Gillnetter Girls

Gillnetter Girls by author/illustrator Mollie Ginther takes readers along for a summer of salmon fishing in Alaska with young Ani, Mama, and their seafaring feline, BB Cat. The picture book’s lively artwork captures details of daily adventures aboard their boat while fishing, visiting with fellow fisherfolk, and riding out storms, as well as explorations onshore as they pick berries, examine tide pools, and find treasures on the beach.

Gillnetter Girls by Mollie Ginther
Cover illustration

The text and the illustrations are as interesting as they are informational. Ginther’s drawings give her characters a feeling of energy and motion, with a variety of perspectives and unexpected details that draw the reader into each page. Illustrated insets on some pages provide extra information, such as the parts of a gillnet, or interesting details, one of my favorites being a warning pile of bear poo.

Gillnet with inset details

Several full-page pictures accurately depict specific animals or plants, such as species of salmon, seaweed and kelp, and jellyfish. The information presented throughout the book is never heavy-handed; it flows naturally from the text and art as the days roll by.

Seaweed and kelp illustrations

The text is appropriately spare for a picture book and doesn’t try to do too much. While the story is slight — a simple accumulation of small events during the summer’s fishing — because it begins and ends with a season it feels satisfyingly complete. The everyday experiences will be unique and of interest to most children and adults.

Setting out for a new season of fishing!

Ginther uses an attractive, narrow border to contain the activities of each day to their respective pages, as well as enough white space to give the illustrations plenty of fresh, open air. Text integrates clearly with the illustrations, which complement and extend the text.

Gillnetter Girls will leave readers with a new appreciation for a unique way of livelihood -- and feeling like they’ve been on a grand summer adventure!

A brief glossary is included. Of interest to ages 4 to 7. Published 2020 by Orange Hat Press.

Bristol Bay Summer

Maybe I was waiting for summer, when the mind naturally turns to salmon, to read Annie Boochever’s middle grade novel, Bristol Bay Summer. Salmon do indeed figure prominently in the story — but I needn’t have waited. Bristol Bay Summer is a well-told coming-of-age story worth reading anytime.

Boochever balances the various elements of the story adeptly, ranging from teen angst to surviving wilderness challenges to the uncertainties of budding romance.  Fifteen-year-old Zoey’s inner turmoil over her parents’ divorce is compounded by the shock of moving from her familiar life in Colorado to Anchorage. Then, even worse, she and her younger brother Eliot are carted off to a tent on the shores of Bristol Bay for a summer of hauling salmon with Mom, and Mom’s new boyfriend, Patrick, in his rickety second-hand plane. Zoey wants nothing to do with this new life being foisted upon her by adults except get out of it. Surely, if she could just get back to Colorado, she could find Dad and they’d work things out. Except Dad never writes back…

Alaska Northwest Books, 2014.

Zoey’s relationships with her family and the new friends she makes on Bristol Bay evolve from initial self-absorption to gradual acceptance and appreciation, not just for the  bounty of bush Alaska, but for a broader understanding of family and friendship. As her heart opens to this new landscape and its people, she gradually releases the past to accept the present and envision a realistic future.

This story has a lot of heart. But it also delivers plenty of adventure with numerous “firsts.” Remember your first ride in a single-engine plane? The first time you saw a bear in the wild? That first time you stood in freezing-cold water for hours on end harvesting salmon? Small boats, small planes, big bears, rough weather, illness and accident — any of these can prove disastrous in a remote location like fish camp. They can also prove cliche if written about in a superficial way. Thankfully, Boochever gives us the real deal with authentic details, plausible plot and very likable characters.

Speaking of which, did I mention there’s this boy? Turns out a very nice young man, competent and quiet, with his own wounds to heal, lives not too far down the beach. He and his family, their partners in the fish business, become genuine friends — and in Zoey and Thomas’s case, perhaps a bit more.

Boochever, who was born and raised in Juneau, Alaska, spent her own summer on Bristol Bay. (Check out her website to learn more.) As a writer, she weaves the realities of life in Alaska into her story without letting them overwhelm for dramatic effect. Boats, planes and bears carry inherent dangers but in Bristol Bay Summer — thankfully — they keep to their proper places as part of the fabric of life.

Bristol Bay Summer is an honest story for younger to mid-teens, authentically told and well-crafted. I say, read it soon — the salmon are running!