A Gwich'in Coming of Age Story from the Yukon RiverVelma Wallis shares the love, loss, and struggle that mark her coming of age in a two-room cabin at Fort Yukon, Alaska, where she is born the sixth of thirteen children. Family life is defined by the business of survival, but it is a time of innocence and laughter, too, as the children escape into a world of play under the midnight sun. But when the monthly government checks come, there is much drinking, and that is when the pain comes out of hiding. Velma follows her own path, a journey of persistance, recovery, reconciliation, and ultimately of finding her own strength.
"[Velma Wallis] gets applause
for good-hearted candor and a good book that contributes to the understanding of a little- understood part of America. She should win something for this book...for its unflinching and courageous honesty."
----Cedar Rapids Gazette
"It has been some time since I read a book that made me laugh, cry in anger, feel elated and awaken in me again the sometimes sleeping, but the always-fighting spirit to be myself as an Indian...the reading [was] an evening of pure joy."
----Long Standing Bear Chief, Blackfoot Nation
" [an] extraordinary tale..."
----Anchorage Daily News
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Velma Wallis is the award-winning author of the international best-seller TWO OLD WOMEN, which has sold more than 1 million copies in 17 languages. Wallis and her husband, Jeffery, who have lived off the land for much of their lives by hunting, fishing, and trapping, divide their time between Fairbanks, Alaska, and points north. They recently adopted a third child.
