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| Gr. 6-9. When 17-year-old Willa, a licensed pilot, decides to fly her uncle's winter supply route without permission, she hopes that the bold act will shake her parents out of their distracted absorption in her deceased older brother. Instead, she crashes into the "vast, roadless reaches of northern Ontario" and must marshal all her resources to survive. Willa's extreme competence occasionally strains belief, and at times the details of building equipment from scavenged materials--snowshoes, fish trap, sledge--are chronicled with more care for accuracy than for dramatic effect. Nevertheless, the mortal challenges Willa faces make for a gripping narrative, one sharpened by visceral details: the slushy snot after a despairing sob, the cold so frigid that "inhaling air . . . was like trying to breathe ammonia." This promising debut, which will help introduce gender balance into the survival-adventure genre, will appeal most to older middle-graders and younger YAs who were riveted by Gary Paulsen's Hatchet (1987). ((Reviewed June 1 & 15, 2006)) Copyright 2006 Booklist Reviews. | | | |
| Silence blankets Willa's rugged survival trek in this novel about a seventeen-year-old girl who crashes her uncle's Cessna on a solo flight from Ontario in January. Once the storm that causes the crash subsides, Willa waits a week by the plane before realizing that rescue efforts have probably been abandoned because she is believed to be dead. Her only chance of survival is a solo journey through deep snow in temperatures that drop as low as forty-three degrees below zero. Armed only with her uncle's minimalist survival kit, Willa's endurance and ingenuity are tested many times. The cold forces her to warm her fuel canisters with her own body heat to get the fuel to burn. Frigid air burns any uncovered skin, and every step sinks her so deeply into the snow that she cannot stoke her signal fire fast enough for the low-flying rescue planes to spot its smoke. Making snowshoes out of tree branches and the plane's seatbelts, Willa resolutely battles both the elements and her own fears. Memories of her brother, Ray, who has been dead six years, and his confidence sustain her as she combats hunger, self-recrimination, and the ever-present danger of hypothermia. Willa is at her ingenious best when her food---oatmeal, freeze-dried chicken pilaf dinner, and her uncle's "goat bars"---runs low. Inspired by memories of ice fishing with her father, she improvises a fish trap and patiently waits through two days of low-level starvation-inspired panic before catching the fish that will sustain her through the next several days. When the fish provides insufficient nourishment, she slices cattails into the broth. Finally, on Day Eight, she sets off to find a human settlement, wearing her handmade snowshoes and pulling a toboggan improvised from a piece of sheet metal pulled from the plane's wreckage. The author, who has worked as a carpenter and an attorney, based this debut novel on his own winter camping experiences. Details such as how frozen condensation from Willa's breath glazes the inside of the igloo she builds to shelter herself from a second storm lend authenticity to the narrative, as do the minutiae of how she occupies herself waiting for the storm to pass. Readers might wish for more details of Willa's psychological resources, which provide glimpses into an adolescence marred by her brother's death and her parents' inadequate responses to it. Willa's ability to withstand the silence enforced by her physical isolation stems from the emotional loneliness she has born for so long. The Winter Road has been nominated for a 2007 Best Books for Young Adults award by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Its rugged landscape and likable protagonist will hold the interest of young adults, stoking dreams of wilderness adventures in which they too can persevere. ©2006 ForeWord Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2006 ForeWord Reviews. | | | |
| After Willa crashes her Cessna in the Canadian bush, imagined conversations with her distant father and her brother, whose death the family has never recovered from, provide her with the grit to continue and the emotional healing she desperately needs. So thorough is the realization of Willa's surroundings that readers may well feel they've gone through a whole survival course with her. Copyright 2006 Horn Book Guide Reviews. | | | |
| This survival story takes the classic girl-versus-nature plot to new extremes when a teen pilot crashes her Cessna in the Canadian bush in January. Willa and her family have never recovered from her brother's accidental death when she was eleven. Now seventeen, she rarely sees her parents: her father spends as much time as possible in the wilderness, and her mother is a health care worker constantly traveling between the remote Native villages of northern Ontario. Frustration with school leads her to undertake a solo trip when she finds her pilot uncle drunk, but a critical error leaves her stranded instead. Hokenson makes the most of her survival plot, describing in minute detail Willa's every move as she sets her wits and what materials she has at hand against the elements. Memories of camping trips with her father and brother gradually become imagined conversations with them, the recollection of their love and support providing her with the grit to continue and, finally, the healing she desperately needs. So thorough is the realization of Willa's surroundings that readers may well feel they've gone through a whole survival course with her. Copyright 2006 Horn Book Magazine Reviews. | | | |
