Reading the North

By Alicia Loveland (Publication Consultants, $15.95)

The blurb: This fourth generation Alaskan's memoir details life as a homesteader in the Interior, filled with stories about the trials of living in a remote area in the '50s, when Alaska was still a territory.

Excerpt: "Mom took me to the Anchorage Railroad Station at the bottom of 3rd Street and put me on the train August 11. She handed a man with a black uniform and black hat my ticket and told him I was travelling alone and then waved at me until I could no longer see her. At the age of eight, it was an adventure riding the train for the first time. I felt grown up doing it on my own, but at the same time, it was scary travelling alone. I was going to visit my Grandparents in Cantwell, Alaska.

"The train chugged its way over the tracks. I didn't bother to look at the scenery outside; my whole attention wrapped around the people I saw in my rail car. There were mostly grizzly young and old men with beards. A few women sat across the aisle knitting or reading a book. Two kids sat farther down the aisle staring idly out the window."

Flight of the Golden Plover: The Amazing Migration Between Hawaii and Alaska

By Debbie S. Miller, illustrated by Daniel Van Zyle (Snowy Owl Books, $11.95)

The blurb: This book celebrates the life cycle of the Pacific golden plover -- a shorebird that migrates more than 6,000 miles between Hawaii and Alaska every year -- while revealing some of its behaviors and adaptations.

Excerpt: "A fast flier, the plover soon reaches a grassy slope. This is his territory, a place where he returns each year to feed on grasshoppers and other insects. The Hawaiian goose, nene, browses nearby, but there are no other plovers. This plover has established his territory and chased away any plovers that have challenged him for the site.

"The plover dashes forward, then freezes, as still as a statue. Spotting movement in the grass, he quickly jabs his beak at the ground and catches a grasshopper. While he swallows his food, the first rays of sunlight paint his feathers gold, as though the dawn glowed from within him."

Raven and River

By Nancy White Carlstrom, illustrated by Jon Van Zyle (Snowy Owl Books, $11.95)

The blurb: In this children's book of paintings and poetic text, the raven swoops through the sky, calling out for the river below to awaken for spring.

Excerpt: "Raven

"knowing

"swoops out of winter into spring,

"circling, circling.

"He gurgles and burbles,

"Like a river flowing.

"R-r-rawk, r-r-rawk quiver

"Wake the sleeping River

"Red squirrel

"listening

"skitters up the highest spruce.

"She searches this way, that way,

"back again.

Bright eyes sparkle,

"like a river shining.

"Chit-chit shimmer

"Wake the sleeping River."

-- Compiled by Matt Sullivan, Anchorage Daily News