Walking the Choctaw Road

January 1, 2003
In Walking the Choctaw Road: Stories from Red People Memory, storyteller Tim Tingle shares what it means to be Choctaw through 11 moving tales. His subjects range from the "Trail of Tears" to "Tony Byars," one man's account of finding friendship amidst enormous sorrow during his seven-year confinement in an Indian boarding school.

June 1, 2003
Gr. 6-12. A true talespinner celebrates his heritage with 11 absorbing yarns drawn, recombined, and retold from oral sources. Tales of shape-shifters and healing magic share space with stories about tragedy and miracles along the Trail of Tears and about prejudice, friendship, and incidents that illuminate traditional Choctaw values and cultural practices. In "Trail of Tears," a child carries his mother's bones on his journey of forced migration; in "The Choctaw Way," a killer teaches an orphan a moral lesson by willingly paying the price for his crime. Sophisticated narrative devices and some subtle character nuances give these stories a literary cast, but the author's evocative language, expert pacing, and absorbing subject matter will rivet readers and listeners both. In a long introduction, which might have been better placed at the end, Tingle pays tribute to his sources and discusses motifs and historical events central to the Choctaw people.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2004
Tingle, a Choctaw storyteller, presents eleven stories, including a legend about a group of Choctaw helping a slave family flee captivity, a supernatural tale concerning a creature who is half man and half owl, a moving account of the Trail of Tears, and some touching reminiscences from the author's childhood and young adult years. The prose contains the cadences of oral storytelling, making these engaging stories strong read-aloud material. Reading list. Glos.

(Copyright 2004 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)