About this item
Highlights
- Told by a young Inuit boy, this story imagines what might have happened if the people of a Baffin Island winter camp had encountered European whalers.
- 8-12 Years
- 4.9" x 7.3" Paperback
- 96 Pages
- Juvenile Fiction, Historical
Description
About the Book
During the early 1600s, there was an active whaling industry in Canada. Whale oil was used to light the streets and buildings of European cities and to manufacture leather, wool, and soap. The baleen was used to make everything from carriage springs to corsets. Told from the point of view of a young Inuit boy named Tuk, this story imagines what might have happened if the people of Tuk's Baffin Island winter camp had encountered European whalers, blown far from their usual whaling route. Both the hunters and the whalers prize the bowhead whale for different reasons. Together, they set out on a hunt, though they are all on new and uncertain ground. Scrupulously researched and vetted, this early chapter book inspires discussion about communication between two groups of people with entirely different world views, early whaling practices, and a productive partnership that also foreshadows serious problems to come. Simply and beautifully told, "Tuk and the Whale" -- now in paperback -- includes a glossary, historical note, and recommendations for further reading.Book Synopsis
Told by a young Inuit boy, this story imagines what might have happened if the people of a Baffin Island winter camp had encountered European whalers.
This story is set on the eastern coast of Baffin Island in the early decades of the 1600s. Told from the point of view of a young Inuit boy, Tuk, it imagines what might have happened if the people of Tuk's Baffin Island winter camp had encountered European whalers, blown far north from their usual whaling route. Both the Inuit hunters and the whalers prize the bowhead whale, but for very different reasons. Together, they set out on a hunt, though they are all on new and uncertain ground.
Scrupulously researched, this beautifully told story will inspire extremely topical discussion about communication between two groups of people with entirely different world views; and about a productive partnership that also foreshadows serious problems to come.
Review Quotes
Black-and-white illustrations show the action at a distance and help readers visualize the vast and flat terrain.-- "School Library Journal"
The style is low-key and pared down but smooth, and the picture of seventeenth-century Inuit life is credibly drawn and narratively appropriate, avoiding the determined documentary flavor of some historical work.-- "Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books"
Through the eyes and voice of Tuk, a young Inuit boy, readers see, hear and feel the excitement and apprehension that the lost whalers' arrival engenders...[a] simple, elegant, eloquent tale...Mary Jane Gerber's delightful pen-and-ink drawings capture moments large and small.-- "Globe and Mail"