Orphan Ahwak

'A hunter knows he is never alone.' She had heard Father say that once. Aneze looked into the trees. She spoke out loud to the bush. 'There's always you, Chickadee,' she said to the small birds skittering above. 'And if I stare long enough at the sky, I'll see you, Eagle, circling with your wife. You will show me where Rabbit and Vole are hiding. And nearby in the stream, you are swimming, Jackfish. And you, Beaver, you are working on your house.' 'You see,' Aneze told the woods. 'I'm not alone at all.' Aneze, a young aboriginal girl, is left for dead after her village is ripped apart by a wife-raid; her father and brother are killed and her mother is kidnapped. Aneze is the only survivor. She renames herself Orphan Ahwak as she struggles to survive on her own, first in the forest and then in a remote world of tundra and sea-ice. She endures cold and hunger and befriends people whose customs are completely foreign to her. Through it all she remains determined to become a hunter and to find a place in an often hostile and terrifying world. Raquel Rivera is a writer and artist who has written three children's books. She has lived in Barcelona, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur but now makes her home in Montreal, Quebec, with her husband and two children.Rivera, Raquel is the author of 'Orphan Ahwak', published 2007 under ISBN 9781551436531 and ISBN 1551436531.