![]() ![]() ![]() *Always obey the rules for women so as not to spoil a husband's luck in hunting. *Sew beautiful clothes (to be praised by the husband in front of other men, for this was an honor) *Eat little, save the best for family, never eat alone *Take food to the men in their house and wait to take away the dishes Minuk of the Yup'ik group of Inuits in Alaska in the 1890's tells us right away some of things a girl must know to become a "good" woman: Once I got about halfway into it and used to the author's style, I enjoyed it as well. I think a lot of girls can and will benefit from reading this book, even if it does read somewhat awkwardly. ![]() That said, Minuk is a good protagonist for girls to read about, and is bright, spunky, and inquisitive. The missionaries and Minuk's life takes a backseat, it seems, to explaining what it means to be a Yi'puk eskimo, and while I understand that it's historical fiction, I think there would have been a fluent way to transition between the historical information and the story itself. ![]() While the plot had a good deal of potiental in terms of interesting young readers, it reads awkwardly at points and the plot is often broken by long passages of background information. Minuk is a hard-working girl learning what it is to become a woman in Yi'puk Alaska whose life is shaken up when Christian missionaries come to "civilize" her village. In reading Minuk for a class on YA literature, I have to say that I was interested in but not in love with this particular story. ![]()
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