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I love word play. Lane Smith's book is getting a lot of love for its word play, but I'm tagging his book as Not Recommended.

Here's the cover of his new book, There Is a Tribe of Kids. The blue creature to the left is meant to be a young mountain goat, or, a kid (that is the term for a baby goat). We follow the child on the right as we read There Is a TRIBE of KIDS. That child is a kid, too, of course, which tells us that Smith is doing some word play in the book. See the two sticks coming out of the child's head? See the stance the child is in? That child is playing at being a goat kid.

Note that two words in the book title are in capital letters. They go together. That's a pattern that Smith uses throughout the book, and as a former elementary school teacher, it is kind of detail that I'd love to point out to kids.

BUT.

Smith's error is using the word TRIBE on the final pages of the book, to refer to children who are playing, adorned in various ways with leaves. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Let's go back to the opening pages.

On the title page the child is with three kids (goats) as an adult goat looks down on them from atop a rock. On the next page, the three kids climb the rock, leaving the child alone. The child stands upright and walks away from the rock, discarding the horns.

Beneath that illustration are the words "There WAS a TRIBE of KIDS." The three kids the child was with are part of a tribe (tribe is another word for herd), but since they've left him behind, Smith uses the past tense (was).

Beneath that sentence is an illustration of the child looking across the page at a penguin. The child is shown in the same pose the penguin is in. On the next page the child is shown in the same pose as four penguins (see the illustration to the right). As we saw with the goats, the penguins leave (they go into the water and the child follows), and the text is "There was a COLONY of PENGUINS."

In the water, the child is in the midst of jellyfish. In a series of illustrations, we see the child's leaf shirt float up and then into a balloon shape, which are the shapes of jellyfish as they swim.

That's the pattern of the book. The child is with a group of some kind, and while with that group, the child's leaf clothing or body positioning emulates that group.

On some pages, the child is just shown with the group. On one page, the child sits atop a whale. A raven picks the child up off the whale's back and flies with other ravens; the raven opens its beak and for an instant the child is flying but then drops to the ground and lands on a pile of boulders. The child plays on the boulders (holding his body like one), falls headfirst into some flowering plants, and when the child is upright again, the child has leaf arms and leaf ears and a flower atop its head. The child finds elephants and then, those leaf ears are like elephant ears.

As we get to the end of the story, the child is near the ocean, which has a bed of clams. The child uses one as a bed. In the morning the child wakes, alone, abandons the leaf shirt and follows a trail of shells and finds "a TRIBE of KIDS" playing beneath and on the branches of a massive tree. There are 28 children. What are they playing? They've all got leaves on, in some way.

Here are the ones with a leaf/leaves on their heads. Coupled with the word TRIBE on that page, it looks to me like they're dressed up to play Indian. They aren't doing anything active.







But, writer Rosanne Parry disagrees with Sam, and with me, too, but she didn't reference me at her post, A Tribe of Book Reviewers.  My guess is that she thinks her blog post title is clever. It isn't. She thinks that Sam Bloom (see his review at Reading While White) should have

"been willing to look a little deeper, beyond just the immediate Oh no! we are insulting Native Americans again, as we have done so often in the past."

When I read that line in italics, I was incensed. She's being quite dismissive of criticism of stereotyping, bias, appropriation---all those things that white writers, including her, have done. A few years ago, I reviewed Parry's Written In Stone. There's a lot wrong with that book. She wrote to me privately to talk about my review, but I preferred the conversation to be public so that others could follow and learn from it. Many did. Parry did not. Indeed, Parry's resistance was remarkable. She was so sure that she was right to make up traditional Native stories, and right to make up petroglyphs and assign them meaning, and right to write that story because the Native kids she taught--she told us--wanted her to write a story about them. Sheesh! White savior to the rescue!

Parry had a lot more to say about Smith's There Is a Tribe of Kids...

She acknowledged that tribe is a loaded word, but says that she:

"didn't immediately make the leap to Native American tribes because there are no tribes in North America who dress in garments made of leaves. Plant fibers woven into cloth, yes. Dance costumes made of pale yellow grasses, yes. But broad-leafed green plans arranged around the body as a short cloak? No."

Are you rolling your eyes? Are you flipping out at her use of "costumes"? You should be. She likes to talk about the Native kids she taught in Washington. Does she think they wore costumes?! There's more. She read through the book and

"didn't see a single reference, even an oblique one, to a Native American tribe or any tribal activity of North America. No hunting, no fishing, no fires, no tomahawks, no archery, no totem poles, no teepees, no drums, no horses, no canoes."

