September 15, 2011
It's been four lonely years since Lizzie's Athabascan mother passed. After fulfilling one last request, Lizzie will leave Alaska and join her white father in San Francisco. Clay and his stepsister, Vivian, are newly arrived in the Fort Yukon area to establish a mission. Clay will build, while Vivian keeps house and teaches English. But the Athabascans, though entertained by their white visitors, have no interest in hearing about God. Then Clay's attraction to Lizzie results in the tribe threatening to expel the missionaries. It turns out that Lizzie and her mother were long ago banished from the tribe and have lived outside its protection with only her father's dogsled team as company. Sawyer's Evangelical Christian frontier romance, set in 1898, provides a wealth of historical detail, showcasing the best of the missionaries' intentions and behavior while contrasting their expectations and Native peoples' beliefs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)