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Julie of the Wolves · Garden Heights
Part 5
for Julie of the Wolves · Part 5 · Part II · Julie, and the Night She Left
8 Parts40 min
What Happens in Part 5
In town Miyax becomes Julie, is married at thirteen, and flees onto the tundra where Part I found her.
Becoming JulieMartha comes with school papers and Kapugen lets his daughter go. In the village she becomes Julie, learns English, and throws away her amulet after other children mock it. She is told Kapugen died on a seal hunt.
The pink bedroomLetters from Amy Pollock in San Francisco give her a pink bedroom to dream about.
Marriage and flightNaka sends for her to marry his son Daniel, and at thirteen she is married into a house nothing like the promise. When Daniel frightens and hurts her, she leaves that night and walks out onto the tundra.
What We Will Learn
Section
What you will practice
Vocabulary
Words for leaving and belonging: assimilate, guardian, obligation, flee, reclaim…
Literary Elements
A flashback closing the circle, and a name used to mark who she is
Cross-Curricular
How an expectation is built from very little evidence
Scene Summary
Scene
What happens
Becoming Julie
Her aunt Martha arrives with papers saying the child must go to school, and Kapugen lets her go. In Mekoryuk she becomes Julie: she learns English, cuts her hair, works at the hospital, and throws away her i’noGo tied after other children laugh at it. Word comes that Kapugen went out on a seal hunt and never returned. A pen pal in San Francisco, Amy Pollock, writes about her house and the pink bedroom that will be Julie’s if she ever comes, and that room becomes the thing Julie steers her life toward.
Barrow, and leaving
Naka, Kapugen’s old hunting partner, sends for Julie to marry his son Daniel. She is thirteen. In Barrow she finds a household that is not what was promised and a husband who cannot look after himself. One evening Daniel frightens and hurts her. That same night she puts what she needs into a pack and walks out onto the tundra, heading for the coast and, she believes, for the boat to San Francisco. From the moment she goes, the book stops calling her Julie.
Part 1
Vocabulary
Study 10 key words from Part II · Julie, and the Night She Left, then answer each question.
๐ฌKnowledge Bank · Words for Leaving and Belonging
Language · Words of ChangeThis section needs words for what happens to a person who is moved between worlds. To assimilate is to take on the language and customs of another culture, and it is worth noticing that the word can describe a choice or something done to you; in Julie’s case it is mostly the second. A guardian is an adult made legally responsible for a child, which is the authority Martha arrives holding. An obligation is something you are required to do rather than something you agree to, and it is the word that fits the marriage exactly. To mock is to make fun of somebody cruelly, and a few weeks of it is enough to make a child throw away something she was given by an elder. To reclaim is to take back what was yours. Watch how the section spends nine-tenths of its length taking things away and the last page beginning to give one back.
assimilatev.Pt.II
To take on the language and ways of another culture
“The school existed to make children assimilate.”
guardiann.Pt.II
An adult who is legally responsible for a child
“Martha arrived with papers naming her the guardian.”
obligationn.Pt.II
Something you are required to do
“The marriage was an obligation, not a choice.”
mockv.Pt.II
To make fun of somebody in a cruel way
“The other children mock the amulet until she hides it.”
yearnv.Pt.II
To want something very much for a long time
“She began to yearn for a room she had never seen.”
isolatedadj.Pt.II
Cut off from other people
“Barrow left her more isolated than the camp ever had.”
fleev.Pt.II
To run away from danger
“She chose to flee rather than to stay.”
reclaimv.Pt.II
To take back something that was yours
“On the tundra she begins to reclaim her name.”
shabbyadj.Pt.II
Worn out and in poor condition
“The house in Barrow was shabby and cold.”
prospectn.Pt.II
Something you expect or hope will happen
“The prospect of San Francisco kept her walking.”
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1According to the Knowledge Bank, what is worth noticing about the word assimilate?Pt.II
2An adult who is legally responsible for a child is a ___.Pt.II
3An obligation is something you are required to do.Pt.II
4To make fun of somebody in a cruel way is to ___ them.Pt.II
5Fill in each blank with the correct word.Pt.II
Word choices:yearnisolatedcrowdedflee- some words will not be used
To for something is to want it very much for a long time.
Somebody cut off from other people is .
6To flee is to stay exactly where you are and wait.Pt.II
7To take back something that was yours is to ___ it.Pt.II
8Something shabby is worn out and in poor condition.Pt.II
9Fill in each blank with the correct word.Pt.II
Word choices:prospectguardianobligationreward- some words will not be used
Something you expect or hope will happen is a .
Something you are required to do is an .
10Somebody cut off from other people is ___.Pt.II
Part 2
Comprehension
Show you understood what happens in Part II · Julie, and the Night She Left.