Again: are you rolling your eyes? Or, maybe, grinding your teeth? Or laughing at how stupid this all sounds? Or---are you reading it and thinking she's making good points? All those reactions are possible, given the widespread ignorance out there about Native people! Some get it, while others are oblivious. Parry goes on, telling us the way the kids are playing is more like the Green Man,

"an ancient mythological figure associated with the Celtic tribes." 

Oh! The kids are playing Green Man. Not Indian! (I'm being sarcastic). Parry isn't done yet, though... She tells us that the children playing on those final pages are of different colored skin tones, making the book:

"one of the most racially inclusive books on our bookstore shelves this year. Not only that, it's a racially inclusive book that isn't about slavery or civil rights or westward expansion, which often cast Black and Native American characters as victims."

Oh, yay (again, I'm being sarcastic). Then she tells us that the kids are:

"arranging shells, playing ball, swinging, sliding, climbing, dancing, running, hiding, napping" 

and that none of those actions are

"a mockery of Native Americans. If they were wearing fringed buckskins or button blankets or powwow dance costumes or had painted faces or were brandishing bows and arrows, that would be an entirely different story."

Oh. I see. (More sarcasm from me; I can't not be sarcastic about her words, and this is the fourth or fifth time I'm reading them!) There's that use of costume again. From a white woman who professes love for the Native kids she taught. She tells us that what she sees in Smith's illustrations are depictions of how kids play, and asks

"Who are we to shame them by saying this is playing Indian?"

Shame. That word is getting used a lot in children's literature discussions last year and this one, too. Us Native and people of color are being mean, shaming writers and now--Parry tells us--the way that kids play.

Sigh. Yes, some of the kids are sliding. And some are playing ball, etc. But look at the illustrations I shared above. What are we to make of them? They're not active in any way. They're just there, wearing their leaf feathers, holding staffs, standing, sitting, jewelry dangling from neck/wrist/ears... What about them?

Parry offers workshops on how to get things right. If you're a writer, avoid her. I wish I could say she's clueless, but I think she is being deliberately obtuse. She'll lead you to think your problematic story of appropriation is ok. It won't be.

I acknowledge that I'm clearly incensed with her and I anticipate lot of people coming to her defense. Parry and others (as Sam Bloom noted, There Is a Tribe of Kids is getting starred reviews) don't see--and refuse to see--the problems in the book. That's where we are in 2016.

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It's always fun to get copies of a new book with a map I've worked on inside.
This is from THE TURN OF THE TIDE, by Rosanne Parry (Random House BYR, 2016).

Yay!

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Take a look at our selection of hot new releases and popular kids' books and let us know which titles and covers catch your eyes. There are so many amazing new kids books coming in 2016!

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In the late 1990s, one of the big stories circulating amongst Native people was what was happening with the Makah Nation in the state of Washington. For the first time in decades, they were going to go whaling. Choosing to hunt again was their choice. It was the exercise of their sovereignty.

They had stopped whaling in the 1920s because commercial whaling had overwhelmed the gray whale, such that it was placed on the endangered animals list. When the gray whale was removed from that status, the Makah nation's leaders declared their intent to resume their whale hunt. Their desire to do so was challenged by groups that did not want them to hunt and it ended up in court. The Makah won the case. Environmentalists were furious. There was intense media coverage (see this article from the LA Times). Protesters carried signs that said "Save a Whale, Hunt a Makah." The school received bomb threats. The hunt took place in May of 1999.

That knowledge is what I brought to my reading of Written In Stone. It'll help, before I begin, to say that the structure for Parry's book is Pearl (the protagonist) in 1999, then in 1923, and then back in 1999 again.

Pearl - the "old woman" who opens/closes Written In Stone

Rosanne Parry's book, Written In Stone, opens with Pearl, an "old woman" (on page 181 Parry describes her as an old woman) headed to the beach for that 1999 whale hunt. Reporters are all around, but there are no clues that this was a contested moment. Pearl reflects back on her childhood, to 1923 when she was thirteen, and was waiting for her father to return from a hunt. That remembering is the bulk of the story Parry tells. The last part of the story returns to Pearl in 1999. As she walks to the beach, she hears the click and whir of cameras.

