Luke Aaluk

Luke is an 11-year-old Eskimo boy who lives on the Alaskan tundra. When he and his brothers are sent away to a Catholic boarding school, he knows they are going to change his name because it is from the Inupiaq language which white people have difficulty pronouncing. Luke is the eldest of three brothers and feels responsible for the other two when they are away from home for the school year. Luke is a sensitive person and has strong intuitive powers which exhibit in dreams and strong connections to his forefathers. Luke's premonitions keep him from harm but his brother, Bunna, dies when his plane crashes on the way home one summer.

At the school, Luke learns discrimination and even cruelty from the priests and nuns who strip him and the other children of their Inupiaq language and sense of their own homes. Luke's Eskimo culture has...