MAATA'S JOURNAL: A Novel

"Life was good to us in this land others call harsh," writes the Inuit teen of the title. This lovely tale set in the Arctic opens with Maata trapped on an ice-bound island. As she awaits rescue and cares for her mapping expedition colleague who is gravely ill, she records, in journal entries dated from April to July 1924, both her present-day struggle for survival and her childhood memories of the tundra. "We hunted for caribou and seal.... We made our clothes of the skins of the animals we killed. We were happy and we didn't know any differently." But then "strangers" arrive, representatives of the Canadian government, who relocate the Inuit to Foster's Bay. In this desolate settlement, they are soon ravaged by poverty and alcohol, and they yearn for freedom. An elderly woman, Siaja, teaches Maata rudimentary English and later predicts, "I think you will always move between the world of the Inuit and the world of the Qallunaat." As Maata comes to know death and tragedy, cruelty and racism, the words prove true, yet she remains hopeful. The heroine's inner strength and thirst for knowledge help her adapt to a future that includes being shipped to boarding school in far-off Quebec City after her parents' death. Sullivan seamlessly weaves his knowledge of Inuit customs into this graceful coming-of-age tale. His vivid description ("High in the star-swept gardens of the night, my mind would go back to Nunavut [Maata's home]") soars throughout his spare prose. The author creates a memorable character who is learning to navigate two cultures; her story possesses the haunting beauty of an arctic snowscape. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)