Next time, Dance should focus on a single agenda or, better yet, tell a single story. (Historical fiction. 10-14)
A paint horse spends her life with several different owners on the Great Plains of the late 1800s.
An orphaned foal, the paint is raised by a young Lakota boy and trained to hunt buffalo. When white soldiers raid the Lakota camp, the mare escapes and is caught by a white man, who also uses her to hunt buffalo. When the buffalo are gone, the man sells her to a homesteader hoping to raise cattle. After drought and harsh winters devastate his operation, the mare, now aged, ends up with a new homesteading family in western Canada. None of this is glossed over; animals die, often unpleasantly. Dance has done extensive research, which unfortunately impedes her story—or stories, as the novel suffers extremely from its lack of focus, jumping from episode to episode, narrator to narrator, and issue to issue without resolution or clarity. Readers will be frustrated by the almost-ending, in which the horse may be lost in a dust storm that may have destroyed a family's livelihood, or not. Concluding notes provide background on terminology, wild horses and homesteaders, and a timeline places the fictional events in context of history, much of it concerning atrocities and hardships suffered by Native Americans.
Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4597-2868-4
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Dundurn
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
An outstanding new edition of this popular modern classic (Newbery Award, 1961), with an introduction by Zena Sutherland and...
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1990
ISBN: 0-395-53680-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A promising debut.
The horrors of the Guatemalan civil war are filtered through the eyes of a boy coming of age.
Set in Chopán in 1981, this verse novel follows the life of Carlos, old enough to feed the chickens but not old enough to wring their necks as the story opens. Carlos’ family and other villagers are introduced in early poems, including Santiago Luc who remembers “a time when there were no soldiers / driving up in jeeps, holding / meetings, making / laws, scattering / bullets into the trees, / hunting guerillas.” On an errand for his mother when soldiers attack, Carlos makes a series of decisions that ultimately save his life but leave him doubting his manliness and bravery. An epilogue of sorts helps tie the main narrative to the present, and the book ends on a hopeful note. In her debut, Brown has chosen an excellent form for exploring the violence and loss of war, but at times, stylistic decisions (most notably attempts at concrete poetry) appear to trump content. While some of the individual poems may be difficult for readers to follow and the frequent references to traditional masculinity may strike some as patriarchal, the use of Spanish is thoughtful, as are references to local flora and fauna. The overall effect is a moving introduction to a subject seldom covered in fiction for youth.
A promising debut. (glossary, author Q&A) (Verse/historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6516-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
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