The Great Death
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The Great Death arrived with the man from downriver, the one who came with the light-colored strangers and had little red spots covering his body. Thirteen-year-old Millie and her younger sister, Maura, are fascinated by the guests, but soon sickness takes over their village. As they watch the people they know and love die, the sisters remain unaffected and begin to realize that they will have to find a new home.
Alone in the cold Alaskan winter of 1917, struggling to overcome the obstacles nature throws their way, the girls discover that their true strength lies in their love for each other.
John Smelcer's spare and beautiful prose shapes the sisters' story with tenderness and skill, presenting a powerful tale of determination, survival, and family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As the author notes in his introduction, in the Alaskan winter of 1917, a pandemic spread from white traders to native villagers, killing two thirds of the population. Smelcer (The Trap) offers the fictionalized account of two sisters 13-year-old Millie and 10-year old-Maura the sole survivors from their village ("The village that was all the girls knew of life and place and home had transformed into a smoky shadow of death"). A multitude of experiences challenge the strength and dedication of the girls, as they make their way downriver in an attempt to locate civilization. With two dogs as their only companions and an armful of supplies, they navigate rough weather, wolf attacks, and visits from ghosts. In graceful, detail-rich language, Smelcer renders poetic even the darkest moments of this fast-paced adventure ("Outside, stars clustered like mosquitoes and the moonless night dwindled into nothingness and within the nothingness rising to the stars, were a multitude of spirits of the dead") without mitigating the intensity of the horrors the girls face. The sisters' hardships and triumphs should stay close to readers' hearts. Ages 10 up.
