The Secret of the Seal

by Deborah Davis, Judy Labrasca (Illustrator)

Story of friendship between an Eskimo boy and a seal.

Genres: Native American, Animals, Young Adult

57 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Bio at http://www.deborahdavisauthor.com

Reviews

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

while some reviewers felt that Kyo acted out of his culture by befriending a seal, I took that as the authors point. how dufficult it is to think differently; how conflicted Kyo was seemed to prove that point to me. my students enjoyed reading it and felt they could relate to someone being different from their family.

[Books Kids Like · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kyo lives in an isolated Eskimo village. The seals that inhabit the water under his village give Kyo's family food. Kyo himself is learning to hunt seal. One day, he finds a seal's breathing hole and waits patiently behind an ice block shield. When a seal does come, Kyo finds that he can't kill it. He is fascinated by the seal's fearlessness. After watching her for a time, he names her Tooky. After that, Kyo goes many times to visit his new friend, Tooky. He learns that she holds her breath for a long time while she is sleeping. Kyo begins to carve a stone seal with Tooky as the model. Then, Kyo's Uncle Gordon comes from the big city to trap a seal for the city zoo. Fearing for Tooky, Kyo takes his uncle to other seal holes far away from his house. Kyo avoids going to see Tooky for fear that his uncle will follow him. One night, he slips away and goes to Tooky's breathing hole. The water in the hole is frozen solid, and he can't break it. The next morning Kyo oversleeps. When Kyo awakes, he finds that Uncle Gordon has followed the footprints he left in the snow the previous night. He watches as his uncle shoots Tooky with the drugged dart. Is Kyo too late save his friend?
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com

[K. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read aloud contender 12/13 school year.

Had high hopes for this book, right size, could be interesting cultural significance.

Felt more like propaganda to me. Eskimo boy makes friends with seal, doesn't want to eat her or put her in a zoo. Okay, nothing inherently wrong with that, except that it probably is completely culturally (for an Igloo living Eskimo) backwards. We modern-day people love to imbue other cultures with the "positive character traits" we wish they had, eh? The book would have been FAR more interesting and of worth had it positively portrayed the culture as it is.