Voice of the Valley

Onja Claibourn is almost fifteen. Her world is one of sage, buffalo bills, browneyed susans, cactus, flax, buckbrush, foxtail and orange mossthe world of the valley just beyond the family farm. Old roads twist like a game of snakes and ladders into the valley. Onja and her horse Ginger spend their summer days in exploration.But things begin to change when Onja discovers first an archeological dig and then the startling fact that there is a plan to dam and flood her valley. She cannot contemplate this change to the landscape she loves so much. And when she also discovers sixteenyearold Etthen, working with the archaeologists, she begins those first faltering footsteps toward a totally unfamiliar landscaperomantic love.Voice of the Valley is a poetic, multilayered, comingofage story inspired by the controversial flooding of Saskatchewans Souris Valley. Onja Claibourn is a wonderfully complex and very real characterinnocent, wise, shy, stubborn, playful, and caring. The other major character in the novel is the prairie landscape itselfhuge sky, harsh sun, rolling hills, sweeping fields of grain.