National Network for Equitable Library Service

Briony, a prairie girl with a disfigured face, is adopted when she is nine by a childless older couple, Dagget and Moll, who appear mysteriously one day at her orphanage. They take her to their remote town of Crowsbeak in northern Saskatchewan where Briony, tormented by her schoolmates for her scarred face and dark skin, struggles to fit in. Briony soon learns that Dagget is in fact a renowned bush pilot and, partly as a means of escape, she begins flying with him. On one of their many flights in his iconic Norseman, he takes her into a remote northern reserve where she forms a strong relationship with an older First Nations woman, and learns she has a Cree background and family. Gaining confidence in her own abilities, Briony becomes passionately involved in flying and is soon acting as Dagget’s co-pilot, going on to earn her pilot’s licence. But then Briony is forced to question everything she believes when she learns the disturbing truth behind the scar on her face. This edgy coming-of-age story brings Canadian history and northern culture vividly to life as Briony fights to discover her identity and claim her place in the world. The final chapters describe a perilous flight through the Arctic, landing in fog-enshrouded Greenland, and then across the north Atlantic to the distant Hebrides.