This brief well-written middle-grade novel focuses on 13-year-old Kiri, an indigenous girl. At age 5, when her parents do not return to the family tent during a snowstorm, she is brought to a village by a couple (from another aboriginal group) who have happened upon her while out hunting. From early childhood, Kiri has had the ability to enter into the bodies of animals and view the world through their eyes. She can also pick up on the emotions of other humans. In her new home, she is adopted by an elderly “singer”/healer/shaman, Mali, to whom she becomes deeply attached. He trains her in healing practices and in the use of herbs.

Over the eight years Kiri has been with him, Mali has grown weak, and now there is talk among the elders of sending the girl out on her vision quest at an unusual time of the year—early winter. The tribe cannot function without a healer, and it is essential that there is someone to take on the role when Mali dies. Within this tribe, the vision quest is intended to reveal to the young person his or her true name and calling. Kiri knows she possesses the requisite gifts to be a healer. She’s sensitive to voices on the wind, for example, and she strongly senses the pain of others. However, she fears the suffering that overtakes her when she is near sick people, and she resists her fate. Mali makes clear that it is Kiri's responsibility to leave on the quest that will usher her into adulthood. Out of love for him, she leaves, travelling far from her familiar surroundings, as he has counselled her to do. On her journey, she has mysterious dreams in which voices call her name across a wide lake. She also endures a number of physical challenges including the capsizing and wreck of her canoe and winter storms. After healing an injured “wolken”—wolf—(all the animal species in the story are given fantastical names), Kiri and the wild canid become friends. In fact, “Cloud Shadow”, as she calls him, becomes her spirit animal, guarding her and the makeshift “wellan”—wigwam—she’s created. He brings her small animals for food and sleeps beside her. The climax of the novel turns on Kiri’s interaction with a village boy a year older than she. Kiri has always been wary of Garen. A dark cloud seems to hang over his head, and Kiri senses something frightening and disturbing within him that drives him to act with cruelty. Like her, he is resistant to hearing his true name and calling, and, since his first vision quest was unsuccessful, he is sent out on a second at the same time Kiri is.

Rather than write an anthropologically accurate novel, Root has opted for a safer fantasy approach. There’s nothing particularly magical about the plot elements; it’s in the naming of animals that Root signals that even though this appears to be our world, it isn’t quite. I honestly found the odd names for recognizable animals distracting and irritating. Root does provide a glossary, however, for readers who might have trouble keeping track.

This is a nice little novel and it includes some effective black-and-white illustrations by Dennis McDermott, which help young readers to better envision the setting. Characterization is not a strong point, and there are gaps in people’s backstories. Kiri recalls that she and her parents were once part of a village, but for some unknown reason the family is living in a tent well away from their tribe at the time of her father and mother’s disappearance. How Garen came to be alone and troubled is also a mystery. Having said all that, I still enjoyed the novel and believe kids would, too. ( )

This is a short J fiction book- about a young girl in a Native American tribe. At five years old, she's been living alone with her parents for some time. Her father leaves on a hunting trip and when he doesn't return, the mother goes out to find him. The girl Kiri waits and waits but nobody returns. A couple from another tribe comes across her tent and takes her in. She is at first shy in her new surroundings, not used to being around so many people in the new tribe. Kiri has a special ability to "put herself into the eyes of others"- I guess you would say she's an empath, able to deeply feel what others around her experience, and also to see the world through the eyes of animals. This can be useful- she can put herself into the eyes of a bird overhead and see something far off, for example. It's also hard to deal with in close quarters with other people, as when she can't avoid feeling the anger and resentment of a boy in the tribe named Garen. Seeing how disconcerted she is among others and recognizing her gift, the tribe's healer adopts her so she can live in relative seclusion in his tent, and learn his skills. But when she's asked to help him heal a sick person, she flinches away from the strong feelings of loneliness and pain that overwhelm her at the bedside. When Kiris turns thirteen, she has to go on a solitary journey to seek a spirit vision that will let her know what her purpose in life is, and her role in the tribe. She expects that it will be as a singer and healer. But she's afraid, doesn't feel ready for this responsibility. On the journey she runs into a storm and her boat is wrecked, leaving her stranded on a riverbank in unknown territory. So it turns into a survival story- how she finds food, builds a shelter, and so on. She finds an injured wolf, and tries to heal it. Then Garen shows up- he's been out on a spirit journey too, and he's hunting the wolf that she befriended. He's also half-starved and needs help. Kiri is torn between protecting her wolf companion or helping this disgruntled young man she's never really liked. Of course she does the right thing, even though it's hard- and when she finally reaches out to Garen with her healing skills, she finds to her surprise that they have something in common- a deep loneliness each has been carrying around for years.

In the end Kiri finally resolves having felt abandoned by her parents so long ago, and returns to her adopted tribe with confidence and peace. It's really a nice story with some complexity and depth of feeling I didn't expect for how short it is. I read it in one sitting. I really wished it had been twice as long- I wanted more of every aspect! There's also throughout the entire book, words like 'korlu' and 'skirre' which kind of threw me out of the narrative because I spent way too much time trying to figure out what they were. Every single animal in the story has a foreign word instead of English (and I have no idea if this is from a real tribe depicted, or a made-up one). While there's a glossary, it doesn't say " 'wolken'- a wolf" but instead " 'wolken'- an animal with slender legs, bushy tail, pointed nose, and keen eyesight and hearing". Is it a wolf? or did she befriend a fox? I just want to know and I wonder if kids would puzzle as much over this as I did, or just gloss over it and be absorbed in the story. The illustrations by Dennis McDermott are beautiful, rich with texture and detail that add a lot to the book.

from the Dogear Diary ( )