Ten-year-old Willy is facing serious trouble. He lives alone with his grandfather, who now won’t get out of bed, but the doctor says there’s nothing wrong- he’s just lost the will to live (symptoms sounded like a stroke to me, though). With the help of his trusted dog Searchlight, Willy tries to take care of the farm. He manages to bring in the entire potato harvest, with the dog pulling farm equipment. Relieved to find the sale of the crop is enough to buy food for the winter, but then he learns they owe taxes on the farm. Willy is desperate to earn enough money to pay the taxes so they don’t loose the farm, though everyone keeps advising him to sell the farm and put Grandfather in a care home. He enters a sled dog race, excited that the winnings would be just enough. Problem is, a large stern Native American man has always entered and won this race, for years in a row (he uses the money to buy back his people’s land, that was stolen from them by the government when they were forced onto reservations). Willy and Searchlight literally put their utmost effort into winning the race. The ending of this book is such a tearjerker. Apparently it is based on a true story- at least, the final incident. Which really got to me, even though some earlier parts of the story felt unbelievable.
I had trouble with the idea that a kid of ten would be allowed to live alone in a house with his ailing grandfather, attempting to run the farm by himself, not made to go to school or put in foster care by any authorities. I suppose because it was from such an earlier era, people just let things be? I struggled to picture a dog- even a sled dog that enjoys the work- pulling the machinery to dig up potato fields, too. The writing style is a bit simplistic, and the illustrations (not like the cover one) also left something to be desired. I was feeling pretty ‘meh’ about this whole book, until I got to that final scene. Really gets to you. I certainly won’t forget this story.
One Response
Oh I missed that you read this one, too! I just DNFed it yesterday. Good to hear the ending was a worthy payoff. Since I never got to it, the cover was the best part to me.