๐บKnowledge Bank · What an Arranged Marriage Meant Here
Culture · Obligation and KinshipJulie is married at thirteen, and the book neither approves of it nor treats it as a mystery. In many small subsistence communities marriages were arranged between families rather than chosen by the couple, because a marriage joined two households into a single working unit that shared hunting, sewing and childcare, and because a household without both kinds of work could not function. Promises of that sort were often made years in advance and were treated as binding, which is the obligation Naka is calling in when he sends for her. What the novel shows is the arrangement failing on its own terms: Julie has no household to join and no work to share, only a shabby house and a promise made between two men when she was small. The system assumed the adults around the child would act in good faith. When they do not, a thirteen-year-old is left with no protection at all.
Visual AidWhat the arrangement was built to do
Structure diagram of the logic the Knowledge Bank on what an arranged marriage meant here lays out: two households merge into one working unit that shares hunting, sewing and childcare, under a promise made years ahead and treated as binding. The teal box is the machine working as designed; the notes underneath are the failure the novel shows, when the adults the system counts on do not act in good faith. The diagram describes one historical practice, not a rule about any culture today.
Arranged marriage as a household alliance in small subsistence communities, as set out in the Knowledge Bank for this part. Drawn for Garden Heights Academy.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1According to the Knowledge Bank, why were marriages in small subsistence communities arranged between families?Pt.II
2What does Julie do with her i’noGo tied at school?Pt.II
3What is Julie told has happened to Kapugen?Pt.II
4What does Amy Pollock write to Julie about?Pt.II
5Write the numbers 1–5 in the boxes to show the correct order of events in this part. Number 1 = what happens first.Pt.II
She gets rid of her i’noGo tied at school.
She leaves the house at night and walks out onto the tundra.
Martha arrives with papers requiring Miyax to attend school.
In Mekoryuk she becomes Julie and learns English.
Naka sends for her and she is married to his son Daniel.
6Julie is thirteen years old when she is married.Pt.II
7What does Julie believe she is walking toward when she leaves Barrow?Pt.II
8The house in Barrow turns out to be what Julie had been promised.Pt.II
9After she leaves, the book mostly stops calling her Julie because ___.Pt.II
10Part II ends at the moment where Part I began.Pt.II
Part 3
Literary Elements
Understanding HOW and WHY Jean Craighead George (author) tells the story across Part II · Julie, and the Night She Left.
๐Knowledge Bank · The Flashback Catches Up
Literary Craft · Circular StructureThis is the moment the novel’s shape becomes visible. Part II has been running through the past for its whole length, and here it arrives at the exact instant Part I opened on: a girl walking out onto the tundra. The technical name for closing a story back onto its own beginning is a circular structure, and it does something a straight chronology cannot. It makes the reader reinterpret rather than merely continue — every calm, competent page of Part I now reads differently, because we know what she was walking away from and that she believed her father was dead. The information was withheld precisely so it could be spent here. That is the difference between a story that is told in order and one that has been arranged, and it is why the last part can now do its work without a single line of explanation.
The circle closing
Part II ends by walking Miyax onto the tundra — exactly where Part I found her. The flashback has caught up with the opening scene.
A name as a signal
She is Miyax at the camp, Julie in the village, and Miyax again the moment she leaves. The book reports her situation by choosing what to call her.
An object carrying an idea
The i'noGo tied and Amy's pink room are two small things standing for two whole futures. Losing one and chasing the other is the shape of the section.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1The Knowledge Bank explains that a circular structure does something a straight chronology cannot. What is it?Pt.II
2Fill in each blank with the correct term.Pt.II
Word choices:symbolmotifrhymestanza- some words will not be used
An object that stands for a larger idea is a .
An image an author returns to again and again is a .
3The pink bedroom in Amy’s letters works in the story as ___.Pt.II
4Throwing away the i’noGo tied is presented as a small, unimportant moment.Pt.II
5Part II ends at the same moment Part I began.Pt.II
6Learning the whole of Miyax’s past only now changes how a reader sees ___.Pt.II
7Fill in the blank with the correct term.Pt.II
Word choices:turning pointrhymechapternarrator- some words will not be used
The moment a story changes direction is its .
8The author explains directly why the pink room matters so much to Julie.Pt.II
9Placing this section after Part I rather than first means the escape reads as ___.Pt.II
10This section mostly works to ___.Pt.II
Part 4
Think Deeper
Four deeper challenges — no single-word recall. Read, weigh the evidence, and reason it out.
๐ญKnowledge Bank · Picturing a Place You Have Never Seen
Psychology · ExpectationJulie steers her life toward a bedroom she knows only from letters, and that is ordinary human behavior rather than foolishness. People build detailed pictures of places from very little evidence, and the picture then feels like knowledge; psychologists point out that the mind fills gaps automatically and does not label which parts were supplied and which were reported. A vivid description is especially powerful, because ease of imagining gets mistaken for likelihood. The picture is also hard to correct, since anything that fits gets noticed and anything that does not tends to be explained away — a habit usually called confirmation bias. None of this makes Julie naive. It makes her a person doing what every person does, and it is why the shabby house in Barrow does not immediately dislodge the pink room, and why she is still walking toward San Francisco when Part I begins.
