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mjkroske's review
5.0
Classified as young adult fiction, but I highly recommend it for the over 50 crowd. It is heartwarming and at the same time, tickle your funny bone!
emybooksandcoffee's review
4.0
A beautiful yet heartbreaking story that almost made me teary-eyed, about the importance of moral values, nature, animals, simple things. I don't know if in another life I was a Native American because I feel a spiritual connection to the mountains too and I resonated with every page of this book. All the characters and vignettes were portrayed very vividly. The book is engulfed by a distinct innocence and melancholy, knowing how Indigenous people were chased, abused, even massacred at various points of history, and the prejudices about them that still exist. It's especially sad given their utmost respect they had to nature and their almost sacred way of viewing the world.
lkgannon's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Very intriguing story that forms strong emotional connects to its characters and can be appreciated for its message of tolerance and its other qualities despite its creator's former life.
sanjastajdohar's review against another edition
5.0
"Naravno, razumijevanje i ljubav su jedno te isto", dodala je baka. "Osim kad si ljudi nešto umišljaju, kad tvrde da vole nekoga koga ne razumiju. Jer to se ne može."
Ima knjiga koje svojom porukom ulaze u onu predivnu kategoriju "poput Malog princa", ovaj put je to Mali princ na indijanski način. Život Malog drveta u planinama s bakom i djedom, jednostavne mudrosti i ljepota onoga što se svakojako naziva, a ovaj put ću to nazvati "ono ljudsko što nam je svima zajedničko", što čini srž ovakvih knjiga, predivno je utkano u ovaj roman. Često smo daleko od prirode i onoga što nas čini ljudima, izgubljeni u vrevi svakodnevice. Makar ovom knjigom lako se preseliti duhom u mir i zelenilo planine i disati zajedno s njom, otkrivati život s Malim drvetom, tako dajući svojoj duši da malo odmori, ali i da nauči, da suosjeća i da stane i udahne. Duhovita, emocionalna, tužna, vesela, poučna, poetična, divna knjiga.
"Dok smo tako sjedili, razgovarao sam s hrastom. Wilburn nije znao da ja to radim jer nisam upotrebljavao riječi. Hrast je bio jako star. Približavala se zima i nije mogao govoriti lišćem jer je većinu već izgubio, ali govorio je golim prstima svojih grana koje je pružao vjetru. Rekao je kako je već pospan, ali će zbog mene ostati još malo budan i drveću u planini poručiti da sam ja sad tu."
Ima knjiga koje svojom porukom ulaze u onu predivnu kategoriju "poput Malog princa", ovaj put je to Mali princ na indijanski način. Život Malog drveta u planinama s bakom i djedom, jednostavne mudrosti i ljepota onoga što se svakojako naziva, a ovaj put ću to nazvati "ono ljudsko što nam je svima zajedničko", što čini srž ovakvih knjiga, predivno je utkano u ovaj roman. Često smo daleko od prirode i onoga što nas čini ljudima, izgubljeni u vrevi svakodnevice. Makar ovom knjigom lako se preseliti duhom u mir i zelenilo planine i disati zajedno s njom, otkrivati život s Malim drvetom, tako dajući svojoj duši da malo odmori, ali i da nauči, da suosjeća i da stane i udahne. Duhovita, emocionalna, tužna, vesela, poučna, poetična, divna knjiga.
"Dok smo tako sjedili, razgovarao sam s hrastom. Wilburn nije znao da ja to radim jer nisam upotrebljavao riječi. Hrast je bio jako star. Približavala se zima i nije mogao govoriti lišćem jer je većinu već izgubio, ali govorio je golim prstima svojih grana koje je pružao vjetru. Rekao je kako je već pospan, ali će zbog mene ostati još malo budan i drveću u planini poručiti da sam ja sad tu."
clsears's review
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
cmorrisclark's review
3.0
I almost didn't read this book due to the controversy surrounding the author and his extremely racist history.
My book club was reading the book, and I ultimately decided to read it since I was going in eyes-wide-open in regards to the author's background and I knew I'd have the opportunity to discuss everything with a group of people I respect. Still, I felt somewhat conflicted to be reading it at all-- by merely reading it, am I somehow tacitly supporting the mechanisms of racism that continue to grind on in the US?
Honestly, I find myself no less confused and conflicted about the book having now completed it.
For starters, the writing in the book is gorgeous. I fell in love with the young narrator. The book is full of powerful and moving passages, for example, a passage about the expulsion of the Cherokee from their tribal lands in what has been come to be known as the "Trail of Tears."
