Qaqavii: A Novel

by Miriam Korner

Overview

On the heels of Miriam Körner's critically acclaimed first novel, Yellow Dog, comes the highly anticipated young adult adventure — Qaqavii — set amongst the unforgettable land and people of Canada's majestic North.

When 15-year-old Emmylou arrives in Churchill, Manitoba — the Polar Bear Capital of the World — all she can think about is getting out of town before she ends up on the wrong end of a polar bear dinner. But things are rarely what they seem in the North and Emmylou's outlook begins to change — fast. First, she meets Barnabas, a young Inuk who is training dogs for the gruelling Arctic Quest — a sled-dog race held at the edge of the Arctic. That's when she falls for the insatiable Qaqavii, an unruly puppy who doesn't quite fit into the dog team. But things really start to heat up when Emmylou gets a chance to race in the Arctic Quest herself, something that will surely turn her life upside down forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780889955707
Publisher:	Red Deer Press
Publication date:	09/01/2019
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Miriam Körner was born in Germany, but now lives in Northern Saskatchewan with her husband and their twelve sled dogs. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Yellow Dog.

Editorial Reviews

07/01/2019

Gr 6–9—For 16-year-old Emmylou, her new town of Churchill, Manitoba, is a lonely place, where tourists come every fall to see the polar bears who roam the nearby tundra. When she is about to run away, Emmylou meets an Inuk boy and his team of sled dogs who are training for the 250-mile Arctic Quest sled race, and she finds a reason to stay. Barnabas and his elderly grandparents seem to be the family that she has been missing, and from them she learns about Inuit customs, food, language, and clothing. She is intrigued by the history of the area and its people, especially with stories of the Sayisi Dene, who were forcibly relocated to Churchill, and she visits the Itsanitaq Museum and local library to do research for her homeschooling requirement. When the time comes for the Arctic Quest, she unsurprisingly accompanies Barnabas on the harsh and dangerous race. Körner writes from her experience as a newcomer who became intrigued with dogsledding and who ran the Quest herself. She also includes Inuktitut words in the story. Emmylou and her prejudiced mother have an antagonistic relationship, and while their conflict is not fully resolved, Emmylou gains confidence, some understanding of her mother, and a feeling of belonging in her new home. VERDICT The high adventure of the dogsled race and fascinating background of the Native peoples may be enough to keep readers of adventure stories interested in this coming-of-age tale.—MaryAnn Karre, Binghamton, NY

School Library Journal

★ 2019-07-13
Constantly moving from one town to the next with her frightened single mother, Emmylou desperately wants real friends.

She is only 15, yet when her mother moves them to Churchill, Manitoba, to wait tables in a tourist town, she has Emmylou drop out of school and work too. Studying on her own, young Emmylou begins to take an interest in local history. Her greatest lessons, however, come via the Indigenous family who take her under their wing. She makes friends with handsome Barnabas, an Inuk teenager planning to compete in an ambitious race, and his sled dog Qaqavii. She learns the locals' lifestyle as well as about the tragic history of prejudice and dispossession they have faced. The book deals powerfully with events experienced by the Inuk, also teaching readers about the clothing, hunting, and culture of dog sledding. Perhaps because of her itinerant lifestyle, Emmylou is drawn to Barnabas and his deep connection to the land. Unfortunately, their connective displacement is never explicitly discussed because Emmylou envisions Barnabas as rooted despite his ancestral loss. Rather than representing a failure on the part of the author, it feels as if she keeps a respectful distance from a culture that is not her own by rendering the world exclusively from the perspective of the white outsider, Emmylou.

A lonely teen heals herself with the help of an Inuk boy and his dogs. (map, dog commands, dog names, author interview, further reading) (Fiction. 12-16)

Kirkus Reviews