A great introduction to Native American history that’s not too heavy for its young audience and is a solid read in its own...
Narrated by Isaac, a Choctaw boy who was killed while walking the Trail of Tears in 1830, this quick-paced novel sheds light on forgotten histories.
A follow-up to the award-winning novel How I Became a Ghost (2013), Tingle’s imaginative tale of shape-shifting humans and time-traveling ghosts is the perfect adventure for young readers who wish to consider American history from the Indigenous perspective. Even as it recounts the story of the Choctaw people who were removed from their Mississippi homelands in the era of Andrew Jackson, the novel also bears witness to a complicated Choctaw hero by the name of Pushmataha, a United States Army general who fought against the British in the Battle of New Orleans. Though ultimately betrayed by the U.S. president he considered a friend, Pushmataha inspires his young Choctaw friends to literally bury the hatchet and seek peace with their American counterparts—episodes witnessed by Isaac and his dog friend, Jumper. While the novel addresses injustices head on, it does not delve into Pushmataha’s regrets regarding intertribal politics, making it a good introduction for young readers. The novel is filled with friendship, laughter, and Choctaw jokes, a stylistic flourish that lends levity to its difficult topics.
A great introduction to Native American history that’s not too heavy for its young audience and is a solid read in its own right. (map, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-937054-51-9
Page Count: 188
Publisher: The RoadRunner Press
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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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