DREAM WEAVER

A reverse retelling of the epic that signaled Spinka’s attempt to leap from YA to adult fiction (Picture Maker, 2001).

Picture Maker’s grand adventure took her from mid-America to the European continent in the 14th century. But with Picture Maker dead at the turn of the century, who will teacher her daughter, Dream Weaver (Ingrid), to be a woman? More pressingly, at the beginning of the story, who will rescue Ingrid’s brother, Leif, when he’s knocked out on a hunting trip? Maybe the Skraelings who once saved his father, Halvard, Picture Maker’s unlikely husband, and to whom the Skraelings are indebted. When Leif brings one home, it’s only to begin Ingrid’s reverse trek on her mother’s path. And in case we don’t get the comparison, Dream Weaver is a dead ringer for Picture Maker. Regardless, on the way she’ll witness a pagan murder trial, attacks by the last vestiges of the Vikings, will get in trouble among the Inuit for emitting “love and hate at the same time,” have another close call with the Algonquians, go fast with a Native American called Runs Fast—but will she make it back to the Ganeogaono people, Picture Maker’s tribe, and will they recognize her if she does? The first installment in this series had the unforgivingly roaming feel of a picaresque, but what should now be an odyssey is more like a soap opera, with lots of opportunities for hapless Greenlanders to utter things like “It would need the cunning of Loki to escape this situation well.” As always, what’s interesting is the alternate history Spinka describes, but the retracing of Picture Maker’s steps is all we get instead of new plot, and fans of the first are likely to be disappointed that it’s déjà vu all over again.

Still waiting for Spinka’s voice to grow up.