Bell, Joanne. Juggling Fire.

Bell, Joanne. Juggling Fire.
Orca 2009 171p 12.95 978-1-55469-094-7 ms/hs
An Alaskan girl seeks answers to life’s questions. Where did her father go? Why didn’t he return? Can she survive the challenges of the Yukon to try to find her answers? Her quest is unforgettable. Orca Book Publishers has printed the perfect book. As if Orca Soundings had not already provided books for our readers that they cannot put down! In Juggling Fire, Joanne Bell combines poetry, a wonderful story about a relentless search for answers and a family with whom the reader is sure to connect. How she turns a dog named Brooks and a girl named Rachel into protagonists who are both resilient yet vulnerable is a tribute to the author’s writing ability. When Rachel’s father leaves the family due to some undiagnosed emotional disorder, or need to find himself, the family is devastated. However, both the mother and Rachel’s sister move on, mother with her carving and Rachel with her dog sledding and love of animals. Rachel is stuck. She simply cannot accept that her father disappeared, despite the challenges of surviving in the Alaskan wilderness. When she turns of age, she leaves home in search of her father, long accepted dead by authorities. Her adventures, which she endures and survives with her knowledge of life in the Yukon, make the story unforgettable. Using fairy tales, her hobby of juggling, the beauty of the Yukon and her concern for the injured Brooks who has been attacked by a grizzly, Rachel pulls herself together, finds her former home and ends up realizing that her father didn’t just leave them. He was going to come back to his family. Various theories as to his demise are cleverly woven in, yet that is not the focus of this book. Bell’s story is about a quest, and the quest includes a desire for answers, a desire for a new life and a desire for a young girl to find her niche. The descriptions of Alaska are poetic. The writing style is sublime. It is only when Rachel finds her real home and the answer to her quest that all is well again for her. Squaresky, Martha