American Indian Young Adult Novel, Grand Canyon Rescue, Wins Another Book Award

American Indian author Devon Mihesuah’s young adult novel, Grand Canyon Rescue, has won the Arizona Writers’ Association Children’s Book of the Year. It previously won the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation Best Young Adult Novel of the Year and was finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award. Grand Canyon Rescue is an outdoor adventure story of peril and courage that takes place in the Kaibab Forest on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim.

Baldwin City, KS (PRWEB) November 15, 2005 -- American Indian author Devon Mihesuah’s, Grand Canyon Rescue, has won the Arizona Writers’ Association Children's Book of the Year. The adventure story of peril and courage that takes place in the Kaibab Forest on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim has already won the Oklahoma Writers' Federation Best Young Adult Novel and was finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award.

Devon Mihesuah, is Oklahoma Choctaw and the Cora Lee Beers Price Teaching Professor in International Cultural Understanding in the Center for Indigenous Nations Studies at the University of Kansas. She is author of a dozen non-fiction scholarly works and fiction stories that deal with American Indian empowerment and decolonization. She also serves as Editor of the international journal of indigenous studies, the American Indian Quarterly.

“The heroine, Tuli Black Wolf, is a positive role model who Native youth can emulate,” Mihesuah says. “Her mother Virginia is a nationally-known tracker and Tuli has learned about being prepared for outdoor emergencies from her. In this novel, Tuli learns about winter survival the hard way.”

Grand Canyon Rescue has a strong message for outdoor enthusiasts who venture into the wilderness without adequate preparation. Tuli must use her search and rescue skills to save lost hunters after an unexpected snowstorm on the Grand Canyon's North Rim. When her famous search and rescue tracker mother is called to help locate missing hunters on the rim, Tuli is allowed to go with her on the dangerous search. Although Tuli is assigned to set up camp and care for the tracking dogs, one evening while accompanying her mom on a quick search the two are separated by a rainstorm.

Now alone in the great forest and in a potentially dangerous situation, Tuli must decide if she will stay put like her mother taught her to do if she became lost, or if she will utilize her knowledge of tracking and survival to embark on a hunt to find the lost men. The answer comes easy the next morning when she discovers the hunters’ tracks. She locates the lost hunters, but one becomes seriously ill and they find themselves in an early snowstorm. In order to save them Tuli must embark on another trek through deep snow to find the base camp.

“The men Tuli finds were not prepared for the early snow,” Mihesuah says. “This is not an unrealistic situation. My husband was turkey hunting on the rim last November and his group ran into the same problem. The snow fell so quickly they didn’t have time to hook up the trailer. The snow piled higher than the truck bumper so he had to leave our r.v. for two weeks until the snow melted a bit. His group got off the rim, but he is an experienced hunter and even if the truck couldn’t get out, he had adequate clothes, food and fuel. The men in this story are not so prepared.”

“Tuli Black Wolf is a terrific role model,” says Mihesuah. “This young woman is not only trying to find her identity as a tribal person, she also finds that adults don’t have all the answers. Boys can learn from this story and so can adults who have forgotten what it means to be a child who knows that he or she can handle responsibility, but is not given the opportunity to prove him or herself. Tuli has always tried to live up to her mother’s high expectations, but she surpasses them and doesn’t even realize it."

Grand Canyon Rescue is the first in an adventure series involving Tuli. Mihesuah has almost completed the second novel in the series, Bad Luck at Big Bend, and the third, Glacier Fire!

Copies of Grand Canyon Rescue can be purchased through Booklocker.com.

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