Not If I Save You First by Ally Carter

Maddie thought she would be best friends with Logan forever.  That is until her decides to move her to Alaska with no warning. 

It's been six years without one word from Logan -- even though she wrote him every day for two years. 

She accepted that he no longer wanted to be friends. 
She accepted that her life only includes two people -- herself and her dad.
She accepted that she'll always be alone.

Then Logan shows up on her front step and he's brought trouble with him. 

Now they're trying to survive kidnappers and a wild Alaskan blizzard in the woods.  Will they make it through alive or will Maddie end up killing Logan?

This is a great stand-alone book by the author of the Gallagher Girls, Heist Society, and Embassy Row series.  I would highly recommend it to those who enjoy survival stories as well as those who like romances.

The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill

Fred loves school.  Unfortunately, they can't keep a teacher at their small Alaskan school for more than two months.

Then Miss Agnes comes.

Miss Agnes loves to teach.  She makes learning fun.  She wins over the parents who don't see the need for their kids to attend school when they could be working with their family.  She makes Fred's sister attend school even though she is deaf.

Then Miss Agnes says she is homesick for England.  Will she stay more than just the one year?


This was a wonderful historical novel of growing up in Alaska.  It is a simple story focusing on Fred's time at school while still giving a lot of information about living in Alaska in 1948.  I would recommend this book for those who liked The Little House on the Prairie series and the Sarah, Plain and Tall books.

Bo at Ballard Creek by Fitzpatrick Hill

Bo lives in the secluded town of Ballard Creek, an Alaskan mining town, with her two papas.  They adopted her when her mother left Alaska for someplace warmer.  She loves her life in the cookshed where one papa cooks while the other is a blacksmith for the mining company.  Her best friend is Oscar, an Eskimo boy from the town.  They spend their days visiting the miners and other townsfolk.  It's the perfect life for young Bo.

I loved this book.  It was a little slice of life in the Alaskan wilderness.  It reminded me a lot of the Little House on the Prairie books.  It seems almost timeless in its stories.  You know that it is set in the past without any technology we take for granted.  It is only by one small sentence that you find out it is set in 1929-1930.  This is a great book for boys and girls to read!

Continue reading about Bo and her unusual family in Bo at Iditarod Creek.