I want to include a long passage here b/c it illustrates the point so well:
.....................................
"Granma and Granpa wanted me to know of the past, for “If ye don’t know the past, then ye will not have a future. If ye don’t know where your people have been, then ye won’t know where your people are going.” And so they told me most of it.
"How the Cherokee had farmed the rich valleys and held their mating dances in the spring when life was planted in the ground; when the buck and doe, the cock and peahen exulted in the creation parts they played.
"How their harvest festivals were held in the villages as frost turned the pumpkins, reddened the persimmon and hardened the corn. How they prepared for the winter hunts and pledged themselves to The Way.
"How the government soldiers came, and told them to sign the paper. Told them the paper meant that the new white settlers would know where they could settle and where they would not take land of the Cherokee. And after they had signed it, more government soldiers came with guns and long knives fixed on their guns. The soldiers said the paper had changed its words. The words now said that the Cherokee must give up his valleys, his homes and his mountains. He must go far toward the setting sun, where the government had other land for the Cherokee, land that the white man did not want.
"How the government soldiers came, and ringed a big valley with their guns, and at night with their campfires. They put the Cherokees in the ring. They brought Cherokees in from other mountains and valleys, in bunches like cattle, and put them in the ring.
"After a long time of this, when they had most of the Cherokees, they brought wagons and mules and told the Cherokees they could ride to the land of the setting sun. The Cherokees had nothing left. But they would not ride, and so they saved nothing. You could not see it or wear it or eat if, but they save something; and they would not ride. They walked.
"Government soldiers rode before them, on each side of them, behind them. The Cherokee men walked and looked straight ahead and would not look down, nor at the soldiers. Their women and their children followed in their footsteps and would not look at the soldiers.
"Far behind them, the empty wagons rattled and rumbled and served no use. The wagons could not steal the soul of the Cherokee. The land was stolen from him, his home; but the Cherokee would not let the wagons steal his soul.
"As they passed the villages of the white man, people lined the trail to watch them pass. At first, they laughed at how foolish was the Cherokee to walk with the empty wagons rattling behind him. The Cherokee did not turn his head at their laughter, and soon there was no laughter.
"And as the Cherokee walked farther from his mountains, he began to die. His soul did not die, nor did it weaken. It was the very young and the very old and the sick.
"At first the soldiers let them stop to bury their dead; but then, more died – by the hundreds – by the thousands. More than a third of them were to die on the Trail. The soldiers said they could only bury their dead every three days; for the soldiers wished to hurry and be finished with the Cherokee. The soldiers said the wagons would carry the dead, but the Cherokee would not put his dead in the wagons. He carried them. Walking.
"The little boy carried his dead baby sister, and slept by her at night on the ground. He lifted her in his arms in the morning, and carried her.
"The husband carried his dead wife. The son carried his dead mother. The mother carried her dead babe. They carried them in their arms. And walked. And they did not turn their heads to look at the soldiers, nor to look at the people who lined the sides of the Trail to watch them pass. Some of the people cried. But the Cherokee did not cry. Not on the outside, for the Cherokee would not let them see his soul; as he would not ride in the wagons.
"And so they called it the Trail of Tears. Not because the Cherokee cried; for he did not. They called it the Trail of Tears for it sounds romantic and speaks of sorrow of those who stood by the Trail. A death march is not romantic.
"You cannot write poetry about the death-stiffened baby in his mother’s arms, staring at the jolting sky with eyes that will not close, while his mother walks.
"You cannot sing songs of the father laying down the burden of his wife’s corpse, to lie by it through the night and to rise and carry it again in the morning – and tell his oldest son to carry the body of his youngest. And do not look nor speak nor cry nor remember the mountains.
"It would not be a beautiful song. And so they call it the Trail of Tears."
.........................................
I found this passage extremely moving. It did not feel like romanticizing Native American culture to me. But then again, how can I trust the veracity of any of the claims, considering the fact that Carter made up language in the book, claimed the details of the book were autobiographical, etc.? His promoting of the book was founded on a lie-- that the stories were autobiographical. So any part of the book that claims to be historical in nature seems automatically suspect to me.
Yet this passage and others like it truly moved me. They made me think. The contributed positively in exposing the historical whitewash that white Americans have perpetrated on this country.
Honestly, I loved this book. Many passages moved me deeply. They made me think. They challenged me to continue to work towards unmasking racism and prejudice. The effect of the book was overwhelming positive for me.
