creolelitbelle 's review for:

Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two by Joseph Bruchac

4.0

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My favorite aspects of this book are the storyteller way it is told to the reader and the atypical perspective of the whole thing. The narrator speaks as if he is relaying the story of his childhood and WWII code talker days to his grandchildren, which is a fantastic experience. Throughout the first half of the book, Ned reminensces on his childhood living on a Native American reservation and his time spent attending one of many schools meant to assimilate Native American children into the American society off the reservations. Hearing of even a fictionalized account at those schools was shocking and heartbreaking. The Navajo children were not allowed to speak their own language at school, and growing up in Louisiana that reminded me of stories with how Cajuns were banned from speaking French at school. The second half of the book is very much a war story, but the history of Navajo code talkers in WWII is little discussed and unknown to many Americans. That fresh perspective on the war itself and battles made this book a unique and very enjoyable experience for me. I definitely recommend others check it out but put an emphasis on the audiobook. Hearing the Navajo language instead of seeing foreign words on a page was extra useful in getting the full impact of the story.