A well-researched, if hagiographic, account of a leading Ojibwe Protestant missionary.
A debut biography focuses on a Native American missionary.
Schaitberger first heard the story of Enmegahbowh, the first ordained Ojibwe Episcopal priest, while attending a high school summer camp that included Ojibwe Christians at Minnesota’s Leech Lake Reservation. After becoming a priest himself, Schaitberger spearheaded a successful drive within the Episcopal Church to recognize Enmegahbowh as a saint, and he has spent decades collecting 19th-century primary source material on the man’s life. Schaitberger’s archival research forms the basis of this biography, written with Pickering, a Midwestern historian. Pickering transcribed and organized the letters, government documents, and other primary sources from across the country collected in Schaitberger’s research. As intriguing as Enmegahbowh’s story is, from his conversion to his emergence as the voice of Christianity among the Ojibwe, his life also serves as a lens through which to examine the radical transformations that confronted the tribe from the mid-to-late 1800s. A semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer society, the Ojibwe faced the same tragic dilemmas that confronted all Native Americans in the Upper Midwest during this era of American expansion. They were forced into a “restricted life on reservations” with the expectation that they would “become farmers of individually owned plots.” As an “ideal Christian agrarian,” Enmegahbowh was central to the Episcopal Church’s efforts to expand among the Ojibwe, and he served the denomination for decades not only as a priest, but also as an interpreter, educator, and cleric. While some readers may question the benevolence of Enmegahbowh’s legacy, this book adamantly contends that he “spent his entire life working for the betterment of the Ojibwe.” Regardless of readers’ assessments of the laudatory volume’s conclusions, its ample inclusion of extended passages from archival material written by one of the few Ojibwe from the era who left written records will hopefully fulfill the authors’ secondary objective: “That Ojibwe authors will build upon this work and offer their perspectives on the primary documents.” The book’s accessible writing style is accompanied by a wealth of historical photographs, maps, and charts.
A well-researched, if hagiographic, account of a leading Ojibwe Protestant missionary.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64343-930-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Beaver's Pond Press
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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