From Library Journal
Grade 4-6-The summer after his mother's death, Kendall and his brother are to travel across the U.S. with their father in his 18-wheeler. The plans change suddenly when Kendall's great grandfather summons him to "Sky City," the Acoma Indian Pueblo in New Mexico. With mixed feelings, he travels to his mother's birthplace to meet her family for the first time. The boy, half Acoma and half Anglo, is a fervent runner, compelled by inexplicable "magic" to run. He has many questions about his place in the world and his mysterious compulsion. He seeks answers from the Enchanted Mesa at Acoma, hoping to find the spirit of his mother and to earn a place in the family lineage. Although details of Acoma culture are accurate, Kendall's quest is contrived, and the action is predictable and unconvincing. Attempts to infuse the plot with mysticism are largely uninspired and the story fails to evoke imagery of the setting or empathy for its characters. Readers desiring stories of Native American quests would be better served by Michael Dorris's Sees behind Trees (Hyperion, 1996).
Carolyn Stacey, Jefferson County Public Library, Golden, CO Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Twelve-year-old Kendall, called "a running maniac by classmates," feels as if some kind of magic is pulling him along, forcing him to sprint instead of walk. After his Native American mother dies, he is summoned to her village, Acoma, where he meets his 95-year-old great-grandfather Armando. When Kendall learns the old man was an Acoma runner in his youth, the boy begins to understand the source of the "magic cords" that tug his feet into a blur of motion. He longs to become an Acoma runner himself, but can he? Because his father is Anglo, Kendall feels like an outsider and worries that he may never be accepted. But when Armando fails to return from a journey to his sacred shrine, Kendall finds himself on the most dangerous run of his life, one that will end in discoveries about himself and his destiny. Although the style is occasionally too earnest and the plot a bit too predictable, the novel contains a beautifully realized setting and a treatment of Native American culture and religious beliefs that is both sympathetic and evocative.
Michael Cart