I have read in some articles discussing Carter and the book that some Native Americans view the characters in the book as stereotypical cliches. But I have honestly had trouble finding reviews of the book written by Native Americans. I want to listen to those voices. I want their feedback and insight. I want to defer to those voices, but I worried they are being drowned out in the discussion of the book.
Here is one I found:
https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2007/11/where-is-your-copy-of-education-of.html
Some excerpts from the review:
"Granpa is the Noble Trickster, Grandma the dignified Indian Princess (and a Cherokee Princess, no less!), and Little Tree is just what so many generations of Boy Scouts have dreamed themselves to be: the Little Brave roaming wild in the forest, with few rules and all sorts of generic “Indian” woodlore to consume and exploit. In most ways they are generic Indians, with few if any attributes that are distinctly Cherokee. None of them have any connection to the Cherokee clan system, which would have been quite unusual for Cherokees like Granma and Granpa during that time period…."
and
"This fictionalization of Native lives and histories poses a very real threat to Native America, for it creates powerful stereotypes of Indians (what Anishinaabe writer and critic Gerald Vizenor calls “interimage simulations”) that take on a white cultural reality that is seen as a more “authentic” than the realities of living, sovereign American Indians."
Another critique: "Asa Earl Carter used Indians as stand-ins for the fallen Confederacy and his racist ideas about the "guv'mint"; the book pulls at the heartstrings, but it's dripping with romanticized Southern class nostalgia and stereotypes about Indians and has nothing to do with Cherokee cutlure, history, lives, or experiences."
I have to listen to these voices.
Should you read this book? I can't answer that question for you. But if you do, read it for the purpose of talking about deeper issues-- race and racism in our country, the objectification of Native American history and culture, the whitewashing of prejudice in US history, etc.
My book club was reading the book, and I ultimately decided to read it since I was going in eyes-wide-open in regards to the author's background and I knew I'd have the opportunity to discuss everything with a group of people I respect. Still, I felt somewhat conflicted to be reading it at all-- by merely reading it, am I somehow tacitly supporting the mechanisms of racism that continue to grind on in the US?
Honestly, I find myself no less confused and conflicted about the book having now completed it.
For starters, the writing in the book is gorgeous. I fell in love with the young narrator. The book is full of powerful and moving passages, for example, a passage about the expulsion of the Cherokee from their tribal lands in what has been come to be known as the "Trail of Tears."
I want to include a long passage here b/c it illustrates the point so well:
.....................................
"Granma and Granpa wanted me to know of the past, for “If ye don’t know the past, then ye will not have a future. If ye don’t know where your people have been, then ye won’t know where your people are going.” And so they told me most of it.
"How the Cherokee had farmed the rich valleys and held their mating dances in the spring when life was planted in the ground; when the buck and doe, the cock and peahen exulted in the creation parts they played.
"How their harvest festivals were held in the villages as frost turned the pumpkins, reddened the persimmon and hardened the corn. How they prepared for the winter hunts and pledged themselves to The Way.
"How the government soldiers came, and told them to sign the paper. Told them the paper meant that the new white settlers would know where they could settle and where they would not take land of the Cherokee. And after they had signed it, more government soldiers came with guns and long knives fixed on their guns. The soldiers said the paper had changed its words. The words now said that the Cherokee must give up his valleys, his homes and his mountains. He must go far toward the setting sun, where the government had other land for the Cherokee, land that the white man did not want.
"How the government soldiers came, and ringed a big valley with their guns, and at night with their campfires. They put the Cherokees in the ring. They brought Cherokees in from other mountains and valleys, in bunches like cattle, and put them in the ring.
"After a long time of this, when they had most of the Cherokees, they brought wagons and mules and told the Cherokees they could ride to the land of the setting sun. The Cherokees had nothing left. But they would not ride, and so they saved nothing. You could not see it or wear it or eat if, but they save something; and they would not ride. They walked.
"Government soldiers rode before them, on each side of them, behind them. The Cherokee men walked and looked straight ahead and would not look down, nor at the soldiers. Their women and their children followed in their footsteps and would not look at the soldiers.
"Far behind them, the empty wagons rattled and rumbled and served no use. The wagons could not steal the soul of the Cherokee. The land was stolen from him, his home; but the Cherokee would not let the wagons steal his soul.
"As they passed the villages of the white man, people lined the trail to watch them pass. At first, they laughed at how foolish was the Cherokee to walk with the empty wagons rattling behind him. The Cherokee did not turn his head at their laughter, and soon there was no laughter.