Parry does not reference the media frenzy or anti-Makah activity anywhere. Pearl, if she was a real person, would definitely have been enduring it. Parry's Pearl doesn't reference the antagonism at all. As I read the story, though, Parry created Pearl as an activist (more on that later). Not having Pearl note the anti-Makah activities as she walks to the whale they've hunted doesn't ring true. And--Parry calling her an "old woman" doesn't work for me personally. Pearl would be called an elder.

The Author's Note

Parry divided her Author's Note into several sections. She begins with "Connections" on page 177, where she tells us that:

"As a fifth grader, I saw the Raven stories told and danced by Chief Lelooska and his family at their longhouse in Ariel, Washington. When the dancer pulled the hidden string that split the mask open to reveal the sun it seemed as magical to me in the firelight as any movie special effect." 

Reading how taken she was with Lelooska gave me pause. The place Parry visited was/is a performance space that is not affiliated with any of the tribes in that area. The person who went by "Chief Lelooska" is a man named Don Smith. In Chris Friday's Lelooska: The Life of a Northwest Coast Artist (University of Washington Press, 2011), we read that he was born in Sonoma, California to a woman who was 3/4 Cherokee but not raised or enrolled with the Cherokee Nation.

The "About Chief Lelooska" page at the website for the Lelooska Foundation says that "Lelooska" is a Nez Perce name, given to Smith when the Nez Perce adopted him when he was 12 years old. In the second paragraph, we read that he was later adopted by a Kwakiutl man named James Sewid, and that the adoption came hereditary rights to Sewid's family heritage. In short, Lelooska can do what Sewid did, which is to perform Kwakiutl stories. Later on that page, we read that Lelooska is an authority on Indians of North America.

Smith's story is quite familiar. There are many people who were taken with Native artifacts and started making and selling them. When actual tribal peoples are called in to look over the items supposed to be authentic, they're found to be little more than craft work of hobbyists. There are critical reviews of Lelooska. Friday alludes to his problematic identity (and to Sewid's controversial activities, too), and so do others, but I gather Parry is unaware of them. In her Resources section, she lists the Lelooska Foundation and two of his books as resources for young readers.

In the Connections section, Parry writes about teaching 5th graders at Taholah Elementary School on the Quinault reservation. Specifically, she writes about a discussion they had about story, and that a student asked "Why is the story never about us?" (p. 178). Another student said "I guess nothing is going to change unless somebody here grows up and writes that book" (p. 179). Then she writes "I did not imagine I would be the one to grow up and write the book" that is Written In Stone. She dedicates the book to those students, who, "asked for a book of their own. I never forgot, and after all these years, this story is for you and all of your children and even someday your grandchildren."

We can look at Parry's decision to write that book as a wonderful decision. She wrote it, I'm guessing, a decade or so after she left there. She doesn't tell us how long she taught at Taholah. My overall sense is that she was was deeply moved by teaching there, which makes me wonder why she left. Memories, though, lingered such that she decided to write the book.

Problems in Pearl as a 13 year old

A quick overview of the main points of the story of Pearl as a 13 year old:

• Her father is killed on a whale hunt; her mother has been dead for 5 years, of influenza
• Without a whale, Pearl's extended family is worried about survival
• Her grandfather gets a letter from a collector; if they work with him, it could be a source of badly needed income
• Pearl plans to steal her father's regalia so her family won't sell it, but on her way to do it, gets hurt and spends a couple of days on a part of the shore where she finds petroglyphs and decides not to go through with her plan
• Back with her family, Pearl figures out the collector's real agenda is to get them drunk and get their signatures on documents signing away mineral rights to coal and oil in "Shipwreck Cove."
• Pearl undermines the collector/speculator's activities by writing letters to other tribes along the coast

As I read the story of thirteen-year-old Pearl, I kept getting a sense of writing that was more influenced by Chief Lelooska and somewhat romantic ideas of Native people, past and present, than by the Makah students Parry taught.

For example, when we meet the thirteen-year-old Pearl, she says she is a princess, and that her mother was a Tlingit princess. Where, I wonder, did Parry find support for so boldly proclaiming that identity for Pearl?

In various places, we read that Pearl is the one who is going to remember the songs, dances, and stories. She will commit them to memory, and she will write them down. She is the one who will save all those aspects of their culture for the tribe. Her grandmother gives her a journal to write in, and a fancy pen, too, but later, Pearl wonders if there's a rule against women writing, so some of this thread has gaps that creep in, I think, as Parry tries to tease out (inject?!) some feminist ideas about what women can/cannot do.

