Book excerpt: Sally Carrighar was a prolific writer of stories of the natural world. She has an almost magical ability to bring wild creatures to life with her literary renditions of their world allowing us to get inside that world and live it briefly. In Icebound Summer, we are taken through a brief and intense arctic summer when seemingly frozen and lifeless tundra comes to life. From the arctic fox to the arctic terns overhead, we suddenly realize this is a place of surprisingly abundant life. Icebound Summer is one of the great outdoor classics of wildlife literature.