APR/MAY 08 - AudioFile
Well known for his extensive body of work on Native American legends and history, author Bruchac skillfully narrates his biography of the early years of one of the world’s greatest athletes. Thorpe, a Sac and Fox Indian from Oklahoma, is sent unwillingly to boarding school at an early age and forced to assimilate into white culture. He finally comes into his own when he meets up with Pop Warner, legendary coach at Pennsylvania’s Carlisle Indian School. Bruchac’s subdued, mellow tone captures Thorpe’s shyness. Bruchac conveys Thorpe’s earnest innocence and pain as he endures the death of both parents and confronts racism in his career. Bruchac’s sympathetic narration creates a character of humility, dignity, and respect. Young listeners should find this story inspiring. M.H.N. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
Drawing on meticulous research, Bruchac (Wabi) presents Jim Thorpe's (1887-1953) complex story, focusing on his years at Haskell and Carlisle Indian Schools, as a kind of imagined autobiography. Thorpe excelled at football, baseball and track, winning two gold medals in the 1912 Olympics for the latter. An error-ridden press story stated that he had played summer Class D baseball in North Carolina in 1909 and 1910, earning nominal pay; the piece unleashed a chain of events that culminated in Thorpe signing a proffered "confession" and being stripped of his Olympic honors. By adopting an equanimous, measured voice to serve as Thorpe's first-person narrative, Bruchac shines new light on facets of the Sac and Fox Indian's amateur career, from highlights of Carlisle's wins against college football's greats, to the mishandling of funds endemic at both the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian schools. Bruchac illuminates Thorpe's complicated relationship with his Carlisle football coach, Glenn "Pop" Warner, whose own flaws emerge. (Warner led his winning teams while controlling proceeds from ticket sales and, arguably, Thorpe's amateur status.) In a cogent author's note, Bruchac explains that his research revealed many errors in previous books about Thorpe; and although he calls this a "novelized" account, he quickly points out that "this is not a work of fiction" and "much of the dialogue is taken from research." A selected bibliography and a peppering of period photographs round out an impressive work of scholarship. Ages 10-up. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Gr 6-9-A fictionalized biography. Thorpe spent his life running-running away from school, running on the baseball diamond, running the football, or running to win both the pentathlon and the decathlon in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. His accomplishments, his kindness and consideration of others, his defeats, and his exploitation are related in first-person narration, from his childhood on an Oklahoma reservation to the loss of his Olympic medals for playing on a professional minor-league baseball team. Readers learn about his athletic performances (some related play by play), his triumphs, his friendships, and his hardships through the use of dialogue and description. The trust that Thorpe had in others and his own perseverance show both his personal weaknesses and strengths. While the writing is accessible, Bruchac's use of the first person is likely to mislead or confuse readers. Twelve poor-quality, black-and-white photographs document the subject's time at Carlisle Indian Industrial School and show him receiving the gold medal for the pentathlon from King Gustav V of Sweden.-Janice C. Hayes, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Jim Thorpe was a modern American Indian hero. At Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Thorpe excelled in sports and later became known as the world's greatest athlete. Taking money to play semi-pro baseball one summer in North Carolina led to trumped-up charges that he had become a professional, and he was stripped of the gold medals he had won in the 1912 Olympics. But newspapers came to his defense, and he remained a hero to many people. Following up on his picture book, Jim Thorpe's Bright Path (2004), illustrated by S.D. Nelson, Bruchac has Thorpe tell the story in his own voice. The novel is a superb blend of fiction and nonfiction, rooted in the author's usual careful research. Not just a sports-hero tale, this delves into such important issues as the line between amateur and professional sports, the effect of big-time money on sports, racism and the relationship of Native Americans to a dominant society. (Fiction. 10+)
