A preachy environmental message dominates this tale of the 18th century.
As a Native American slave returns home, the Spaniards who accompany her learn to better appreciate nature in this historical novel.
In the late 1700s, 14-year-old Watili enjoys a peaceful life with her family in the village of the Parussi band of the Ute tribe (in present-day Colorado). They enjoy what author Garcia (Shared Lives, Twin Sun, 2016, etc.) describes as their “Oneness with Nature.” However, their tranquility is shattered when a band of Apache Indians raids their village in search of people to enslave. Watili and her brother are captured and forced to march more than 700 miles. Upon reaching El Paso, they’re sold into servitude, and Watili begins work as a slave maid for a Spanish family. She dreams of returning to her own loved ones back home, and the opportunity to do so arises when she meets Don Bernardo, a famous Spanish explorer and cartographer. The two agree to work together: Watili will show Bernardo lucrative sources of gold and silver ore near her village if he takes her there and grants her freedom. The two embark on their journey, soon to be joined by a charming cibolero (Spanish buffalo hunter), and the trio find plenty of adventure along the way. This book is valuable in how it details the slave trade among Native American peoples—a topic that will be unfamiliar to many readers. However, because Garcia offers no notes on the novel’s historicity, the reader has little to no sense of what’s fact or fiction. The book’s biggest weakness, though, is its lack of subtlety in its spiritual message. The author is so adamant about advocating “Nature” that his characters to seem more like mouthpieces than real people. For example, here’s the final exchange of the two Spaniards: “ ‘What we have seen was the experience of two Europeans…two outsiders who were given a rare glimpse into the Oneness of God and Nature.’ ‘I am moved by this experience….’ ‘My knowledge of the spiritual realm has awoken.’ ” A subtler approach would have been more likely to engage readers.
A preachy environmental message dominates this tale of the 18th century.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9903739-3-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Jornado de Exodo-Journey of Exodus
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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