Book Review: Salt
Luckily, most of the books that I've read recently have been parts of series and so I don't have to feel bad that I'm building my list of books that I haven't read while I attempt to catch up.
Here's a book that I just picked up off the library shelf, and was a little bit oh-no when I opened it. But it turned out to be really good.
Why was I oh-no? It was poetry. And not just poetry, but poetry that had all the possible earmarks of being pretentious. I think that's why I don't like poetry, really. I find it extremely pretentious. And this was a children's book--a novel in verse for children--where the perspective went back and forth and the poems were shaped to look like things and had different meter for the different characters that meant different things. See? All the earmarks of being pretentious.
But, as we all know, there is a fine line between pretentious and art. And this one fell on the art side.
Salt: A Story of Friendship in a Time of War is a novel in verse going back and forth between two characters: Anikwa and James. James, an American settler, and Anikwa, a member of the Miami tribe, are young boys who live near Fort Wayne in Indiana in 1812. They spend their childhoods exploring the woods together, but then one day, they can't play together anymore. And they don't really understand why. Anikwa must protect his homeland with his family, and James' family (as traders) are torn between their business relationship--and friendship--with the Miami people, and their loyalties to the American fort. Can friendship survive in this environment?
I think it's really telling that I liked this book with my deep, ingrained hate of poetry. It was simple, like childhood, but so deep in a naive way. But peace really is a very simple, and child-like, concept, that how better to describe it, and its loss, than through the eyes of children.
I would really recommend this book. Never thought I would recommend a novel in verse, but there you are. I give it a solid 5 stars, and no reservations.
Here's a book that I just picked up off the library shelf, and was a little bit oh-no when I opened it. But it turned out to be really good.
Why was I oh-no? It was poetry. And not just poetry, but poetry that had all the possible earmarks of being pretentious. I think that's why I don't like poetry, really. I find it extremely pretentious. And this was a children's book--a novel in verse for children--where the perspective went back and forth and the poems were shaped to look like things and had different meter for the different characters that meant different things. See? All the earmarks of being pretentious.
But, as we all know, there is a fine line between pretentious and art. And this one fell on the art side.
Salt: A Story of Friendship in a Time of War is a novel in verse going back and forth between two characters: Anikwa and James. James, an American settler, and Anikwa, a member of the Miami tribe, are young boys who live near Fort Wayne in Indiana in 1812. They spend their childhoods exploring the woods together, but then one day, they can't play together anymore. And they don't really understand why. Anikwa must protect his homeland with his family, and James' family (as traders) are torn between their business relationship--and friendship--with the Miami people, and their loyalties to the American fort. Can friendship survive in this environment?
I think it's really telling that I liked this book with my deep, ingrained hate of poetry. It was simple, like childhood, but so deep in a naive way. But peace really is a very simple, and child-like, concept, that how better to describe it, and its loss, than through the eyes of children.
I would really recommend this book. Never thought I would recommend a novel in verse, but there you are. I give it a solid 5 stars, and no reservations.
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