A SON OF THE FIRST PEOPLE

A well-handled story of a young Pawi lad, one of the semi-Americanized Indian tribes some of whose members are to be found as herdsmen in the San Joaquin valley (California). The book depicts his Indian sensitiveness and pride of race, in conflict with the mistaken ""civilizing"" methods at the government school on a Reservation not far away. Dukut does, however, encounter whites who can understand, notably Father O'Donnell and the doctor and his wife, and he ends up in a fair way to realize his ambition to become an artist. A good and ""different"" book, marred only be style and content being a trifle above the age level for which the story seems intended.