From Publishers Weekly
Galsan Tschinag is the German name taken by Irgit Shynykbai-oglu Dshurukuwaa, a Tuvan born in Mongolia in the early 1940s. Tschinag studied in Germany in the early '60s and ended up leading the Tuvan people, dispersed under Communism, back to the High Altai mountain region. This autobiographical novel, the first of a trilogy, mines his Mongolian boyhood as a youngest child with an unusual devotion to his grandmother (who comes to live with his immediate family in their yurt). Galsan has aspirations to increase the family's holdings to 1,000 animals and a yurt with a mirror and a suitcase. As Tuvan customs get disrupted by the Communist government's attempts at societal homogenization, the boy continues to tend sheep without the company of his siblings (sent to boarding school) and turns to Arsylang, his dog, for companionship. The foundations for his natural ambitions disappear piecemeal. Tschinag offers softly outlined characters more in the oral tradition than that of the novel, and fly-on-the-wall depictions of the Tuvans, a generally nonaggressive, nomadic tribe with a knack for maxims and poetic superstitions. Descriptions of the Altai mountains, remarkable sky, and closeness to the flock are slow but rich. The book is filled with small pleasures.
(Oct. 26) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up–A poet, shaman, and leader of his Tuvan people describes the harshness and beauty of a childhood spent herding sheep in Mongolia's High Altai mountains. The boy endures the loss of his beloved grandmother, much of his flock in a difficult winter, and his dog in a tragic accident. The events described happen around 1950 in a part of the Communist world just beginning to experience political change. The author provides a fascinating window into an indigenous world in which nomads move with their flocks and their yurts up and down the mountains according to the season. As the youngest, the shepherd is kept at home when, in the beginning of the Tuvans' assimilation into Mongolian society, his older brother and sister are sent to boarding school. The loss of his siblings is only the first of the events leading to modernization and to his dramatic rejection of Father Sky, the religion of his people. This beautiful and difficult story has been smoothly translated from the German, Tschinag's only written language. A glossary and lengthy notes from both author and translator are appended. This is a memorable read, especially for teens who enjoyed Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton's
Facing the Lion (National Geographic, 2003), Marjane Satrapi's
Persepolis (Pantheon, 2003), or Said Hyder Akbar and Susan Burton's
Come Back to Afghanistan (Bloomsbury, 2005).
–Kathleen Isaacs, Towson University, MD Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
