Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 1994)

Starred Review In this story, which picks up precisely where Newbery Medal winner Julie of the Wolves ends, Julie must find her own path between the Eskimo ways she loves and the modern world that intrudes on the tundra. As the book begins, Julie decides to live with her father and Ellen, her new gussak (non-Eskimo) stepmother. Although Julie initially refuses to speak English or let Ellen know she understands it, she lets down her guard and befriends Ellen when she comes to respect her. Fittingly, that scene takes place during a blizzard as Ellen and Julie help a musk ox give birth to a calf. And the wolves? Close by, members of the wolf pack that saved Julie's life in the first book pose a threat to the herd of musk oxen that represent financial security and continued existence to the Eskimo village. Throughout the book, Julie feels a strong conflict with her father, who would shoot the wolves to protect the herd. Yet it was her father who taught her to live by the old ways of the Eskimo, represented by the wolves roaming free on the tundra. To her credit, George does not try to repeat the survival journey of Julie of the Wolves in its sequel. Although Julie travels with the wolves again in part of the book, this novel is a survival story only in the broader context: can the old ways survive the encroaching modern culture? An unusually fine sequel. (Reviewed October 15, 1994)

Horn Book (Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 1994)

In a sequel to 'Julie of the Wolves' (Harper), Julie proceeds with her decision to return to her father, Kapugen, in spite of her fears that he will kill the rest of her wolf pack as he did its leader. The relationships between Julie and her father, Julie and her new stepmother, and, once again, Julie and the wolves are skillfully drawn; the book's resolution is satisfying and believable.

Kirkus Reviews

This sequel to 1973 Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves continues the story of Julie Edwards Miyax Kapugen, the girl who traveled across the tundra with her adoptive wolf pack. Miyax is now living in Kangik village with her father, Kapugen, and his gussak (white) wife, Ellen. Although initially uncomfortable with her new stepmother, Miyax comes to trust and—after they spend several days together in a makeshift shelter during a raging snowstorm- -love her. Peter, a Siberian Eskimo who was adopted by a couple in Kangik, has made his intentions toward Miyax known, intentions that Miyax, nearly 15, finds very pleasant. She forgives her father for killing Amaroq, her wolf leader, and tries to understand the desperation that forced him to do it. The one shadow that looms over Miyax is the knowledge that Kapugen will not hesitate to shoot more of her beloved wolves if they again threaten the uminmaks, or musk oxen, that he is raising as part of the village's cooperative industry. Miyax goes again to the wolves to lead them away from the oxen and Kapugen. But they return, and their fate depends on whether Miyax can prove to her father what he once knew but seems to have forgotten: that Eskimos and animals must coexist as friends. Interesting Eskimo village lore, and more lupine detail, but the unifying theme here—Miyax saving the wolves—is not nearly as arresting as the original. (Fiction. 10+)"

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In a starred review, PW praised the """"breathtakingly clear prose"""" and """"striking observations about Eskimo culture"""" in this """"nearly perfect"""" sequel to the 1973 Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves. Ages 10-up. (Feb.)

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-George continues the story begun in Newbery-award winning Julie of the Wolves (HarperCollins, 1974) with the young woman's return to her father's home in Kangik, Alaska. As she becomes reaquainted with Kapugen, she tries to accept the fact that he killed her beloved wolf Amaroq. She must also come to terms with her father's abandonment of some traditional Eskimo ways in order to help the local population survive, his new wife (a white woman), and a new romantic interest of her own. Julie is no longer a loner; she, too, learns about being a part of a community, one that is struggling to exist in a difficult and changing environment. But she also vows to protect the surviving wolves and move them to a place where they will not threaten her father's herd of musk-oxen. Although there is purpose (nearing obsession) to Julie's actions, readers must pay attention to the frequent shifts in the location of the wolf pack and the all-important caribou, vital to both the survival of the wolves and the village. As Julie seeks to move the pack leader, Kapu, and the other wolves closer to a food source, readers may sense some resemblance to the scenes of gaining trust in the earlier title and some may question Julie's interference with the natural order of things (an intervention she cannot possibly maintain). Still, the sense of place and of a people is strong throughout. In the end, her father changes his philosophy from needing to kill the wolves to releasing his oxen into the wild, a conclusion that is a bit abrupt but thoroughly satisfying.-Susan Knorr, Milwaukee Public Library, WI