Customer Reviews

The Talking Earth

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

What a beautiful journey Billie Wind, the young Seminole girl, takes. Her modern beliefs and views put her at odds with the tribal elders, who ask her to choose her own punishment. She sarcastically suggests that she spend time alone in the Everglades, and is surprised when they agree. Billie's journey takes her to a fire that clears an island and forces her to take refuge in a pit - an ancient dwelling of Calusas. She begins to learn to understand what the animals and plants are telling her, through thier calls and movements. The birds show her where dry land is, the crickets and frogs let her know when a predator is near, the mangroves tell her when she nears the coast. The beautiful descriptions make the Florida environment come alive in this book. And as I listened to this book on tape with my two children, aged 8 and 11, we could also feel this connection that Billie makes with the land. My kids are eager to listen to this story at every chance we can get. I think they yearn for the self-sufficiency that Billie Wind develops in the story. The quietness of this story reflects the peace of nature. At a time when humans are more disconnected from the earth than ever before, this book is a call to turn off the TV, headphones, treadmill, radio, etc. and take a walk or kayak through the wetlands, listen to the birds, watch the grasses move. A book like this can remind us of the forces of nature, both terrible and peaceful. There is great drama and suspense in this story of a young girl finding her way in the natural world. The earth is talking to all of us, read this book, then come outside and try to hear what she is telling you.

The Talking Earth
by Jean Craighead George

The Talking Earth is about a Seminole girl named Billy Wind who is very curious. When her tribal elder spoke of spirits everywhere there is, Billie said she did not believe in that. The religious leaders got very angry and asked what punishment she should give herself. In sarcasm, she said that she should go to the pay-hay-okee (the Everglades)and stay until she heard the spirits of the animals talk, see the magical serpent, and find the little people who lived under the ground. The people agreed while she wondered in shock because it was just a joke. She was still forced to enter the pay-hay-okee and hear the spirits herself. Therefore, she stayed there and lived with an otter, a panther, and a turtle. At the end, she endured a hurricane in a cavern and lived to tell the tale.
The reason I liked this book is because it had a lot to do with the flow of nature. It told about why the Seminoles said there were animal gods and magical things. It also said how nature has its own special type of flow and to disrupt it can result in disaster. It also had a lot of feeling into what happenned around her and why it happenned.
I also liked the book because it was very interesting. I couldn't stop reading it until I had no other choice. It grabbed me in the ears and pulled me into the book with all my senses so that I could feel everything around me. In the tense parts, I was scared for Billy Wind and I was also relieved when that part was over. It was like real life!
My favorite part was when Billy wind had just entered the pa-hay-okee. There was a great fire that burned down the whole forest that she was in. She found a strange pit that seemed to be inhabitted before. She found a baby otter inside a small tunnel and named him Petang. She also noticed there were small artifacts in the walls that were related to the Seminole's. She stayed and tried to reach home and get an archeologist to the site.

Talking Earth is a very exciting book to read. The main character, Billie Wind, is a doubter of her tribe's beliefs and has to be punished. For her punishment, she chose to go to the Everglades to learn about her tribe's beliefs. There, Billie makes friends like Petang, the otter, Coootchobee, a panther, and Burden, a turtle. How will Billie Wind survive in the dangerous Everglades? Will she survive? Read the book to find out.

Billie Wind developed from the beginning of the book to the end. In the beginning of the book Billie Wind didn't care about her tribe's traditions. As time went by, though, she started to use the traditions to survive. At the end of the book, Billie tried to make Oats Tiger (now known as Hurricane Tiger) believe in the traditions. Billie Wind has learned much from her punishment and is using it to teach others.

Kerra S.
Grade 5
Mr. Sizemore's class
Pleasant Plains Elementary

I as a 10 year old read this book for a book report. When I saw it I thought of it in a bad way, but it is a special book. It shares how important nature is and the creativity of life. One thing we should always respect is our culture and it is interesting how Billie Wind adapts to the natural surroundings and learns about her tribe. I have never read a book like this and would reccomend a lot of people to read it.

