I love non-fiction. I have a really hard time getting into some types of fiction, so when I decided to read one of the Young Adult Award Winners, I admit, I leaned towards Eagle Blue because it was a piece of non-fiction. The setting also enticed me because I spent five years living in Iceland when I was younger and often wonder if Northern Alaska is similar to Iceland.
Eagle Blue is about a group of boys who live in a tiny Native town, Fort Yukon. Fort Yukon is hundreds of miles from any town. Basketball is everything in Fort Yukon, the entire town loves the game and loves watching the students at Fort Yukon play. Typically, Fort Yukon does well during their seasons and over the years, their coach, Dave Bridges has led the Eagles to the Regional and State Finals many times. This happens to be one of the years where the Fort Yukon boys dominate. The story is not only about their 2004 season, but also what life is like being a Native American and living in a remote village in Northern Alaska.
Unfortunatly, the title, Eagle Blue, is fairly straightforward and has little underlying meaning (I love significant titles that have deep figurative meaning that can only be discovered half way through the book). Fort Yukon's mascot is the Eagle and Blue represents the blue ice, so abundent in Northern Alaska.
It was obvious that Michael D'Orso spent hours with the community in Fort Yukon. Although he did a stellar job of writing Eagle Blue. I felt he left some questions unanswered. As I read, I continuously wondered whether there were dirt or paved roads between these small Alaskan towns. I also wondered if D'Orso got the impression that the Native American's in many of the rural towns in Northern Alaska were truly trying to better their situations or were they so fed up with the American government, they'd resigned themselves to not achieving anything any more because they felt they couldn't. My last quandry centered around Dave Bridges. As a non-Native, he had a pretty good understanding of the Native culture but I also wondered if he was one who wanted to live in Fort Yukon forever. I know he'd mentioned not coaching but wondered if he did stop coaching, whether he'd eventually leave Fort Yukon.
After reading Eagle Blue, I gained a new respect for the youth that attend school in the Alaskan town. Not only are they dedicated to their culture but also to the sport they love. I think Dave Bridges said it best when he compared his team to other American teams. They were tougher and realized that playing basketball and traveling as they did was a privlidge not a right.
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