Rover (review)

Though Hekja knows her family is poor, she is quite happy at home with her mother and their new puppy, a rejected runt whose name, Mighty Rover, belies his current size and status. Ships on the horizon bring horror and irrevocable change for Hekja and her village, however, when invading Vikings rob and murder everyone she loves. Hekja is taken on as a slave for Freydis, Erik the Red's daughter, and she quickly adapts to her new life and her new surroundings, though she never stops imagining ways to escape. She is fortunate indeed to still have Rover as her constant companion, after inspiring enough sympathy and admiration (Hekja is as daring, outspoken, and brilliant as her new mistress) to have been granted ownership of him. Ultimately, Hekja and Freydis form a close bond that helps both as they explore new lands, battle for recognition and survival, and, ultimately, each find a peace of sorts for their lives. Even with a large cast, French has created compelling, fully realized characters that surround the richly developed Hekja, whose defiance plays out in realistic ways given the Viking setting (the author admirably avoids creating Hekja as a twenty-first-century girl squashed into a historical fiction). In addition, the haunting setting, recalling Nancy Farmer's Sea of Trolls (BCCB 11/04), is mainly drawn out of real geographical and historical details of eleventh-century Scotland, Greenland, and Iceland; a map, author's note, and occasional footnotes will help readers sort out fact from fiction and may inspire further interest. A girl and her dog against an entire world is compelling enough, and the fact that readers get a brief update on her adult life makes this an irresistibly well-crafted historical fiction that is also a powerful coming-of-age novel as Hekja grows into a woman who, even in situations that are often troubling, complex, or grim, seeks love and beauty.