Another inconsistency is that her father didn't burn her mother's loom. He was supposed to burn everything, and burning everything is such a dramatic moment early on in the story, that when I got to that part--with a blanket partly intact on the loom--it didn't make sense to me. Maybe I was supposed to fill in a gap that her mother's weaving was so important that her father would refuse to burn it, but, her grandmother went on at one point about how her dad had to burn everything in order to survive the pain of losing his wife.

In several places, Pearl talks about a "robe of power." Her dad had one, and her mom had one, and she wants one, too. Her dad was going to make one for her, but his death put an end to that process. The ways she talks of that "robe of power" feel odd to me. Some articles of clothing do have significance, so I do understand that. I think it was just over-used in the story.

When Pearl is afraid her family may sell her father's regalia to the collector, she makes a plan to steal her father's things and move away to live amongst white people, where she imagines that the "bread-loaf brown faded from my skin" (p. 123) when she'll be pale like a weevil. As someone with brown skin, I can tell you that it never fades to the pale tones of a weevil.

Back to 1999

Back in 1999, Pearl recounts having written a thousand letters to tribes, governors, senators, and presidents. The became the editor of an Indian newspaper, and one of the authors of the Quinault and Makah dictionaries. She wrote a book about medicinal plants, and made sound recordings of the old songs. Earlier, I said she became an activist. This recitation of all her activities is evidence of that activist identity and is why it doesn't make sense to me that Pearl doesn't mention the whaling controversy when the book opens, or here, either. Maybe we are meant to think she's beyond or above that controversy, but all of these things Pearl did just makes me think of Don "Chief Lelooska" Smith again. By that, I mean, that the man had a huge ego, and, so does Pearl.

As I noted on opening this review, the Makah decision to whale again was a decision to exercise their rights as a sovereign nation. It was preceded by activism of the 1960s and 1970s when the tribal nations of the northwest coast won a major case in the Supreme Court, again, over the rights stated in the treaty they signed with the U.S. Government in 1855.

Parry demonstrates some understanding of political battles. Her reference to the exploitation of collectors is one example. She wanted to write a book that would reflect the lives of her Makah students, and, perhaps, the Makah's long-standing activism to protect their rights. Pearl's effort to keep items from the collector is a gesture in that direction, but that isn't what that collector--or Parry--was focused on. Instead, Parry makes up two things. In the Author's Notehe tells us she made these up:

• First is the petroglyphs. She says that there are, in fact, petroglyphs are around that area, but that she made up the ones in her book--the ones that are so pivotal in what Pearl does. 

• Second, she made up the cove and the coal and oil that are in that cove, and she shrouds that cove with Makah stories about monsters that keep kids away from there. In doing that, she's making up tribal stories, too.   

There are other things that are jarring to me, that I wonder if they, like the petroglyphs and cove, are made up:

• Having Pearl play "Pirates and Indians" made me go "huh?" I would love to see Parry's source for that. 

• I'm also wondering about a source for the part of the story where the Indian Agent makes her father burn all of her mother's things, AND her mother's body, and the baby, too when she dies of influenza. It was the Influenza epidemic of 1918. I haven't found support for burning of bodies, whether they were Native or not. 

My bottom line?

As a Native reader, I find made-up stuff all the time. It is troublesome, but in this case, it is worse because Parry deliberately set out to write a book for those kids in Taholah, who--I imagine--are dealing with made up stuff all the time, too. If I was a writer, I wouldn't add to that pile of made-up-stuff. It'd be hard to imagine myself doing it and then handing it to the kids.

In the end, I can't recommend this book.

A couple of tips to writers: keep in mind that Native people already have a huge pile of made-up stuff to deal with. I don't think we need to add to it. And, check your sources! Check the knowledge you bring to your project! I think if Parry had let go of her memories of Chief Lelooska and done some background research on him, she'd have written a different book. [One more tip, added an hour after this review went live as I started shutting down all the windows I had open while working on my review: Read Native journals! There's an excellent article in American Indian Quarterly (volume 29 #1 and 2) about the Makah museum and working with staff there. Titled "Forging Indigenous Methodologies on Cape Flatterly" it provides insights on how tribal peoples work with people who are not tribal members so that projects fit within the frame of native nation building (which I've written about before) that are mutually beneficial.]

I invite your comments on my review.

