Fourteen-year-old McKenna Barney is losing her vision. Her younger sister, eight-year-old Emma, is almost totally blind. Emma has Stargardt disease, a degenerative condition that affects the retina. Emma's symptoms began at age six, when she was finally diagnosed. Although she has 20/600 vision, which is far worse than the legally blind criteria, Emma can see some things in her peripheral vision.
One day after school, Emma excitedly tells her about a new dogsled race, the Great Superior Mail Run. She wants McKenna to enter it so that they can increase awareness of Stargardt disease and secure donations for research. She would be carrying letters written by Emma's classmates which would generate publicity and donations to research. McKenna's mom thinks this could work as McKenna has run the dogs this winter and they are in good shape.
The problem is that no one yet knows what is happening to McKenna's vision. She has told no one, not even her parents. The thought of running in a dogsled race with her poor vision is terrifying so McKenna attempts to refuse her sister's request.
But when Emma balks, McKenna shares her secret with Emma, telling her that she is having trouble with her vision but refuses Emma's request to tell their parents. McKenna backtracks and tells Emma she will do the race. They make a deal that if McKenna's vision worsens, she will scratch the race and tell their parents.
McKenna and her family prepare for the race, choosing the dogs that will race, preparing food for the dogs and getting equipment ready. After these preparations, her family drives north to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario to meet up at Ermatinger House Museum, once a Hudson's Bay Company outpost. Inside McKenna is told how to get to the McNabb staging area, the dogs are checked out by veterinarian, and is told relevant information about the three hundred and fifty-four kilometer route of the race. She is also given her mail bag that she will carry during the race and deliver to White River, Ontario post office and sworn in as a temporary letter carrier.
McKenna enters the race focused on winning but as she starts out on the first stage of the race, she encounters another junior racer, Guy Desjardins whose family has a history of involvement as dog couriers in Northern Ontario. Guy's friendship will have a profound impact on McKenna's life, helping her to face her fears and challenge the path she and her family have taken in dealing with a life altering disability.
Discussion
Dog Driven is an exciting novel about a girl participating in a challenging dogsled race while also coping with significant vision loss and what that might mean for her future. McKenna is certain she has Stargardt disease, a condition her younger sister, Emma has. Stargardt disease is an inherited disease that affects the retina, resulting in vision loss during childhood and also the teen years. The macula, a small area located at the center of the retina, which is responsible for sensing light, progressively degenerates. There is currently no treatment for this form of macular degeneration.
In the novel, McKenna has begun to notice significant degeneration in her vision and the symptoms she is experiencing are similar to those her sister Emma experienced. McKenna has not told her parents because she has seen how they have responded to Emma's situation. Her mother does everything for Emma, refusing to let her use her cane and even feeding her. McKenna does not want to lose her autonomy and independence and is filled with fear as she watches how her mother treats Emma.
This overwhelming fear is expressed often throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel McKenna thinks, "There is no denying it any longer. I have it. A hot bubble of fear and grief swells inside me. How can I live with this?" After telling Emma about her deteriorating vision, McKenna refuses her request to tell their parents. "I don't have a plan yet besides keeping it from my parents at all costs. I have to stay independent." She reasons, "Now that I'm sure I've got Stargardt disease, I'm even more determined to keep it from Mom. If she knew, she'd force me to get tested. And as soon as I got diagnosed, she'd start treating me the way she treats my sister. And she treats Em like she's helpless." No matter what, McKenna doesn't want to end up in this situation, so she decides to run the race. If she's able to complete it, this will be proof to her parents that she has a life with low vision.
But it's evident that McKenna is experiencing intense grief over her situation. She's already lost so much over the last year. McKenna's attempts to hide her low vision are not just restricted to her family. She's isolated herself from family and friends. As her vision deteriorated and she lost the ability to see what was written on the board, she's had to sneak back into class to read the board and has made the rule never to read in front of anyone. Her grades began to slide but this was blamed on the stress of coping with Emma's illness. McKenna began to mistake other girls for her best friend Gabby and couldn't recognize any of her friends from a distance. Hiding her condition has meant McKenna has had to skip lunch with her friends, drop the afterschool committee, and stop spending time with her best friend Gabby who no longer calls her.
However, during the course of the race, McKenna meets two young mushers who change her thinking about how she is dealing with the onset of Stargardt's and her parents. The first is Guy Desjardins, a young musher whose great-great-grandfather was involved in delivering the mail by dog courier and who has a blind lead dog, Zesty. Guy quickly discovers that McKenna has issues with her vision. When McKenna tells him that she's been able to hide it from her parents by not spending time with them, Guy points out that she knows and that she can't hide this from herself. He is pointing out that she's not bein honest with herself and she can't hide her condition from herself. As McKenna's friendship with Guy develops, she comes to see how his lead dog's disability is a strength under certain conditions and has made her a good lead dog.
The second person is Harper Bowers whose father has won many dogsled races. McKenna is stunned to learn that Harper hates dogsledding. It's dirty, loud and scary to her. When McKenna asks Harper why she hasn't told her father how she feels, Harper tells her that she's forced to live up to her "parents' life-crushing expectations." McKenna urges her to confront her father about how she feels. Harper does take McKenna's advice and tells her father she hates dogsledding. Her father's response is to tell her she can quit racing if she wins this race but after barely making it through the Cascades during a blizzard, Harper's father allows her to quit.
Her interactions with Guy and Harper give McKenna the courage to reveal her situation to her parents. While they are devastated, they do allow her to finish the race, especially when McKenna stands up for herself. She tells her parents, "We spend so much time worrying about what Em can't do anymore when we should be thinking about what she can do. What I can do...I'm not pretending anymore. It is harder for me now. It doesn't do any good to ignore that I have a vision impairment. Em and I both. And it's not going to go away. We have to learn to live with it. We all have to learn....We need help accepting this and learning how to live with it...."
Dog Driven is a novel that succeeds because the author knows her subject well. Johnson, who lives in Northern Ontario, owned and operated a dogsledding business for many years. She also taught the skill of dogsledding, has been a conservation officer with the MNR and she's also worked as a backcountry ranger. Her love and knowledge of dogs and dogsledding shows in this engaging short novel for younger readers. There's plenty of interesting details on dog care and dogsledding. Johnson provides a short Author's Note on the dogsled main couriers as well as the route described in the novel, and she grounds her readers with a detailed map of the race at the beginning of the novel. Readers who have an interest in the outdoors and animals will truly enjoy Dog Driven.
Book Details:
Dog Drive by Terry Lynn Johnson
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2019
229 pp.
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