Nutik & Amaroq Play Ball

George, Jean Craighead

ISBN 10: 0060281677 ISBN 13: 9780060281670

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001

Synopsis

As best friends, Amaroq, an energetic Eskimo boy, and Nutik, a wolf pup, set out on the tundra to find their lost football, they become lost amidst the vast landscape, and Amaroq thinks about what the great wolf leader he was named after would do in their situation and soon he and Nutik find their way home.

About this title

About the Author:

Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in a family of naturalists, Jean George has centered her life around writing and nature. She attended Pennsylvania State University, graduating with degrees in English and science. In the 1940s she was a member of the White House press corps and a reporter for the Washington Post. Ms. George, who has written over 90 books - among them My Side of the Mountain (Dutton), a 1960 Newbery Honor Book, and its sequels On the Far Side of the Mountain and Frightful's Mountain (both Dutton) - also hikes, canoes, and makes sourdough pancakes. In 1991, Ms. George became the first winner of the School Library Media Section of the New York Library Association's Knickerbocker Award for Juvenile Literature, which was presented to her for the "consistent superior quality" of her literary works.

Her inspiration for the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves evolved from two specific events during a summer she spent studying wolves and tundra at the Arctic Research Laboratory of Barrow, Alaska: "One was a small girl walking the vast ad lonesome tundra outside of Barrow; the other was a magnificent alpha male wolf, leader of a pack in Denali National Park ... They haunted me for a year or more, as did the words of one of the scientists at the lab: 'If there ever was any doubt in my mind that a man could live with the wolves, it is gone now. The wolves are truly gentlemen, highly social and affectionate.'"

The mother of three children, Jean George is a grandmother who has joyfully red to her grandchildren since they were born. Over the years Jean George has kept 173 pets, not including dogs and cats, in her home in Chappaqua, New York. "Most of these wild animals depart in autumn, when the sun changes their behavior and they feel the urge to migrate or go off alone. While they are with us, however, they become characters in my books, articles, and stories."

From Booklist:

Ages 5-7. This sequel to Nutik, the Wolf Pup (2000), shows Nutik taking the lead as he and Amaroq, an Eskimo boy, walk across the tundra. Although some "pranksters" in the village have taken the football that Nutik and Amaroq play with each day, Nutik is still anxious to go outside. He soon leads Amaroq far away from the village to a rusty barrel, where they find the missing football. After playing ball, Amaroq attempts to lead Nutik back to the village, only to discover that Nutik has the better sense of direction. Children will enjoy the simple story and learn a bit about life on the tundra; jacket flap notes identify Barrow, Alaska, as the scene of the story. Stretching across wide double-page spreads, Rand's lively illustrations glow with intense colors in this pleasing story of modern-day Eskimo life. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0060281677
• ISBN 13: 9780060281670
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Rand Ted