1989, Blessing-great-granddaughter of the other sister-heads to Barrow, Alaska, to stay with her aaka (grandmother) while her mother is in treatment for alcoholism. There Blessing finds a blue bead in the bottom of her aaka's sewing tin. As she grows to understand and love her new community, she learns about the story the bead holds and how it connects the whole family-even those in Siberia, who visit when the Ice Curtain finally falls. This multilayered family story is marred somewhat by awkward pacing and sometimes-unconvincing voices-the 1917 voice is overcome with nature similes; Blessing's is occasionally strongly colloquial ("My mom always braid my hair before she go Bingo"), only to slip suddenly into "proper" English. Still, Edwardson treads an elegant line in her perspective: Blessing is both an insider-Inupiaq-and an outsider still learning exactly what that means. It's a perspective that allows any reader in, and they'll learn much about the power of stories and names and how to use them both. (Fiction. 9-13)

From the Publisher

* "Concrete and symbolic references to the transforming power of language, names, and stories link the two narratives, but it's the Nutaaqs' rhythmic, indelible voices—both as steady and elemental as the beat of a drum or a heart—that will move readers most. A unique, powerful debut." — Booklist, starred review

"A rare and beautiful book. It's a short read that nonetheless makes many far-reaching connections, like a folk tale or a legend, wrapped in a tough but straightforward narrative, leaving echoes that linger long after and in unanticipated ways.... a rich and nuanced enactment of a perspective and a mode of storytelling that surprises as much as it reveals." — The Washington Post

"Edwardson treads an elegant line in her perspective: Blessing is both an insider—Iñupiaq—and an outsider still learning exactly what that means. It's a perspective that allows any reader in, and they'll learn much about the power of stories and names and how to use them both." — Kirkus Reviews

"The community's sharing of a whale adds color, as do the authentic imagery, details, and language that pervade this memorable story." — The Horn Book

"Blessing makes an emotional journey of self-discovery, as Edwardson weaves a fascinating portrait of a family's rich history." — Publishers Weekly

"This unique and fascinating tale is told in an evocative voice that includes Village English, school English, Native language, and colloquialisms." — School Library Journal

"Atmospheric yet restrained, this is a moving account of what's changed and what remains in Inupiaq life." — Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Best Fiction for Young Adults - Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)
Junior Library Guild Selection - Junior Library Guild
Notable Books for a Global Society - International Literacy Association (ILA)
Virginia Readers' Choice - Virginia State Literacy Association

author of the Newbery Honor Book On My Honor and K Marion Dane Bauer

Blessing's Bead is a gem—lyrical, fresh—and a compelling story, too. What a unique and universal tale!

author of the Newbery Medal Book Julie of the Wolv Jean Craighead George

An outstanding novel. Every young person and adult should read this page-turning look into the culture of the Iñupiaq Eskimos. It is both a compelling and an enriching tale.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178336366
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	04/11/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

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

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