THE TRANSFORMATION by Mette Newth

The Transformation
Mette Newth
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Young Adult
ISBN: 0374377529

"In the beginning, when Human Beings came, there was only darkness. At that time a young woman was living with her father by the seashore. Once, when she was going to fetch some water, she saw a feather floating toward her from the sea. She opened her mouth and the feather floated in. She swallowed it and was with child. The child was born with a raven's beak... No one knows for certain whether the Raven created the first light, but all know that he loves the sun and that he steals it when he can."

Navarana is a young Inuit woman living in Greenland. After losing both of her parents to famine during the long cold winter that has taken over the land, she becomes a hunter and a shaman. Navarana's people, who call themselves the Human Beings, are hanging on by only a flickering flame of life as the endless winter wears on. Now Navarana's wings must touch the sun in order to end winter's awful grip on their land.

Brendan is a young Irish monk who came to Greenland to convert the "heathens." He is like a newborn babe in the Human Being's land, and Navarana wonders how this stranger will fit in after she saves him from starvation --- a decision she must justify to the Old One. Having taken the sow as her spirit guide when it gave its life so her people could have food, Navarana tells the Old One, "He has hair the same color as the sow's coat."

"Do you know what path you have chosen?" the Old One asks. "You've saved a life and you've set something in motion, something you alone can't control. You've no idea where this will lead you." And she, who always listened carefully to the Old One, turns a deaf ear to him.

Now she knows it was not common sense that led her to taking the stranger with her. She has no idea what her decision will lead to, for him or for her, as together they start on Navarana's quest to bring back the sun. She only knows that in order to survive, they must draw on each other's strengths.

"We must journey to the edge of the world, where once upon a time the sun was born," she began. "There the sun will be resurrected if my power is strong enough. The rest of the Human Beings can manage for themselves. Human Beings will adjust to nature's changes, just as we always have had to do. But," she continued slowly, "no one can adjust to a world without sun, for she is the absolute sovereign of all life."

As they travel together, Navarana admires Brendan's courage as he tries to heal the raw and bleeding wounds from his childhood by finding his spirit light. Will he be able to reconcile his dedication to his Great God with his love for Navarana and her devotion to the Great Mother of the Sea? They live in two different worlds; can they become one?

THE TRANSFORMATION is filled with Mette Newth's vivid and beautiful word pictures and metaphors describing a breathtaking land of legend and folklore.

Mette Newth is an illustrator, translator and the author of THE ABDUCTION, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and THE DARK LIGHT. She is the head of the National College of Art in Oslo.

--- Reviewed by Audrey Marie Danielson