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Ice Dogs
Ice Dogs
Ice Dogs
Ebook170 pages4 hours

Ice Dogs

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this ebook

Victoria Secord, a fourteen-year-old Alaskan dogsled racer, loses her way on a routine outing with her dogs. With food gone and temperatures dropping, her survival and that of her dogs and the mysterious boy she meets in the woods is entirely up to her.

The author Terry Lynn Johnson is a musher herself, and her crackling writing puts readers at the reins as Victoria and Chris experience setbacks, mistakes, and small triumphs in their wilderness adventure.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateFeb 4, 2014
ISBN9780544156890
Ice Dogs
Author

Terry Lynn Johnson

Terry Lynn Johnson, author of Ice Dogs, Sled Dog School, Dog Driven and the Survivor Diaries series, lives in Whitefish Falls, Ontario where for ten years she owned a team of eighteen Alaskan Huskies. www.terrylynnjohnson.com Twitter:@TerryLynnJ

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Reviews for Ice Dogs

Rating: 4.250000063636364 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

44 ratings7 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    If you liked Hatchet, read it!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great survival; story about a young women that rescues an injured snowmobiler and uses her dog sled team to save them both from an Alaskan blizzard. 41/2 stars.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Victoria Secord is a 14 yr old Alaskan girl who lives to care for and race her sled dogs; Johnson introduces us to Vicky & her dogs in the very first chapter by dropping readers into a dogsled race, great choice to hook her teen readers. Without ever "telling" her audience too much at once, we learn about dogs who pull sleds, the wilderness surrounding her small town of Spruce River& the recent loss of her dad- for much of the story we only know he's lost due to an "accident". Woven into the fast moving plot, the writer helps us recognize the challenges & rugged beauty of the outdoors, and the outdoor survival expertise all through Vicky's actions and thoughts. On a routine practice run with her dog team, she encounters a smashed snowmobile and a dazed, injured driver - Chris- who will surely die in the frigid winter woods if Vicky leaves him. As she tends to his injuries and tries to find her way through the falling snow, it dawns on Vicky ( and us!) that they may be in a difficult situation, dangerous in the extreme environment without anyone knowing where either of them has gone. Will they be found, or will they find their way back to home ? Sometimes predictable in its emerging plot, and not as strong in character development, Johnson's knowledge, love, and admiration for sled dogs clearly shines through - Vicky is a plucky, dedicated outdoors woman and we are rooting for both young people, and her strong, dependable dogs. The last crisis they face at Devils River was significant, and helps us connect with Victoria's sorrow of her dads lonely death- out checking trap lines and falling through the ice to drown in the river's depths. Written at middle school level, but with enough danger and budding friendship - perhaps romance?- to appeal to high school readers too. Great outdoors survival story!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Rating: 4.5/5

    This is a great survival story! The author owns her own sled dog team, so this story seems really accurate to real life situations. The adventure and the risk of surviving seemed real and kept me reading. I needed to know what happened to Vicky and if they survived.


    I feel in love not only with the human characters in this book, but also with the sled dogs. I loved the writing style. This book is marketed as a Children's Fiction novel, but it is written with elevated language and I feel it is more suited to a Young Adult audience.


    I think this book would be great for fans of the Hatchet series by Gary Paulsen. Although I have not read this book in a really long time, Ice Dogs reminds me of this novel.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Man oh man. This is epic, grab you by the throat adventure told with engaging prose and beautiful writing. I couldn't put it down and I seriously would love to hand it to everyone and say "You need to read this!!!" So, ready? You need to read this. Really. Read it. And if you have a reluctant reader at home, buy this, because there will be nothing reluctant about the way he or she zooms through it from start to finish!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I honestly haven’t enjoyed a middle grade book this much in a long time! I find it harder and harder to connect with MG stories and characters the older I get, but I had no trouble getting swept off my feet and taken along for the ride of a lifetime with fourteen-year-old Victoria and her team of dogs. I think this is the most intense middle grade book I’ve ever read. Victoria’s life, Chris’s life, and her entire dogsled teams’ lives are on the line for about 95% of the book. The threats never stopped. I was in awe of fourteen-year-old Victoria and the way she was able to face so many life-or-death situations with a wisdom and strength far beyond her years. I’m 23, and if I ever got stranded in the woods during a snowstorm I’d be a goner for sure, so I was very impressed with Victoria. The world of mushing was completely new to me and I really enjoyed learning about it through Victoria’s eyes. There was some terminology I didn’t know, like what a yurt is for example. So of course, like any modern day citizen with a computer and internet connection, I Googled it. For those of you also wondering who maybe didn’t look it up, here is a picture of a nice cozy yurt in the snow.While survival is definitley the main aspect of the story, there is also a super cute friendship leading to possible romance between Victoria and the boy she rescues in the woods, Chris. At first Vicky is cautious about this stranger she knows absolutely nothing about, but as they get to know each other trust is earned and adorable bickering ensues. Overall this was an action packed tale of a young girls will to survive. I would highly recommend this title to readers of all ages. I haven’t enjoyed a middle grade story this much in as long as I can remember!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When Victoria Secord set out to try to get new lead dogs for her team, she finds herself in trouble. Victoria is a champion dog-sled racer. Her mother doesn’t think she needs new dogs. But, Victoria wants to win the White Wolf race and feels she can only do this with a few new dogs. Without letting her mother know her plans, she waits until her mother leaves for work to head out. She is in unfamiliar territory. She has her map and all of the skills her now deceased father taught her. Almost to the camp she was heading for she comes across a snowmobile wrapped around a tree. She finds the owner lying in the snow hurt. Once she gets Chris loaded onto the sled, with his directions she heads to his home. It isn’t long before she realizes they are lost. To make matters worse a blizzard has set in. It will take everything her father taught her along with help from Chris if they and her dogs are to survive. The characters were spot on. The author definitely knows how teens think. The plot progressed smoothly enough, with enough heart stopping twists and turns to keep me turning page after page. The author definitely knows about dog sledding, and Alaska. I felt, as I read, I was there with Victoria, Chris and the dogs along for this adventure. I loved watching the relationship build between Victoria and Chris. This was not a romantic relationship but a relationship that stretched them in ways they had not expected. I've read books where the characters come across as flat, but this book has very well rounded characters. It brought out a lot of emotions in me. This is a book that I know my students will enjoy as much as I did. It reminded me a lot of Gary Paulsen’s book Hatchet. I know the students who have read his books will enjoy this one as well. I look forward to more books by this author. It is an asset to all classroom shelves. I am definitely recommending this one to our media specialist.Disclosure: I received a copy from the author in exchange for my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own and no way influenced by receiving the book.

Book preview

Ice Dogs - Terry Lynn Johnson

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