Agenda trumps story in this loosely jointed account.
In a mix of history, fiction, letters, and folk tales from two continents, Bruchac chronicles a particularly ugly chapter in the Indian Wars.
Whites are the villains here, from the paternalistic likes of those out to forcibly “civilize” African and Native Americans to buffalo poachers who decapitate their Indian victims and vicious rustlers who disguise themselves as Indians before slaughtering a family of black settlers. The primary narrative concerns Wolf, a teenage member of the Wutapio band of the Striped Arrow People (Cheyenne), and newly arrived young buffalo soldier Wash, who alternately witness (or more often hear of) major events in the Red River War of 1874-75. In between chapters, the author inserts short tales and speeches drawn from the Cheyenne and the Hausa heritages of the central figures, hinting at their parallel richness and wisdom. Within the Red River story, these cultures and the people who embody them are as idealized as the lying, violent “ve’hoes” (a greedy spider from Cheyenne folklore) are vilified. Despite glints of romance and irony, the story is weighed down with infodumps and lectures on the evils of drink and other topics. Although this acts as a corrective to the dominant historical narrative, it also makes for a slow and unsatisfying plot. Considering the grim ending, the moral that closes a final, otherwise amusing tale has a bitter edge: “There is always more than one way to solve a problem.” While no specific sources are given for the interludes, a large bibliography is appended.
Agenda trumps story in this loosely jointed account. (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-938486-92-0
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Fulcrum
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember.
Kai’s life is upended when his coastal village is devastated in Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami in this verse novel from an author who experienced them firsthand.
With his single mother, her parents, and his friend Ryu among the thousands missing or dead, biracial Kai, 17, is dazed and disoriented. His friend Shin’s supportive, but his intact family reminds Kai, whose American dad has been out of touch for years, of his loss. Kai’s isolation is amplified by his uncertain cultural status. Playing soccer and his growing friendship with shy Keiko barely lessen his despair. Then he’s invited to join a group of Japanese teens traveling to New York to meet others who as teenagers lost parents in the 9/11 attacks a decade earlier. Though at first reluctant, Kai agrees to go and, in the process, begins to imagine a future. Like graphic novels, today’s spare novels in verse (the subgenre concerning disasters especially) are significantly shaped by what’s left out. Lacking art’s visceral power to grab attention, verse novels may—as here—feel sparsely plotted with underdeveloped characters portrayed from a distance in elegiac monotone. Kai’s a generic figure, a coat hanger for the disaster’s main event, his victories mostly unearned; in striking contrast, his rural Japanese community and how they endure catastrophe and overwhelming losses—what they do and don’t do for one another, comforts they miss, kindnesses they value—spring to life.
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember. (author preface, afterword) (Verse fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-53474-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
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