| Weather through the initially chilly intra-familial relationships, tinny dialogue and unfamiliar-sounding names to learn how Willa Raedl, 17, survives her plane crash in a snowy wilderness. Willa is having a hard time in high school. Her brother recently died in a skiing accident and her family members are trying to cope. She decides she needs to get away for a while. Over the weekend, she is to copilot a small commuter plane piloted by her uncle, picking up Willa's mother who works long shifts as a nurse in remote parts of the county. When Willa discovers her uncle fast asleep and drunk, she decides to take the plane herself. She's successful for most of the way until something goes wrong with the plane and she crash lands in a snow-covered lake-bound wilderness. How Willa survives will immediately engage any young adult, male or female, especially those with a fondness for the great outdoors. Readers will cheer her on in all her spirited ingenuity and will to survive. Educators will appreciate the non-stereotypical teenage female character and could successfully pair this novel with Gary Paulsen's Hatchet in a thematic unit on survival. (Fiction. 12-15) Copyright Kirkus 2006 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. | | | |
| Learning to pilot her uncle's Cesna 185 provided 17-year-old Willa with an escape from the boredom of high school and the loneliness enveloping her since her brother Ray died in a snowmobile accident. When Willa's emotions explode, she storms from school and packs her bag to ride with Uncle Jordy to deliver supplies to a Cree village near Hudson Bay, and to pick up her mom. Finding Jordy ill, Willa decides to fly the Cesna solo and disaster strikes. A winter storm melts the battery, disables the radio, and causes Willa to skid the plane across a remote lake and into the woods. Stranded in an uninhabited area of Canada's Northwest Territories, Willa adapts plane pieces into survival gear, builds snow huts, traps fish, and steals moose from a pack of wolves to survive while she treks towards civilization. After 18 days, Willa stumbles upon a winter road and meets Gilbert and his pickup. He drives her to safety. From the compelling first chapter to the terrifying and frigid details, this survival adventure clearly engages all readers into the mystic and challenging northern Canadian wilderness. Purchase this first book for all middle and high school libraries. Recommended. Donna Steffan, Instructional Library Media and Technology Consultant, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction © 2006 Linworth Publishing, Inc. | | | |
In first novelist Hokenson's remarkable story of ingenuity and courage, 17-year-old Willa survives more than two weeks in the wintry wilderness of Ontario after crashlanding her uncle's plane. Willa may be a dreamer, independent and a little "weird," but she's had a pilot's license for three years, thanks to her uncle Jordy. In the wake of family grief over her bother Ray's tragic Ski-Doo accident six years earlier, Willa has been feeling unappreciated, especially given her emotionally unavailable father, and a mother who often travels for her work with isolated villages. Yet when it came to flying, "Ray's bravado became her courage." The morning that Jordy had planned to take the ski plane to pick up Willa's mother, the teen discovers Jordy passed out, and Willa decides to fly alone. When she stops to refuel, Willa learns of a front fast approaching, but forges ahead anyway, resulting in a crash landing near a frozen lake. The bulk of Willa's story languidly and vividly details her thoughts and actions as she sets about making her own snowshoes, fish traps, shovel, snow caves and toboggan for her survival--and her journey toward the winter road that will take her home. While this novel will remind readers of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet , it is a welcome survival tale with a young woman as the sympathetic, brave and resourceful protagonist. Ages 12-up. (May) [Page 60]. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. | | | |
Gr 8 Up -Willa Raedl, 17, feels totally alone since her older brother died. Her mother, a nurse, spends most of her time traveling from village to village, and her father is a wilderness guide. Ignored by both parents, but especially her dad, the teen thinks that she must measure up to her brother. Learning to fly Uncle Jordy's Cessna 185 gives her a sense of purpose and belonging. When she goes to visit her uncle and finds him drunk, she decides to fly solo from Sioux Lookout to Peawanuck, near Hudson Bay, where her mother is expecting to be picked up. This hasty decision has far-reaching consequences. When Willa flies into a storm and crash-lands, she begins an 18-day struggle to survive. Even though this is essentially a gripping survival story, it is also a well-written, thoughtful book about a girl's desperate efforts to gain her father's approval.-Sharon Morrison, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant, OK [Page 128]. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. | | | |
| Although parts of this book scream "move over" to Paulsen's Brian in Hatchet (Bradbury, 1987/VOYA February 1988), the story of seventeen-year-old Willa, who can take care of herself in the challenging Canadian wilderness, overall does not quite fly. Willa has taken serious flying lessons with her Uncle Jordy. She ends up taking the Cessna, a little ski plane, out by herself since her uncle decided to drink a half bottle of Crown Royal the night before. Willa needs to pick up Jean, her nurse mom, and fly her to Kasabonika, the next village, where she will work for a week. Unfortunately the Cessna crashes because of a winter storm and failed mechanics, and Willa must learn how to survive for more than two weeks Teens will appreciate emotions expressed by Willa as well as the landscape that paints strong feelings: "She would rather die trying to walk out than sit here like a ninny. But if she could make a fish trap, maybe she could catch enough fish to feed herself for a few days. And if she had some ham, she could make a ham sandwich, if she had some bread." The descriptions of making snowshoes, figuring out what to eat, and staying warm, while accurate, are a bit too drawn out and slow to engage most teen readers. Teens looking for strong female survivalists will appreciate the story of Elizabeth Fama's Overboard (Cricket Books, 2002), which is a true story and quick read.-Kelly Czarnecki 3Q 2P S Copyright 2006 Voya Reviews. | | |
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