Toughboy and Sister

by Kirkpatrick Hill

Overview

They’ve never faced danger before. Now they’re alone—and they have no choice.

Every summer, Toughboy and his younger sister stay at their isolated family fish camp on the Yukon River. There, away from their Alaskan village, they help their parents catch and smoke salmon. But that was before their mother died and everything changed. This year, their father brings them back to the camp, but before he can set things up, he vanishes. No one knows that Toughboy and Sister have been left alone in the wilderness to fend for themselves. Days and then weeks pass. Their food runs out, and their radio stops working. What are they going to do now?

“This quiet, simply told story speaks in a distinctive voice about stoic courage, dignity, and survival.”—The Horn Review

“Sure to satisfy survival-story fans.”—Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140348668
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	02/01/1992
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.69(h) x 0.35(d)
Lexile:	800L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Kirkpatrick Hill spent her first six years at a mining camp outside Fairbanks, Alaska, which was a lot like the mine in Bo at Ballard Creek. She graduated from Syracuse University and taught for the next 30 years, mostly in the Alaska bush which is the setting for Toughboy and Sister, Winter Camp, Minuk, Dancing at the Odinochka The Year of Miss Agnes, and Miss Agnes and the Ginger Tom. She is the mother of six children, grandmother of nine, and great-grandmother of two. She lives in Fairbanks, and spends as much time as possible at the family home in Ruby, on the Yukon River.

Editorial Reviews

Survival is at stake when a boy and his sister are stranded at their family's Yukon fishing camp. Ages 8-12. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Following their parents' deaths, two young Athabascan Indians work together to survive in the family's remote fish camp on the Yukon River. Hill ably depicts a lifestyle unfamiliar to many continental Americans. Through Toughboy and Sister, she illuminates the larger community of Athabascans, showing their values and strong belief in family ties. Athabascan words are smoothly explained in the text. Toughboy and Sister are not idealized characters; they learn to get along because they have to, and each tries to be strong to reassure the other. Readers will enjoy the idea of children their own age figuring out how to cook, fish, and kill a bear. The story is quietly told, which may be its biggest problem; while the setting and characters are vivid and appealing, the dramatic aspects of the tale are understated. Toughboy and Sister accept their father's death with a worldly wise sense of resignation. A confrontation with a bear, forshadowed in the jacket art and throughout the story, is oddly anticlimactic. The tone and ideas are similar to those in O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins (Houghton, 1960) and Paulsen's Hatchet (Bradbury, 1987), but Toughboy and Sister lacks their depth and excitement. Easily read and accessible, this miniature portrait of Alaskan Indian life is not a high-priority purchase, but would be a good choice for larger collections. --Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, County of Henrico Public Library--Fairfield Area Library, Richmond, VA

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