Blessing's Bead

Nutaaq and her older sister, Aaluk, are on a great journey, sailing from a small island off the coast of Alaska to the annual trade fair. There, a handsome young Siberian wearing a string of cobalt blue beads watches Aaluk “the way a wolf watches a caribou, never resting.” Soon his actions—and other events more horrible than Nutaaq could ever imagine—threaten to shatter her I~nupiaq world. Seventy years later, Nutaaq’s greatgranddaughter, Blessing, is on her own journey, running from the wreckage of her life in Anchorage to live in a remote Arctic village with a grandmother she barely remembers. In her new home, unfriendly girls whisper in a language she can’t understand, and Blessing feels like an outsider among her own people. Until she finds a cobalt blue bead—Nutaaq’s bead—in her grandmother’s sewing tin. The events this discovery triggers reveal the power of family and heritage to heal, despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

Two distinct teenage voices pull readers into the native world of northern Alaska in this beautifully crafted and compelling debut novel.

Nutaaq and her older sister, Aaluk, are on a great journey, sailing from a small island off the coast of Alaska to the annual trade fair. There, a handsome young Siberian wearing a string of cobalt blue beads watches Aaluk “the way a wolf watches a caribou, never resting.” Soon his actions—and other events more horrible than Nutaaq could ever imagine—threaten to shatter her I~nupiaq world. Seventy years later, Nutaaq’s greatgranddaughter, Blessing, is on her own journey, running from the wreckage of her life in Anchorage to live in a remote Arctic village with a grandmother she barely remembers. In her new home, unfriendly girls whisper in a language she can’t understand, and Blessing feels like an outsider among her own people. Until she finds a cobalt blue bead—Nutaaq’s bead—in her grandmother’s sewing tin. The events this discovery triggers reveal the power of family and heritage to heal, despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

Two distinct teenage voices pull readers into the native world of northern Alaska in this beautifully crafted and compelling debut novel.

Publishers Weekly

Author of the picture book Whale Snow, Edwardson's first novel is a lyrical piece of historical fiction that focuses on Iñupiaq culture in Alaska, narrated by two teenage women, generations apart. In 1917, Nutaaq's beloved older sister, Aaluk, falls in love with a visiting Siberian and disappears with him across the ocean, leaving her sister with a pair of blue beads and a promise to return. Soon after, Spanish influenza devastates Nutaaq's village (“The silence of death has become as familiar as family. I recognize it instantly”). Seventy years later, Blessing (Nutaaq's great-granddaughter) and her younger brother are sent away from their alcoholic mother in Anchorage to live with their grandmother in a traditional Iñupiaq village where they initially feel like outsiders. But as Blessing absorbs their stories and traditions (“When they stamp their feet, the drums pound louder and the voices rise higher and it makes me want to jump up and dance with them”), she begins to identify with her culture. Narrating in a heavy dialect, Blessing makes an emotional journey of self-discovery, as Edwardson weaves a fascinating portrait of a family's rich history. Ages 10–up. (Nov.)

We are all of us reflections of the experiences we've had, the places we've lived, the people we've loved.

I've lived for over 30 years on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, a place of many challenges and many rewards. I haven't always lived here, but I've always lived in northern places. I grew up in Minnesota, where I spent summers with my mother at our family cabin on an island in the boundary waters of the Canadian border. My mother was an artist and I was a dreamer...and a reader. I read constantly and dreamed of becoming a writer.

As I grew older, I ventured even further north, to Noway, the land of my ancestors where I immersed myself in the Norwegian culture and learned the language. I attended Nansenskolen in Lillehammer—long before Lillehammer became the site of the winter Olympics.

The school was named after Fridjof Nansen, arctic explorer. Little did I know that I would follow Nansen's footsteps, north to the arctic—not as an explorer, but as a wanderer.

My wanderings took me to northern Alaska, home of the Inupiat, the "real people." There I found a mentor who taught me to see the world through his eyes. It was a good world.

I married this man whose grandfather, as it turned out, was Norwegian. Together we've raised seven children who are now living all over the country and across the globe from Washington DC to Austrailia.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. Along the way I've worked as a nurse's aide, a waitress, a pipeline worker, a radio reporter, a PR writer, a college director and a school board president. And now, at last, I really am a writer. Isn't it interesting how life works?

As many writers do, I write what I know, and through knowing it in my own way, make it my own, something both very old and very new at the same time, straddling the distinct and sometimes divergent traditions that make me who I am.

DEBBY DAHL EDWARDSON’S first book, Whale Snow, was named an NCSS/CBC Notable, a Banks Street Best, Independent Publishers, Best Picture Book of the Year and an IRA Notable Book for a Global Society. She earned an MFA at Vermont College in 2005.