Twenty-two years ago, Jean Craighead George wrote the Newbery Award winner "Julie of the Wolves," an Arctic survival story of an Eskimo girl who runs away and lives on the tundra with a pack of wolves. It asked the questions, Who is Julie? What does it mean to be an Eskimo? Where does she fit in the white or Eskimo culture?
This highly acclaimed novel of quest and self-discovery has had young readers wonder what happened to Julie (whose Eskimo name is Miyax) after she left the wolves and found that her father had killed the lead wolf, Amaroq, for the bounty. The sequel, Julie(HarperCollins, 1994), is the answer.George's portrayal in the first book of Julie/Miyax, her father Kapugen and Amaroq, is impeccable. As Julie spends time on the tundra, the traditions taught by her father protect and govern her life. He, on the other hand, leaves the ancient ways and becomes known as Charlie and marries a gussak wife Ellen, "a pale face with reddish gold hair."
In "Julie of the Wolves," change was a prevailing agent and theme, such as man's interference with nature, Eskimo against the "lower states" and traditional ways vs. innovation. One of the powerful quotations from the book says, "When fear seizes, change what you are doing. You are doing something wrong."
Also in the original Julie story, George was a master at style with vivid images, metaphor and rhythm of narrative. She included animal and Arctic lore interfaced with fictional material in subtle and sophisticated ways.
Both books are divided into three parts, and the narratives are third person. In the first, Miyax is "the girl" and in the sequel she becomes "the young woman."
"Julie," although a consistent sequel, lacks some of the beauty of the first novel. Nature's calendar, "wolf time" and winter scenery become only a backdrop, not a powerful force. George seems to have lost her use of color (black animals against the snow, northern lights, blood and single blossoms) to augment the text. Julie appears immune to her original "color wheel of memory," which was a superb part of the original story.
Instead, blatant social issues of the North prevail as the force. The enculturation of the Eskimo is the major theme, and Julie becomes lost as an entity. Overall it is the electricity in the homes ("The humming generator, sounding like a sleeping bear, gave a strange kind of life to the still, cold village") the fenced herds and snow-cats that leave the impression of dirt and destruction.
Even Kapugen, who seeks bounty through killing the wolves, admits that the old rules no longer apply. "They shoot the ones that compete with humans. That is how it is between humans and wolves." He then tells his gussak wife, "To survive in our polar world today, we must join your businesses and learn your language."
Julie does return to the remaining wolf pack to lead them to the caribou so they can fend for themselves and not kill the "cash-herd," the musk oxen, but even that event is not as vibrant as the reader would expect. As part of the resolution young readers clamored for, Julie meets a young Siberian who believes in the traditional ways of the tundra. Romance may be a deciding path, but the cardboard character of Atik leaves little optimism.
The original questions that were left at the end of "Julie of the Wolves" still remain. Who is Julie, really? What does it mean to be an Eskimo? Where does she (and others) fit in the white or Eskimo culture? George, perhaps, has tried to fill in the answers but unfortunately without the brilliant writing for which she is best-known.
Young readers might enjoy "Julie" but will return again and again to the first book, "Julie of the Wolves," for a popular read.