The Eagle Huntress

For as long as she can remember, Aisholpan, a sports-loving Kazakh girl, has wanted to hunt with eagles the way her brother, father, and grandfather did. Her memoir describes her family's nomadic life surrounded by animals and the Kazakh culture that Aisholpan loves. When her brother leaves home to serve his mandatory time in the army, Aisholpan cares for his golden eagle and assists her father when tourists come to stay in their home to experience eagle hunting. Among these tourists is a British filmmaker who is intrigued by Aisholpan's competence with the eagles and who wants to make a documentary about her training to become an eagle huntress. The filmmaker captures Aisholpan being lowered into a cliff-side eagle's nest to steal an eaglet and her subsequent training of the bird to respond to her voice and hunt on command without destroying the pelt of its prey. The film crew is also there when Aisholpan wins the Golden Eagle Festival, an elite competition to determine the best eagle hunter in Mongolia. She is the first female and, at age 13, the youngest person ever to win the prize. Young readers will be intrigued by the details of eagle hunting and the nomadic lifestyle and will empathize with how alien Western culture seems to Aisholpan when the film makes her famous abroad. This is an accessibly written, steadily paced story of perseverance and self-confidence.