Picture Maker - Softcover

Penina Spinka

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007122454 ISBN 13: 9780007122455

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2003

Synopsis

A brilliant, powerful, historical saga -- a grand epic by a prize-winning children's author. The world of 14th-century America is unknown to most readers and Penina Spinka's remarkable novel brings it triumphantly alive, from the tribal wars through to the Norse invasions and the fiercely resisted Christianity. The girl known as Picture Maker because of her great ability at drawing and prophecy, is the daughter of one of the warriors and the granddaughter of the clan leader. She is captured by one of her family's enemies and because she was regarded as a trophy is kept alive and enslaved. When she discovers she is pregnant by one of her captors, she manages to escape, and, inspired by the destiny she had depicted, begins the long, mysterious journey which ends in the furthermost parts of the Western Hemisphere. There, still an outsider but revered and protected, she lives for a time in peace with an Inuit tribe until she meets and falls in love with Halvard, a Norse hunter, who seems to hold the key to the riddle of her birth. Together they travel on to Greenland but Picture Maker's special gifts make her regarded with suspicion, Halvard is attacked and her daughter will be taken from her, in what seems a terrible repetition of what happened to her so long ago. Picture Maker is a powerful story, with a large cast of vivid characters, in a fascinating setting which will appeal to readers of Jean Auel and Jane Smiley. Penina Spinka, an award-winner for her children's books, has created a rich picture of the period and the people, of the ways of the societies and religions, and above all of Picture Maker herself, as she grows beyond her once narrow, ordered confines: an amazing and very human survivor. At its heart, Picture Maker is a novel of high adventure, of love and loss, and survival under the harshest circumstances.

About this title

About the Author:

Penina Spinka is the author of many award-winning historical novels. She has also written three novels for young adults, which received high review coverage and two awards in the US. She lives with her husband in Arizona, where she is at work on the sequel to Picture Maker.

From Publishers Weekly:

A young Native American girl, separated from her tribe in the harsh 14th century, must find her way through life in this engrossing coming-of-age saga marking the adult fiction debut of young adult fiction writer Spinka (Mother's Blessing). The girl, named Picture Maker by her Ganeogaono people because of her drawings that foretell the future, is captured by the enemy Algonquins at age 13. Raped, pregnant and marked for death because she killed her attacker, the brutal Hawk Feather, Picture Maker escapes her captors and wanders for months. She eventually stumbles into a Naskapi village in the far reaches of eastern Canada, where she is taken in and made part of the tribe. Soon, though, the sense that she may still be in danger compels Picture Maker to continue her travels. She allows herself to be sold to the Inuit, who also treat her well. But her spirit is crushed when an Inuit leader, following custom, kills her newborn because the baby girl represents another mouth to feed in time of famine. Picture Maker joins a breakaway group of Inuits who journey across the Labrador Sea to Greenland, where she meets her future husband, Halvard, a Norseman, whose way of life represents yet another cultural shift for the young woman. Spinka's narrative plods at times, weighed down by unnecessary description, and the dialogue is stiffly formal. But as the narrative progresses, it eventually gathers speed and is transformed into an absorbing adventure tale told from an exhaustively researched historical perspective. Spinka, who is working on a sequel, has uncovered native traditions and beliefs in primitive North America and brought them to life through the eyes of her courageous young heroine. Agent, Stephanie Tade. Literary Guild Discovery Selection; BOMC, Doubleday Book Club and QPB featured alternates.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0007122454
• ISBN 13: 9780007122455
• Binding: Paperback