American Indians and colonial settlers struggle to understand each other in Virginia of 1700.
In just a few years, the Saponi Indian tribe has lost half of its people to war and the white man’s sickness. To make matters worse, it’s facing increasing pressure from more powerful Iroquois and Tuscarora raiders, and, of course, from the endless wave of European advancement. Unsure of how to meet these challenges, the Saponi chief sends his 13-year-old son, Kadomico, to school in Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia. This fast-paced work of historical fiction from Laird (Quail High Above the Shenandoah, 2006) then follows Kadomico and other Indian students as they learn more about the English, their “firesticks,” their “talking papers” and their religion. Meanwhile, Tuscarora raiders attack a defenseless Nahyssan village and capture a girl on whom Kadomico has a wild crush. Laird vividly describes daily life in 1700 for both colonists and Indians and peppers in some suspenseful fight scenes. Though generally well-researched, the book contains a few factual mistakes. Antelope, for example, never lived in the southeastern United States, and pheasants hadn’t yet been introduced. Some of the dialogue also comes across as wooden or hackneyed. “Horses act crazy, no good off-trail, no good in the river. Horses are no good,” an Indian warrior says at one point. Overall, though, Laird captures the spirit of the time. His characters, both Indian and white, are overwhelmingly brave, competent and interested in helping their fellow humans (not counting one group of drunken white yokels and the troublemaking Tuscarora). This is mostly a feel-good book. Laird hints at, but never goes into detail, about how the settlers eventually drove the Saponi and their neighbors practically to extinction. Perhaps that will come in the planned sequel. A worthwhile read that focuses on the daily lives of Indians and colonists rather than on famous historical events.
Pub Date: May 27, 2010
ISBN: 978-0982544327
Page Count: 363
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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