Tuk and the Whale - Hardcover

Rivera, Raquel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0888996896 ISBN 13: 9780888996893

Publisher: Groundwood Books, 2008

Synopsis

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 includes a glossary, historical note, and recommendations for further reading.

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 3–5—Set in the 1600s in the early days of Arctic whaling, this short chapter book imagines the first encounter between whalers and the native Inuit people. Black-and-white illustrations, two per chapter, show the action at a distance and help readers visualize the vast and flat terrain. Tuk first sees the whaling ship come over the horizon and, when it arrives, he is smitten, especially when the whalers give him a wonderful knife. While some of the men caution against participating, Tuk and his father, plus a few others, climb into the whalers' boat to hunt for Arvik, as the Inuit call the bowhead whale. If the hunt is successful, the Inuit families will have what they need to survive. Not so the whalers, who need to fill their ship's hold. The story captures well the tentative and taut encounter, the danger, and the event that culminates in Tuk's saving the entire party. But while some textual clues help, readers may have to flip to the glossary to remember what maktaaq, Qallunaaq, or Quilliit are. Like Jane Yolen's Encounter (Harcourt, 1992), this story foreshadows troubles to come, ending with Grandfather's warning that "you can learn a great deal from those men, both good and bad," and a warning about coveting things, but Tuk happily cradles his new knife and looks to the future.—Susan Hepler, formerly at Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA
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Review

"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

About this edition

• Publisher: Groundwood Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0888996896
• ISBN 13: 9780888996893
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 96
• Illustrator: Gerber Mary Jane