Raven, Stay by Me

Eleven-year-old Greenlander Inga Sigurdsdottir wakens on a cold and rocky coast after her Norse ship wrecks en route to “Vinland.” Her one comfort and companion is an injured raven she rescues. When she encounters Inuit hunters, both parties are terrified by the meeting. But when an exhausted Inga rescues a lost child, the girl’s mother insists that the stranded Inga be taken in. Chance eventually brings her into contact with a company of Norsemen, including her own uncle. Caught between the two cultures, she is compelled to choose between returning to Greenland with the Norse or staying with the Inuit.

This book can be shared as an example of a survival story about a strong female character and her relationship with nature. Both Norse and Inuit cultures are central to this book. The language and lore of the world of ships is an added feature to Raven, Stay By Me, thus showing how informational text can successful be woven into fiction.

When Inga Sigurdsdottir awakes on the beach of a strange land, she finds herself alone and frightened. The ship she was sailing on has vanished and her Grandmother is nowhere to be found. As Inga struggles to survive, she comes across an injured raven and he becomes her constant companion. Eventually Inga encounters a group of Inuit hunters known to her people, the Norse, as ‘skraelings’. Both she and the Inuit hunters are afraid of one another, but when Inga rescues a lost child she is taken in by the group and lives with them for many years. Eventually Inga comes across another group of Norsemen and her uncle is among them. Having had limited contact with the Inuit, the Norse still fear them and Inga is forced to make a very difficult decision to return to her own people in order to protect her adopted family.

L.W. (Luise) van Keuren weaves this beautiful tale around a collection of historical artefacts to bring this period of history to life for children. As her main characters mature, she reveals the roles and responsibilities teenagers carried out at the time – providing an excellent resource for comparison to the world our children live in today. Appropriate for children in the junior and intermediate grades, this novel would complement the study of explorers to North America. It is a fresh perspective that looks at the interactions of the Norse and Inuit and opens students’ minds to another period in Canadian history that is less traditionally discussed.