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Northern Lights
Howard Norman. Picador: 2001 (paperback). ISBN: 0312283377. 236 pages.
Guide not available
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You mean to say that this utterly
fantastic little novel’s just been lurking about for almost fifteen years and we had no idea? What have we been doing with
our time? All you out there in readerland—trust us—this is one that no self-respecting reader can afford to miss. Norman’s story is set in the frozen, forbidding wilderness of northernmost Manitoba, a place most of us have yet to visit
in literature, not to mention in life. His hero, fourteen-year-old Noah Krainick, lives alone in a cabin with his mother
and cousin, except for the summers. These he spends with his best friend, the exuberant Pelly Bay, in the relatively
bursting metropolis of Quill, a tiny village home to a mixed bag of Cree Indians, French Canadians, and Scandinavian
immigrants. Like most people who scratch out a life in such a harsh and lonely environment, Noah is used to sparseness
and loss. But the loss of Pelly Bay proves a tragedy forceful enough to impel Noah to strike out on his own for Toronto,
the enormous and glittering city to the south which he has never seen. Gosh, we wish we hadn’t already read this book, so
we could read it again for the very first time—awesome.
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