365 Days to Alaska by Cathy Carr.

 

Last week, I read 365 Days to Alaska by Cathy Carr. This realistic fiction novel is about Rigel Harman, an eleven-year-old girl who loves living in the wilderness of Alaska. After her parents, Bear and Lila, divorce during the summer, Lila takes Rigel and her two sisters, Willow and Izzy, to Baldwin, Connecticut, to live with their grandma. Before they leave, Bear promises Rigel that she can return to Alaska in a year as long as she keeps it a secret from everyone else until he can talk to Lila about it. Rigel hates living in Connecticut at first, especially because it's challenging making new friends and the food isn't as good, but she finds joy in taking care of an injured crow outside her new school by feeding it whenever she can. As the months go by and Bear's communication with her and her sisters decreases, she wonders whether or not Bear will really keep his promise and if she'll have adjust to living in the suburbs more permanently.

I was really looking forward to reading 365 Days to Alaska because its main characters are from Alaska, so I wasn't surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Although I've never had to move as far from home as Rigel, I could relate to her struggles because I moved from Ohio to Illinois at a similar age. My favorite part of the whole book was her friendship with the crow whom she named Blueberry. This friendship was definitely the emotional core of the story for me and I got a bit teary-eyed near the end knowing it couldn't last. It also felt poignant how her relationship with her dad, Bear, changed as time went on and she began to realize that not going back to Alaska the next summer was a real possibility. I love that Rigel eventually found some friends among her classmates, though, because she was having a rough go of it before she received a surprise Christmas gift. 365 Days to Alaska is a wonderful story about truth, belonging, and discovering beauty anywhere and anyone who enjoys family and friendship stories should read it.