"And as the Cherokee walked farther from his mountains, he began to die. His soul did not die, nor did it weaken. It was the very young and the very old and the sick.
"At first the soldiers let them stop to bury their dead; but then, more died – by the hundreds – by the thousands. More than a third of them were to die on the Trail. The soldiers said they could only bury their dead every three days; for the soldiers wished to hurry and be finished with the Cherokee. The soldiers said the wagons would carry the dead, but the Cherokee would not put his dead in the wagons. He carried them. Walking.
"The little boy carried his dead baby sister, and slept by her at night on the ground. He lifted her in his arms in the morning, and carried her.
"The husband carried his dead wife. The son carried his dead mother. The mother carried her dead babe. They carried them in their arms. And walked. And they did not turn their heads to look at the soldiers, nor to look at the people who lined the sides of the Trail to watch them pass. Some of the people cried. But the Cherokee did not cry. Not on the outside, for the Cherokee would not let them see his soul; as he would not ride in the wagons.
"And so they called it the Trail of Tears. Not because the Cherokee cried; for he did not. They called it the Trail of Tears for it sounds romantic and speaks of sorrow of those who stood by the Trail. A death march is not romantic.
"You cannot write poetry about the death-stiffened baby in his mother’s arms, staring at the jolting sky with eyes that will not close, while his mother walks.
"You cannot sing songs of the father laying down the burden of his wife’s corpse, to lie by it through the night and to rise and carry it again in the morning – and tell his oldest son to carry the body of his youngest. And do not look nor speak nor cry nor remember the mountains.
"It would not be a beautiful song. And so they call it the Trail of Tears."
.........................................
I found this passage extremely moving. It did not feel like romanticizing Native American culture to me. But then again, how can I trust the veracity of any of the claims, considering the fact that Carter made up language in the book, claimed the details of the book were autobiographical, etc.? His promoting of the book was founded on a lie-- that the stories were autobiographical. So any part of the book that claims to be historical in nature seems automatically suspect to me.
Yet this passage and others like it truly moved me. They made me think. The contributed positively in exposing the historical whitewash that white Americans have perpetrated on this country.
Honestly, I loved this book. Many passages moved me deeply. They made me think. They challenged me to continue to work towards unmasking racism and prejudice. The effect of the book was overwhelming positive for me.
I have read in some articles discussing Carter and the book that some Native Americans view the characters in the book as stereotypical cliches. But I have honestly had trouble finding reviews of the book written by Native Americans. I want to listen to those voices. I want their feedback and insight. I want to defer to those voices, but I worried they are being drowned out in the discussion of the book.
Here is one I found:
https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2007/11/where-is-your-copy-of-education-of.html
Some excerpts from the review:
"Granpa is the Noble Trickster, Grandma the dignified Indian Princess (and a Cherokee Princess, no less!), and Little Tree is just what so many generations of Boy Scouts have dreamed themselves to be: the Little Brave roaming wild in the forest, with few rules and all sorts of generic “Indian” woodlore to consume and exploit. In most ways they are generic Indians, with few if any attributes that are distinctly Cherokee. None of them have any connection to the Cherokee clan system, which would have been quite unusual for Cherokees like Granma and Granpa during that time period…."
and
"This fictionalization of Native lives and histories poses a very real threat to Native America, for it creates powerful stereotypes of Indians (what Anishinaabe writer and critic Gerald Vizenor calls “interimage simulations”) that take on a white cultural reality that is seen as a more “authentic” than the realities of living, sovereign American Indians."
Another critique: "Asa Earl Carter used Indians as stand-ins for the fallen Confederacy and his racist ideas about the "guv'mint"; the book pulls at the heartstrings, but it's dripping with romanticized Southern class nostalgia and stereotypes about Indians and has nothing to do with Cherokee cutlure, history, lives, or experiences."
I have to listen to these voices.
Should you read this book? I can't answer that question for you. But if you do, read it for the purpose of talking about deeper issues-- race and racism in our country, the objectification of Native American history and culture, the whitewashing of prejudice in US history, etc.
morgen's review
1.0
Always Google the author before you read the book. Knowing that the author of this book was actually a leader in the KKK and made up this persona really puts a different lens on it, to say the least. Also makes it make a lot more sense since while reading the first 3/4 I didn't know it was fictional but it felt that way many times. Lessons learned. Always research first. If something seems off, it probably is.
Why do people suck so much??
Why do people suck so much??
laura_m_j's review
5.0
I am just now reading about this author being a racist. I loved the book when I read it years ago. I do need to make the chaneto fiction. We haveit in biography.