White Hare's Horses - Softcover

Grade 5-9-- Set during the 1520s in what is now coastal Los Angeles, this historical novel accounts for the introduction of horses into North America. White Hare, a Chumash girl, remembers her dying grandfather's telepathic prophecy regarding "foreign places and strange people who can cross vast distance" when her village is threatened by a band of Aztecs fleeing north on stolen horses from the Conquistadors. The Aztecs are brutal and seem invincible until White Hare takes courageous action; aided by her grandfather's spirit, she frees the horses, leading them over the Santa Monica Mountains. Any writer attempting to enter the mind of native people must reckon with such illustrious predecessors as Scott O'Dell, Jean Craighead George, and Patricia Wrightson; although Spinka clearly respects the Native Americans she describes, she does not create convincing characters, and the dialogue is too often anachronistic. Also, White Hare's out-of-body flight from the menstrual lodge during her puberty ritual is described in flat, pedestrian language that distances readers from an extraordinary experience. Her romance with a young man comes straight from the pages of a high school love story. Short and easy to read, the book may prove useful to libraries looking for material on the native peoples of California. Unfortunately, it does not do its subject justice. --Margaret A. Chang, Buxton School, Williamstown, MA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.