I read this book in second grade, and i really didn't like it. That was because i didn't understand it. At the age of 9, 4th grade, i read it again with my class, and it became one of my all-time favorite books.

It's about an indian girl named Billie Wind, who doesn't believe in the Indian spirits, so the council sends her into the Everglades to stay until she believes in the spirits. SHe stays and learns to take care of herself in the wild, befriends an otter and panther, and survives hurricanes and fires also. THIS IS A MUST READ FOR ANYONE THAT THIS SOUNDS EVEN VAGUELY INTERESTING.

I thought the book was very good. It had a lot of details and it was easy to picture what was happening in the book. Anyone who critisizes Jean Craighead George's "The Talking Earth," needs to get a taste in good books. I chose it to read in school as an Accelerated Reader Book and it was great. My teacher didn't choose it for me I chose to read it and if I had a chance to read it, I did. If you like reading about indians and stuff like that, than I suggest that you read this book. If you don't like it, than read one that you do like. Thankyou for reading my review.

This book is great for people who like adventure and survival stories. I would give it three and a half stars out of five. Billie Wind is sent out into the dangerous pay-hay-okee forest for a night because she does not believe that animals talk. A fire starts in the forest and while she waits for it to end she makes a friend. When the fire ends she does not know her way home and is there for much longer than a night. Will she make it back to her home? Will animals ever talk to her?

Here is yet another splendid story from Jean Craighead George, a Newbery Award-winning author of many spectacular nature stories for young readers. As she did in her classic JULIE OF THE WOLVES, Ms. George again combines details on Native American culture, animal behavior, and a unique environment to produce a dramatic and engaging story. THE TALKING EARTH is the story of Billie Wind, a young Seminole girl who lives with her tribe in the Florida Everglades. When she is accused of being a doubter, for not believing in her tribe's legends and myths, which often sound rather preposterous to her, she is sent off to live on her own in the River of Grass, to fend for herself and to listen to "the talking Earth" and learn what its speech means to her. While on her quest she learns to hunt and to build, to eat wild foods and make shelters and transportation out of the things she can find in the wilderness (sound familiar? Ms. George also wrote the favorite MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN trilogy, which concerns a boy who runs off to the Catskill Mountains to live on his own and fend for himself.) Billie Wind meets three animals that change her life forever--a giant panther cub, a playful otter, and a stoic turtle--and their adventures make the book all the more enjoyable. A fire, a hurricane, and other natural disasters threaten, but Billie Wind, a fine heroine, comes out all right in the end, with a better understanding of the world around her. I thought that more could be done to stress how important our environment is and what kids can do to protect it, but all in all THE TALKING EARTH becomes one of Ms. George's most well-researched, wise, and engaging books. Other fascinating stories concerning the threatened Everglades are a picture book, EVERGLADES, a breathtaking story that is wonderfully illustrated by Wendell Minor, and an Ecological Mystery for older readers, THE MISSING 'GATOR OF GUMBO LIMBO, which has even more about the wildlife in the Everglades, and is also a good mystery. But whichever of Jean Craighead George's 80+ nature stories one chooses, one always comes away with a more excited appreciation of our miraculous environment.

The traditions of Billie Wind's Seminole tribe seem out-dated and hard to believe. What she'd like to do is go on a NASA mission to another planet. As a punishment for her disrespect, she is sent into the Everglades to learn about the value of the earth for herself. This is a beautiful story of growing to know and understand the natural world. Anyone who thinks environmental issues are not of vital importance should read this or any of George's books.

I have read this incredible book to my fourth grade classes for the past six years and they never want to miss a single episode. Although George travels slowly through Billie Wind's quest for truth and adds delightful and insightful animal characters along (otter, panther, turtle) - that is the best way to really observe nature and "listen" to what both plants and the behavior of animals is telling all men. Her courage, intellect gained from her experiences as a Seminole girl raised in the Everglades and also went to school near her father's job at NASA, and sensitivity to nature make this a wonderful SURVIVAL book. Jean Craighead George is one of my favorite authors because through the stories she tells, I learn SO MUCH about our environment and respect for all things on our plant.