Visual AidThe city at the end of the dream
Photograph of San Francisco at night — the lit skyline and the Bay Bridge mirrored in the water. This is the real city at the end of Julie’s imagined road, the one the Knowledge Bank on picturing a place you have never seen says her mind furnished from a few letters. The photograph was taken in 2015, decades after the novel; it shows what a camera records, not the pink bedroom of her picture, which never existed anywhere but in her head.
San Francisco skyline and the Bay Bridge at night; photograph by Davide Ragusa, 2015 (Unsplash). Source: Wikimedia Commons, File:San francisco skyline, san francisco, united states (Unsplash).jpg, CC0.
Think back over this section. A girl is taken from a seal camp by paperwork, given a new language and a new name, and laughed at until she throws away the one thing an elder gave her. She is told her father is dead. She is married at thirteen into a house nothing like the one she was promised. And then, in a single night, she takes what she needs and walks out into the dark — toward a boat, she thinks, though the tundra has other plans.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1Claim: “This section shows Julie losing almost everything she was given, and keeping the one thing that cannot be taken.” — choose the two details that best prove it.Claim & Evidence
2Something taken from her, or Something she chooses? Tap each detail to sort it — tap again to switch sides. You can keep tapping to change your answer.Sort into two
◄ Something taken from herSomething she chooses ►
3Match each cause to its result. For each cause, pick its result.Cause & Effect
Martha arrives with school papers→
The other children mock her amulet→
Amy writes about a pink bedroom→
Naka sends for her to marry Daniel→
🧠Knowledge Bank question
4Fill both blanks to complete the reasoning.Build the Argument
The Knowledge Bank argues that Julie's trust in the pink bedroom is ordinary because , which shows that .
Part 5
Standardized Test
Reading passage · Why an Imagined Place Feels Real · Words in Context & Central Ideas · SAT & TOEFL-style practice
Read the passage — the highlighted words are tested — then answer. Tap an answer, then tap it again to confirm.
SATCentral Ideas — the passage's main point
SATWords in Context — a word's meaning in this passage
SATInference — a conclusion the passage implies
TOEFLFactual Information — a fact stated in the passage
Why Imagined Places Feel Like Memories
People form remarkably detailed pictures of places they have never been, and those pictures behave like memories rather than guesses. Given a few concrete details in a letter or a film, the mind supplies the rest automatically, and it does not tag which parts were reported and which parts it invented. The result feels like knowledge. This is especially true of places people yearn for, since a mind that longs for something returns to it again and again, polishing the picture with every visit.
Two things make such a picture strong. The first is concreteness: a single vivid detail, like the color of a bedroom wall, does more work than a page of general description, because the mind can build outward from something specific. The second is ease. Psychologists have repeatedly found that when something is easy to picture, people judge it more likely to be true, an effect that has nothing to do with how much evidence there actually is. An exciting prospect, such as the chance of a new life in a distant city, therefore gains believability simply by being imagined often.
The pictures are also stubborn. Once an expectation exists, information that fits it is noticed and remembered while information that contradicts it is explained away or forgotten, a habit researchers call confirmation bias. Correcting the picture therefore takes far more evidence than building it did, and people usually only revise it when reality becomes impossible to argue with. None of this is a failure of intelligence. It is the ordinary cost of a mind built to act on incomplete information, and it explains why a plausible promise can outlast a great deal of contrary experience.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1What is the main idea of the passage?SAT · Central Ideas
2According to the passage, the mind fills gaps ___.TOEFL · Factual Information
3As used in the passage, vivid most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
4The passage says people judge something more likely to be true when it is ___.TOEFL · Factual Information
5It can be inferred that an expectation is hardest to correct when ___.SAT · Inference
6In the passage, yearn most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
7What does the passage call the habit of noticing what fits and forgetting what does not?TOEFL · Factual Information
8The passage says correcting a picture takes ___ than building it did.TOEFL · Factual Information
9The final sentence suggests that a promise can outlast contrary experience because ___.SAT · Inference
10In the passage, prospect most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
Part 6 · Optional
Creative Writing
A bonus challenge to practice your English. Take your time and have fun with it.
About This Section
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 5 “A Place You Have Only Imagined”
Julie builds a whole future out of a few letters describing a bedroom she has never seen. Write about a place you have imagined but never been to, or about a time something turned out differently from how you had pictured it. What did you fill in yourself without realising? 5–8 sentences. End with one piece of advice about expecting things.
You can start with: “One thing I have learned about expecting things is...”
0 / 40 words minimum
๐ฃ Teach It · Just for Fun (optional)
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Part 5 Complete!
You finished Part II · Julie, and the Night She Left of Julie of the Wolves.
Here are your auto-graded results:
-
points out of 100
Teach it to someone
The best last step is to teach it. In your own words, explain what happened — retell a favorite scene, teach a character’s big choice, or sum up the main idea for a parent, friend, or classmate. When you can teach it clearly, you truly own it.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Jean Craighead George. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Jean Craighead George’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.
SAT® is a registered trademark of College Board, which is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, these materials. TOEFL® is a registered trademark of ETS. These materials are not endorsed or approved by ETS. Garden Heights is an independent provider of test-style reading practice.