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Written in Stone
By Rosanne Parry
Random House
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-375-86971-6
Ages 9-12
On shelves now

Finding books of historical fiction for kids about Native Americans is an oddly limited proposition. Basically, it boils down to Pilgrims, the Trail of Tears, the occasional 1900s storyline (thank God for Louise Erdrich), and . . . yeah, that’s about it. Contemporary fiction? Unheard of at best, offensive at worst. Authors, it seems, like to relegate their American Indians to the distant past where we can feel bad about them through the conscience assuaging veil of history. Maybe that’s part of what I like so much about Rosanne Parry’s Written in Stone. Set in the 1920s, Parry picks a moment in time with cultural significance not for the white readers with their limited historical knowledge but for the people most influenced by changes both at home and at sea. Smart and subtle by turns, Parry tackles a tricky subject and comes away swinging.

A girl with a dream is just that. A dreamer. And though Pearl has always longed to hunt whales like her father before her, harpooning is not in her future. When her father, a member of the Makah people of the Pacific Northwest, is killed on a routine hunt, Pearl’s future is in serious doubt. Not particularly endowed with any useful skills (though she’d love to learn to weave, if anyone was around to teach her), Pearl uncovers on her own a series of forgotten petroglyphs and the plot of a nefarious “art dealer”. Now her newfound love of the written word is going to give her the power to do something she never thought possible: preserve her tribe’s culture.

It’s sort of nice to read a book and feel like a kid in terms of the plot twists. Take, for example, the character of the “collector” who arrives and then immediately appears to be something else entirely. I probably should have been able to figure out his real occupation (or at least interests) long before the book revealed them to me, and yet here I was, toddling through, not a care in the world. I never saw it coming, and that means that at least 75% of the kids reading this book will also be in for a surprise.

I consider the ending of the book a bit of a plot twist as well, actually. We’re so used to our heroes and heroines at the ends of books pulling off these massive escapades and solutions to their problems that when I read Pearl’s very practical and real world answer to the dilemma posed by the smooth talking art dealer I was a bit taken aback. What, no media frenzied conclusion? No huge explosions or public shaming of the villain or anything similarly crass and confused? It took a little getting used to but once I’d accepted the quiet, realistic ending I realized it was better (and more appropriate to the general tone of the book) than anything a more ludicrous premise would have allowed.

If anything didn’t quite work for me, I guess it was the whole “Written in Stone” part. I understood why Pearl had to see the petroglyphs so as to aid her own personal growth and understanding of herself as a writer. That I got. It was more a problem that I had a great deal of difficulty picturing them in my own mind. I had to do a little online research of my own to get a sense of what they looked like, and even that proved insufficient since Parry’s petroglyphs are her own creation and not quite like anything else out there. It’s not an illustrated novel, but a few choice pen and inks of the images in their simplest forms would not have been out of place.

Now let us give thanks to authors (and their publishers) that know the value of a good chunk of backmatter. 19 pages worth of the stuff, no less (and on a 196-page title, that ain’t small potatoes). Because she is a white author writing about a distinct tribal group and their past, Parry treads carefully. Her extensive Author’s Note consists of her own personal connections to the Quinaults, her care to not replicate anything that is not for public consumption, the history of whaling amongst the Makah people, thoughts on the potlatch, petroglyphs, a history of epidemics and economic change to the region (I was unaware that it was returning WWI soldiers with influenza that were responsible for a vast number of deaths to the tribal communities of the Pacific Northwest at that time), the history of art collectors and natural resource management, an extensive bibliography that is split between resources for young readers, exhibits of Pacific Northwest art and artifacts, and resources for older readers, a Glossary of Quinault terms (with a long explanation of how it was recorded over the years), and a thank you to the many people who helped contribute to this book. PHEW! They hardly make ‘em like THIS these days.

I also love the care with which Parry approached her subject matter. There isn’t any of this swagger or ownership at work that you might find in other authors’ works. Her respect shines through. In a section labeled “Culture and Respect” Parry writes, “Historical fiction can never be taken lightly, and stories involving Native Americans are particularly delicate, as the author, whether Native or not, must walk the line between illuminating the life of the characters as fully as possible and withholding cultural information not intended for the public or specific stories that are the property of an individual, family, or tribe.” In this way the author explains that she purposefully left out the rituals that surround a whale hunt. She only alludes to stories of the Pitch Woman and the Timber Giant, never giving away their details. She even makes note the changes in names and spellings in the 1920s versus today.

