Sixteen stories with similar themes, gathered from various Native American traditions. Boys—sometimes with names like "Bad Young Man" or "Boy Who Grew Up Wild"—pass into manhood after they undertake vision quests, heroically slay monsters, or are transformed into animals. Several have magic helpers or receive good advice from elders; strength is displayed by sparing life as well as taking it. In the Navajo "How the Hero Twins Found Their Father," Monster Slayer deliberately allows Hunger, Cold, Poverty and Old Age to go free; the Muskogee Blue Fox makes peace with Cherokee attackers rather than slaughtering them. Though the flavor of Bruchac's spare, formal language is more literary than oral, he has drawn few (if any) of these stories from printed sources; thus, he offers readers new insight into a range of Native American cultures—and into history, too, since he includes a description of Crazy Horse's vision quest, and a subarctic hunter's reminiscence of his first whale hunt. The tales in each regional section are prefigured by Jacob's handsome, white-on-black medallions. Brief reading list; foreword and afterword on the value of oral and cultural transmission. (Folklore. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993
ISBN: 1555916937
Page Count: 130
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1993
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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