Believe the hype! A total balm for the soul. Beautiful writing and a story line that will stay with me for a long time. One of my favorite novels of 2016. ( )

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
(Print: October 4, 2016;978-0062409201; William Morrow; 224 pages)
*Audio: 8/25/2020; 9780063041554; HarperAudio; duration 06:42:05 (6 parts); Unabridged.
(Digital: Yes)
(Film: Yes).

SERIES
N/A

CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
Jefferson Kyle Kidd - Septarian News reader
Johanna - Ten year old child who has adapted to the ways of her Indian captors and does not seem to remember any other life.

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
How I picked it: Recommended by my fellow audiobook fan and long-time friend, Cindy Huffman.
What it’s about: AN aging gentleman who travels about northern Texas reading the World News to communities for a living, who is approached with a request to deliver a (cantankerous) freed captive orphan girl to her family for a fee.
What I thought: Great, moving story with interesting characters and plot.

AUTHOR:
Paulette Jiles:
“Paulette Jiles (aka Paulette K. Jiles, Paulette Jiles-Johnson) (born 4 April 1943) is an American poet, memoirist, and novelist.” __Wikipedia

NARRATOR:
Grover Gardner:
“Grover Gardner (b 1956)[1] is an American narrator of audiobooks. As of May 2018, he has narrated over 1,200 books.[2] He was the Publishers Weekly "Audiobook Narrator of the Year" (2005) and is among AudioFile magazine's "Best Voices of the Century".[2]” __ Wikipedia

Grover does an excellent narration!

GENRE:
Fiction; Literature; Western; Historical Fiction

LOCATIONS:
Texas

TIME FRAME
Post American Civil War

SUBJECTS:
World News; Indians; Children kidnapped by Indians; family reunion; bonding; adjusting; poverty

DEDICATION
For friends on long trails: Susan, June, April, Nancy, Caroline, Wanda, Evelyn, and Rita Wightman Whippet

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 1
“Captain Kidd thought it was going to be about the Fifteenth Amendment but it was not.
Yes sir, Captain Kidd, would you come with me? Britt straightened and lifted his hat to his head and so did Dennis and Paint. Britt said, I got a problem in my wagon.
She seemed to be about ten years old, dressed in the horse Indians’ manner in a deerskin shift with four rows of elk teeth sewn across the front. A thick blanket was pulled over her shoulders. Her hair was the color of maple sugar and in it she wore two down puffs bound onto a lock of her hair by their minute spines and also bound with a thin thread was a wing-feather from a golden eagle slanting between them. She sat perfectly composed, wearing the feather and a necklace of glass beads as if they were costly adornments. Her eyes were blue and her skin that odd bright color that occurs when fair skin has been burned and weathered by the sun. She had no more expression than an egg.
I see, said Captain Kidd. I see.
He had his black coat collar turned up against the rain and the cold and a thick wool muffler around his neck. His breath moved out of his nose in clouds. He bit his lower lip on the left side and thought about what he was looking at in the light of the kerosene hurricane lantern Britt held up. In some strange way it made his skin crawl.
I am astonished, he said. The child seems artificial as well as malign.
Britt had backed one of his wagons under the roof of the fairway at the livery stable. It didn’t fit all the way in. The front half of the wagon and the driver’s seat was wild with the drumming noise of the rain and a bright lift of rain-spray surrounded it. The back end was under shelter and they all stood there and regarded the girl the way people do when they come upon something strange they have caught in a trap, something alien whose taxonomy is utterly unknown and probably dangerous. The girl sat on a bale of Army shirts. In the light of the lantern her eyes reflected a thin and glassy blue. She watched them, she watched every movement, every lift of a hand. Her eyes moved but her head was still."

RATING:
4 stars.

STARTED-FINISHED
6/10/22 - 6/19/22
( )

It was good, not necessarily great. I saw the film first, so I was picturing the actors when I read about the characters. I don't like when authors don't used quotation marks, so that was distracting for me. I also had trouble deciphering some of Johanna's words, when she was trying to relearn the Engllish language. And when using Kiowa words I had to Google them.
Anyway, Joanna's family is killed by Kiowa, and she is taken captive by the tribe. Eventually she is "rescued" and Captain Kidd, someone who travels and reads newspaper articles to paying customers, agrees to return her to her aunt and uncle.
The relationship between Captain and Joanna, and the softening of an old man's heart, are the best parts of the book. Joanna's re-entry into the white world is slow and painful, yet toward the end it seems like some of it was a bit unbelievable. Without giving too much away, I thought it wrapped up a bit too neatly at the end.
A good read. A fast read. ( )

At Wichita Falls in 1870 Captain( late of the CSA) Jefferson Kane Kidd was paid $50 by two freedmen to transport 10 year old Johanna Leonberger to her relatives at Castorville TX. Johanna was taken captive when she was 4 by the Kiowa after her parents and sister were brutally killed. Kidd agrees, buys a wagon and together the two start off on a perilous journery of over 400 miles of the untamed Texas frontier. To earn money Kidd buys papers from across the country and abroad to read at small towns along the way. In this was he spreads news of the world to people who otherwise had no knowledge of. To make matters more difficult, Johanna no longer speaks English but only Kiowa. Jiles paints with words the harshness of not only the land but the people Kidd and Johanna encountered. After reading this novel, I understand why it was made into a major motion picture. My only complaint is there are no quotations use with the characters dialogue. Having said that, this is a book not to be missed. ( )

Heartfelt story of two unlikely travelers that share a different and dangerous journey across brutal Western territory. Good pace, easy read. ( )