Teen Fiction - Choices & Transitions, Teen Fiction - Peoples & Cultures, Teen Fiction - Historical Fiction

The Great Death

Name: The Great Death
Author: John Smelcer
ISBN: 9780805081008

by John Smelcer

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Overview

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.

Synopsis

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.

Children's Literature

It was autumn when the white men and their guide, who looked like he had a "hundred mosquito bites," came to a remote Alaskan village to photograph the indigenous people. Several days after they left, the people of the village began to develop the red spots. It soon became apparent that these were not mosquito bites. All but two sisters died from the disease brought to their village. In order to survive, thirteen-year-old Millie and her ten-year-old sister Maura begin a journey downriver to find a new village in which to live. Their harrowing adventure involves confrontations with bears, wolves, and a drunken white man as well as battling hypothermia. This compelling survival story is full of grit. There are vivid descriptions of the dead. Millie and Maura must kill and butcher animals in order to survive. Smelcer employs a tale of Raven, thus tying in the culture of the people. Each chapter begins with a paragraph that continues the legend and foreshadows the events of that chapter. The girls' journey is both physical and emotional. Smelcer does a fabulous job of showing how Millie and Maura grow from Millie watching out for her sister to the two of them becoming interdependent. The girls' thoughts often return to their parents and life in their village, symbolic of the end of their culture as they journey to their new life in the white man's village. Smelcer's writing conjures up the sights and smells of this quiet world through which the girls travel. Smelcer has created a haunting, literary novel based on an historical incident which had a profound effect on the indigenous people of Alaska and their culture. Reviewer: Sharon Salluzzo

About the Author, John Smelcer

JOHN SMELCER is the author of many nonfiction and poetry books for adults, as well as a young adult novel, The Trap. Mr. Smelcer has been a visiting professor at various universities around the world and is the associate publisher and poetry editor of the literary magazine Rosebud.

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Editorials

From the Publisher

“A gripping and poignant survival story, made even more so because of its basis on historical fact. … Smelcer’s prose is clean yet rich; original yet unpretentious, and he provides more than enough detail to satisfy diehard survival-story junkies.”—Horn Book Review, Starred Review

“This grim tale of the sisters’ struggle against the elements will leave readers wanting to know more about this little-known time in history.”—Booklist

“An engaging tale of survival.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A classic survival story.”—BCCB

Children's Literature - Sharon Salluzzo

School Library Journal

Gr 6–9—Smelcer draws on the early-20th-century history of his native Alaskan ancestors for this story based on the tragic effects of the white man's diseases on people who had neither natural immunity nor medicines to fight them. Two sisters, Millie and Maura, ages 13 and 10, are the sole survivors of such an epidemic in their village. Knowing that they cannot manage on their own, they strike off downriver in hopes of finding people who are still alive. The author vividly describes the progression of the disease on the afflicted, the inability of those who were still alive, but infected, to dispose of the dead properly, and the gruesome results. The sisters' flight is hampered by severe winter weather, a lecherous settler, and hungry wolves, which add to the tension in the story. The novel is part history and part survival guide. It also graphically illustrates the effects of a plague on isolated peoples. Readers come to know the sisters' strengths and weaknesses in the first few chapters. Both girls could best be described as stoic for they know that although they are mourning the loss of their parents, friends, and relatives, they must press on until they find other survivors. The cover art, a photograph of mukluks, does little to attract readers; librarians will need to booktalk this one.—Nancy P. Reeder, Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, Columbia, SC

Kirkus Reviews

All of the world is dying. The dead lie everywhere, the dying consigned to brushing away flies and awaiting their own time. Dogs feast upon corpses, magpies and ravens pick at them and bears are getting bold. But 13-year-old Millie and her ten-year-old sister Maura are spared by the disease left by the mysterious white strangers. With a prose style by turns informative, poetic and graphic, Smelcer tells of the sisters' journey away from their Alaskan village, a story of strength and courage as they face dangerous waters, wolves, moose, blizzards and a hairy-faced giant. The prologue describes the pandemic of measles, smallpox and influenza that killed two-thirds of all Alaska Natives at the beginning of the 20th century. Parallel and sometimes intersecting is the tale of Raven, the trickster who comes to help people in need, but no backmatter is offered to provide the cultural context of the traditional story. Otherwise, an engaging tale of survival. (Historical fiction. 11 & up)

School Library Journal

Gr 6–9—John Smelcer returns to the Alaskan wilderness he mined for The Trap (2006) with this short, historical tale (2009, both Holt) about two Native Alaskan sisters orphaned by an epidemic. When white men visit their small village, everyone becomes ill and dies, leaving 13-year-old Millie and 10-year-old Maura as the only survivors. With winter fast approaching, they decide to travel downstream in search of other people. Accompanied by two loyal village dogs, they make their way through the forest and encounter many treacherous obstacles. Although the situation is grim, the sisters' hopeful attitude and determination to survive make this an exciting listen. A bit predictable in parts, the simple, lyrical language enhances the stark beauty of the winter setting. Narrator Lorna Raver doesn't differentiate much between the sisters' voices, but her cadence and delivery are perfectly paced for the story. Smelcer doesn't fare as well with his chapter headings, which sound as if they were recorded in an echo chamber and are distracting. An introduction, also read by the author, rounds out the recording. The authentic details of survival in the winter wilderness are fascinating and should draw in reluctant readers.—Charli Osborne, Oxford Public Library, Oxford, MI