tag:dreamwidth.org,2012-07-14:1666768Read ALL the Newberys!(and honor books and probably some other stuff...)Read ALL the Newberys!2013-06-17T05:47:05Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2012-07-14:1666768:16728justice_turtleReview: Runaway Papoose (Grace Moon)2013-06-17T05:47:05Z2013-06-17T05:47:05Zpublic0Posted by: <span lj:user='justice_turtle' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://justice-turtle.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://justice-turtle.dreamwidth.org/'><b>justice_turtle</b></a></span><br /><br /><b>Summary:</b> A Southwestern Native American toddler gets lost in the desert, makes friends with a shepherd boy, and spends the rest of the book trying to find her family again.<br /><br /><b>Reaction:</b> Oversimplified baby-talk narration, inaccurate representation of Navajo folktales, a protagonist of an unnamed tribe that is <a href="https://xkcd.com/918/">definitely not Navajo</a>, and it takes ten pages for anything at all to happen? Plus bonus fat-shaming and chauvinism! Must be a 1920s Newbery, huh? *dry grin*<br /><br />The setting showed fairly detailed research, but the "What tribe is she? Not Navajo! What tribe is she like? Navajo!" deal really made me eyeroll; it seemed like an excuse for sloppiness. I was reasonably impressed, though, by the existence of a subplot about a white man kidnapping Native children by government sanction to make them go to White-run boarding schools and forget their culture; I've never seen that historical fact addressed in any other work of fiction. Ever.<br /><br />(I don't know if that says more about my reading than it does about the state of fiction.)<br /><br /><b>Conclusion:</b> One star. For the boarding schools subplot.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=readallthenewberys&ditemid=16728" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2012-07-14:1666768:15188justice_turtleNewbery Honor: Runaway Papoose (Grace Moon)2013-04-15T21:02:46Z2013-04-15T21:12:51Zpublic0Posted by: <span lj:user='justice_turtle' style='white-space: nowrap;' class='ljuser'><a href='https://justice-turtle.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://justice-turtle.dreamwidth.org/'><b>justice_turtle</b></a></span><br /><br />I'm... less than optimistic about this book, because of the title. It's also out of print - I've got it on an interlibrary loan - but after <i>Wonder Smith</i>, <i>Dream Coach</i>, and <i>Tod of the Fens</i> (on the one hand) and <i>The Story of White People</i> and <i>Shen of the Sea</i> (on the other), I have serious doubts that the survival of a title on this list actually has anything to do with its quality. ^_^<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://readallthenewberys.dreamwidth.org/15188.html#cutid1">holds nose and dives in; warning: fat-shaming</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br />...yeah, guess what? I'm done. I don't even care what happens in the rest of this book. Good-bye.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=readallthenewberys&ditemid=15188" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments