Bristol Bay Summer

by Annie Boochever

Overview

Against the backdrop of the great Bristol Bay salmon fishery, thirteen-year-old Zoey Morley struggles with her parents’ divorce, her mom’s bush-pilot boyfriend, and the pangs of growing up during her summer in the “real” Alaska. Author Annie Boochever tells a compelling tale of a divided family living a remote lifestyle where getting along as a team is a matter of survival. Zoey learns to trust the artist inside her and finds she and her new friend Thomas have something in common. Readers will live the lessons learned and taught by this young girl who finds that hard work, compassion, and the ability to see things in her own special way lead her toward happiness in a place that at first seems just too far away.

Bristol Bay is the world’s largest  salmon fishery.
Teachers will like the fact that Bristol Bay Summer includes a map of Western Alaska and a glossary of colloquial expressions and fishing terms.
Offers a rare glimpse into an Alaskan fishing village’s way of life.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780882409948
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	05/01/2014
Pages:	258
Sales rank:	473,279
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.40(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Annie Boochever grew up in the days when Alaska was still a territory. People flocked here for a new life and a kind of freedom that wasn’t available in the Lower 48. Today Alaska is still a magnet for anyone seeking adventure or just trying to escape, and the characters in Bristol Bay Summer are no exception. The story told in Bristol Bay Summer, seen through the eyes of young teen Zoey Morely, is a fictionalized version of Annie's own experiences in Bristol Bay in 1980.

Annie is a retired music teacher, high school English teacher, and school librarian. She has an MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. When not writing, Annie loves to swim, ski, play piano, and garden. She lives in Juneau with her husband and a frightfully intelligent Dutch dog named Zz. Bristol Bay Summer is her first novel.
 

Read an Excerpt

 

Table of Contents

Maps 1. Departure 2. Last Stop 3. Latrine Business 4. Chez Jensen-Morley 5. Night Visitors 6. A New Boy 7. Darth Vader 8. Colorado Honey 9. Thomas to the Rescue 10. Naknek 11. Knives and Fur Hats for Sale 12. Captain 13. A Gift 14. Patrick 15. Fishing Begins 16. Rulers of the World 17. Bag Balm 18. A Cake in the Coleman? 19. Blue Skies and Brown Bears 20. Swallowed a Lead Line 21. Dancing with Mosquitoes 22. A Not So Happy Birthday 23. Payday 24. Dillingham 25. So Many Fish 26. Midnight 27. Japanese Typhoon 28. Refuge 29. After the Storm 30. An Uncertain Good-bye 31. Dad 32. Crash Position 33. MayDay! MayDay 34. It’ll Work Out 35. Ghosts in the Water 36. Home Again Glossary Acknowledgments Discussion Questions

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From the Publisher

2015 Mom’s Choice Award winner. The Mom’s Choice Awards® (MCA) evaluates products and services created for parents and educators and is globally recognized for establishing the benchmark of excellence in family-friendly media, products and services. Using a rigorous evaluation process, entries are scored on a number of elements including production quality, design, educational value, entertainment value, originality, appeal and cost. Around the world, parents, educators, retailers and members of the media trust the MCA Honoring Excellence seal when selecting quality products and services for families and children.

2015 Literary Classics International Book Award winner for "Best in Category, Best First Novel." Literary Classics, an organization dedicated to furthering excellence in literature, takes great pride in its role to help promote classic literature which appeals to youth, while educating and encouraging positive values in the impressionable young minds of future generations. The Literary Classics judging committee is comprised of experts with backgrounds in publishing, writing, editing, design, illustration, and book reviewing. Judging is based upon the criteria set forth by Literary Classics’ highly selective awards committee which honors books promoting character, vision, creativity and learning, through content which possesses key elements found in well-crafted literature.

Editorial Reviews

2014-10-06
In Boochever's debut middle-grade novel, a reluctant young girl coping with her parents' breakup becomes part of the fishing community at Alaska's Bristol Bay.After her parents' divorce, 13-year-old Zoey Morley left her home in Colorado to follow her mother and little brother to Anchorage, Alaska. Now, a year later, she still hasn't heard from her father and must leave the city (and her best friend) to spend the summer at Bristol Bay, so that her mother's boyfriend can make money transporting salmon in a rickety old Cessna plane. Despite Zoey's anger at being uprooted again, and her unwillingness to accept Patrick as part of her family, she gradually begins to appreciate the rugged beauty of Bristol Bay and the hardworking people who earn their living fishing there. She starts to settle in when she meets Thomas Gamble, a native boy who lost his father in a tragic fishing accident. The Gambles give Zoey a job with Thomas, running setnets to catch salmon, and she hatches a plan to save enough money to fly to Colorado and find her father. However, after a horrific accident, she must reevaluate her relationship with Patrick and what it really means to be a family. Boochever suffuses her tale with the kind of vivid details only a longtime Alaskan could know, from her descriptions of the majestic landscape to the finer points of commercial salmon fishing. She has a gift for drawing readers in, and a penchant for bringing the details of character's experiences to life, as in this description of Zoey cleaning up after her first fishing experience: "The bulky clothing felt even heavier and definitely stinkier as Zoey shrugged herself out of the grimy rubber pants and let them fall on the ground near the door." At the same time, the book delivers scenes of action and suspense in a wholly realistic, organic way.A wonderfully atmospheric debut.

Kirkus Reviews

"In Boochever’s debut middle-grade novel, a reluctant young girl coping with her parents’ breakup becomes part of the fishing community at Alaska’s Bristol Bay. After her parents’ divorce, 13-year-old Zoey Morley left her home in Colorado to follow her mother and little brother to Anchorage, Alaska. Now, a year later, she still hasn’t heard from her father and must leave the city (and her best friend) to spend the summer at Bristol Bay, so that her mother’s boyfriend can make money transporting salmon in a rickety old Cessna plane. Despite Zoey’s anger at being uprooted again, and her unwillingness to accept Patrick as part of her family, she gradually begins to appreciate the rugged beauty of Bristol Bay and the hardworking people who earn their living fishing there. She starts to settle in when she meets Thomas Gamble, a native boy who lost his father in a tragic fishing accident. The Gambles give Zoey a job with Thomas, running setnets to catch salmon, and she hatches a plan to save enough money to fly to Colorado and find her father. However, after a horrific accident, she must reevaluate her relationship with Patrick and what it really means to be a family. Boochever suffuses her tale with the kind of vivid details only a longtime Alaskan could know, from her descriptions of the majestic landscape to the finer points of commercial salmon fishing. She has a gift for drawing readers in, and a penchant for bringing the details of character’s experiences to life, as in this description of Zoey cleaning up after her first fishing experience: “The bulky clothing felt even heavier and definitely stinkier as Zoey shrugged herself out of the grimy rubber pants and let them fall on the ground near the door.” At the same time, the book delivers scenes of action and suspense in a wholly realistic, organic way. A wonderfully atmospheric debut." —Kirkus Reviews

"When Zoey's parents divorce, her dad disappears, and her mom uproots her—twice. She feels angry and alone. Through the hard work of living in a wild part of Alaska, she comes to rely on strengths she never knew she had. She learns compassion for those around her, coming to understand that their lives are at least as difficult as her own. This is a powerful story of a girl becoming a woman, a story of land and sea and artistry." —Peggy Shumaker, Alaska State Writer Laureate 2010-2012

From the Publisher