An unusual setting adds interest to this energetic account.
This fictional diary, seventh in a series of children’s books, explores the life of black Seminoles as the Indian Removal Act begins to take effect.
Ebony Noel Carter, about 12, lives in Florida Big Swamp with her family, who belong to Seminole Indian Chief Jimmy Otter and his wife, Smiling Tiger (although tigers are not native to the Americas). Ebony’s father was a runaway slave from Georgia; in Florida, he met Ebony’s mother, a black Seminole (called slaves but similar to tenant farmers). Ebony’s siblings include Little John, about 16; a pesky younger brother, Pompey; and twin ever bickering sisters, Willie May and Jethro May, about 14. Ebony records scenes from everyday life—farmwork, meal preparation, fighting with siblings, storytelling—together with notable events like a birth, a death, visiting a trading post, and the Green Corn Dance, a dayslong Native American celebration. She describes the festival’s special games, dances, foods, and ceremonies, like Court Day, during which engagements are announced and punishments given to rule-breakers. This year, that includes Ebony, who has taken a forbidden look inside the men’s sweat house. The Corn Dance brings some wonderful news but also dreadful: War and forced Indian removals are coming. The Seminole community, both native and black, must flee from Florida toward a new chapter in their lives. An author’s note supplies some historical background. McWilliams (The Journal of Leroy Jeremiah Jones a Fugitive Slave (Alabama 1855), 2015, etc.) supplies a little-seen and intriguing setting for her African-American characters as black Seminoles in Florida. As in other series entries, the voice is exuberant—many capitals and exclamation points—and written in lively dialect: “And we gals hee haw and hee haw and HEE HAW ’cause not one of we can never say that white man’s name!” It’s hard to say how authentic Ebony’s dialect is, but it’s consistent and animated. Readers will likely enjoy the book’s cultural details, so different from a plantation setting. Barring a short epilogue, the book ends as the characters leave Florida, something of a lost opportunity.
An unusual setting adds interest to this energetic account.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 263
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
