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Sky Woman Lives In Me

Name: Sky Woman Lives In Me
Author: Roberta Capasso
ISBN: 978-1-4834-4346-1

by Roberta Capasso ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 8, 2016

An authentic story of Native American culture, inheritance, and loss.

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A debut memoir of a woman discovering her Native American heritage and coming to terms with an ancestor’s history at an “Indian school.”

Capasso tells two stories here: one about her own learning process as she researched the history of her Oneida culture, and the other about her great-grandmother’s time as part of a 19th-century government policy of forced assimilation. She recounts a childhood of “look[ing] Oneida on the outside” but having no connection to her culture and no knowledge of Native American history beyond the depictions she saw in Westerns. As an adult, she collected stories of her great-grandmother Sophia, who was sent from an Oneida reservation in Wisconsin to Pennsylvania’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1891, and then to a rural New Jersey farm where she spent a decade as a servant. Capasso writes about her years of research into Sophia’s experience. She traveled to Carlisle, Pennsylvania; visited the school, now preserved, in part, as a museum; and found Sophia in the school’s records. She also met with descendants of the family for whom Sophia worked, combining their stories with her grandmother’s memories to build a full picture of a silenced heritage. The author does an excellent job of drawing connections between the past and present, demonstrating that topics often relegated to history books remain relevant in family memory. Readers familiar with Native American history may be nonplussed by Capasso’s depiction of her gradual education (“I had no idea that a reservation was land set aside by the US government for Indians to live on”), and the book’s breathless tone, with 89 exclamation points in 122 pages, can be grating. That said, Capasso has created a true portrait of a non-historian’s encounter with history, bringing a valuable perspective to the generational impact of assimilationist policies.

An authentic story of Native American culture, inheritance, and loss.

Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4346-1

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Lulu

Review Posted Online: July 17, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.