I don’t know that you’re going to find another book out there quite like Written in Stone. Heck, I haven’t even touched on Pearl’s personality or her personal connections to her father and aunt. I haven’t talked about my favorite part of the book where Pearl’s grandfather haggles with a white trading partner and gets his wife to sing a lullaby that he claims is an ancient Indian curse. I haven’t done any of that, and yet I don’t think that there’s much more to say. The book is a smart historical work of fiction that requires use of the child reader’s brain more than anything else. It’s a glimpse of history I’ve not seen in a work of middle grade fiction before and I’d betcha bottom dollar I might never see it replicated again. Hats off then to Ms. Parry for the time, and effort, and consideration, and care she poured into this work. Hats off too to her editor for allowing her to do so. The book’s a keeper, no question. It’s just a question of finding it, is all.

On shelves now.

Source: Galley sent from publisher for review.

Like This? Then Try:

• Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera

• The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich

• Echoes of the Elders: The Stories and Paintings of Chief Lelooska by Christine Normandin

Notes on the Cover: This marks the second Richard Tuschman book jacket I’ve reviewed this year.  The first was A Girl Called Problem, one of my favorites of 2013.  The man has good taste in books.

Other Reviews:

• City of Books
• Historical Novel Society
• You Decide: Should I Read It Or Not?

Professional Reviews:

• Kirkus
• Publishers Weekly

Misc:

• Feel free to download the Teacher’s Guide if you’ve half a mind to do so.

Videos: Um . . . okay, I sort of love this fan made faux movie trailer for the book. It’s sort of awesome.  Check it out.

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Click through to sign up for the National Poetry Month giveaway!

Poetry has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mother and father both read poetry, my father favoring the Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Robert Service variety while my mother was a fan of Frost, Sandburg and Gerard Manley Hopkins. I had a big picture book of poetry I read and reread so often that many of those poems linger in my mind though I never consciously memorized them. "A violet by a mossy stone half hidden from the eye. Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky" is a line that reliably comes to mind every time I go hiking and find wildflowers clinging to unlikely spots along the trail.

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The Line by Teri Hall

Lots of people seemed really impressed with this one and unfortunately, for me, it just fell short. Such potential with the whole "dystopian" genre going for it and a pretty compelling main character, but the buildup was really slow and the "big moment" wasn't so big.

The author definitely left room for a sequel, which I'm interested in reading and will pickup if it ever comes out, but this one just isn't a book I'll be remembering for very long. Bummer. And I know I'm in the minority, so go check it out even though I thought it just ok.

Great cover though!

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

The Line
Teri Hall
224 pages
Young Adult
Dial
9780803734661
March 2010
Book borrowed from my local library

Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry

Oh gosh, this one as just as wonderful as every blogger said it was. Filled with such heart and soul, real characters, beautiful writing, and a fabulous setting. I honestly don't know how it didn't win the Cybil this year.

I had such emotion while reading this, having a husband in the military and the feelings of being left behind sometimes. Brother was just such an amazing main character and makes me want to hand this little book to everyone I know. Go out and get it if you haven't already!

Overall rating: 5 out of 5

Heart of a Shepherd
Rosanne Parry
176 pages
Middle Grade
Random House
9780375848025
January 2009
Book borrowed from my local library

The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne

Yep, as adorable as everyone says. I, at times, had a pretty hard time believing in the crazy ways of Hamlet's parents, but that didn't deter from the cuteness of the overall sto

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...is an absolutely fantastic book! It's not a slam-bang action adventure story but it's still great. Young "Brother" Alderman (he's called "Brother" because his real name is Ignatius!) lives on a ranch in Idaho. His dad is going to be deployed to Iraq for 2 1/2 years and his three older brothers are going off to the army, college, and a boarding high school, leaving him to run the ranch with his grandparents and a hired hand. He promises his dad to keep things the same while he's away, but events come that threaten to change things in the worst possible ways. How will he ever manage? Does this sound depressing? It's not!!!This is a rare and wonderful book about taking responsibility, getting in over your head, and the unexpected miracles that pull you through. There are some books that stay with you all your life--this is one of those books! Go get it--it's well worth reading.

PS--Just to let you know, there are a couple of swear words in this book. They're not gratuitous (which is a fancy word that means "dropped in there for no good reason") and you'd hardly notice them, but they are there and I know that some guys and parents might want to be aware.

AND--we've got 4 Camp Half-Blood t-shirts here at the Imaginon library. I'll give one away to any boy who can prove his dad, older brother, uncle, mom, older sister, or aunt is deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Guys like you deserve a reward. But be on your honor, guys. Don't just say, "My dad's in Iraq" to get a shirt. Show us some proof. This offer will be good through February or until these four shirts are gone.


Carl

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