Blessing's Bead
Blessing's Bead
Blessing's Bead
Debby Dahl Edwardson
Nutaaq and her older sister, Aaluk, are on a great journey, sailing from a small island off the coast of Alaska to the annual trade fair. There, a handsome young Siberian wearing a string of cobalt blue beads watches Aaluk "the way a wolf watches a caribou, never resting." Soon his actions―and other events more horrible than Nutaaq could ever imagine―threaten to shatter her I~nupiaq world. Seventy years later, Nutaaq's greatgranddaughter, Blessing, is on her own journey, running from the wreckage of her life in Anchorage to live in a remote Arctic village with a grandmother she barely remembers. In her new home, unfriendly girls whisper in a language she can't understand, and Blessing feels like an outsider among her own people. Until she finds a cobalt blue bead―Nutaaq's bead―in her grandmother's sewing tin. The events this discovery triggers reveal the power of family and heritage to heal, despite seemingly insurmountable odds. Two distinct teenage voices pull readers into the native world of northern Alaska in this beautifully crafted and compelling debut novel.

Book Details

Genre: 

  • Adventure
  • Fiction
  • Juvenile Fiction

Age Level: 

  • 12 and up
Profile Picture
We are named for those who have passed on. Our names come with their own kinship, their own memories.
     Blessings Bead opens on a trade fair on mainland Alaska in the time of 
caribou-skin tents, native dances, and caribou-skin tents.  It introduces Nutaaq, 
a strong-willed young girl, many of whose characteristics carry through to her 
namesake descendent seventy years afterward.  At the dramatic dénouement of 
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