Customer Reviews

Navajo Long Walk (Council for Indian Education Series)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I think this book is a good book to read because it gives a lot of information about the Navajo way of life. I also liked it because it makes you want to know what is going to happen to Kee and his family. They are captured by the U.S. government and made to walk out of their sacred land to a fort controlled by the government. They have to do many things differently. They have to build new homes and grow crops from a place that does not supply the right materials for them. Kee learns many things on the walk and at the fort. You will never forget it once you've read it. And if you read it, you will find out if Kee's family will be free. By David Umphres, 5th grade

Sponsored by the Council for Indian Education (MT) this short book presents a fictionalized account of the Navajo tribe in the mid 1860's. Presented with sympathetic historical fidelity the story is related from the viewpoint of Kee, a young Navajo boy who comes of age over the four years that his family is in military exile. He struggles to mature with only one parent; first his father (Strong Man) who disappears, then his mother (Gentle Woman) who returns after many years of slavery in another tribe. He also helps his grandmother (Wise One) and little sister, Hasba.

During the enforced migration march East with 8000 Navajo over 300 miles Kee learns many survival techniques: emotional and
psychological as well as physical. The new reservation, on land
strange to his tribe, proves dissatisfactory, unproductive and depressing as traditional Navajo ways are scorned, remolded, neglected or disallowed. Secretly wondering if his father has been killed or captured elsewhere the boy grows in understanding--especially re the soldiers whom he first loathed and lumped together as the faceless, enigmatic enemy.

Gradually Kee realizes that learning white man's language is key to understanding another culture; he gradually permits one particular soldier to befriend him through repeated acts of kindness and consideration. Possessing a special way with horses Kee is promoted to stable boy for the magnificent stallion of the Post commander--which proves of real benefit to his family's meager rations. His mother's talent as a weaver of blankets is also praised and prized. Best of all he makes friends with a white boy--the first he ever met. The book contains many gentle expressions of compassionate philosophy, mainly spoken by his grandmother and mother. But could a free spirit like his father, if he lived, learn to adapt to peaceful coexistence with white men and with other tribes? Still Kee longs for the colorful, pine-scented desert of Navajoland, where their ancient gods protect and bless them.