New Found Land

Hello to my lovely and most patient readers!

Thanks for sticking around with me while I made adjustments. I probably saved up several Word pages worth of space, just by switching most of the lyric posts with YouTube links.

Anyway, I promised I'd tell you about a few books, so here's New Found Land

New Found Land is a story of the Lewis and Clark expedition -otherwise known as the Corps of Discovery- told from many different viewpoints, and none of them have the same voice; a real triumph on the author's part. It is told in a variety of different methods, using poetry, prose, letters, and the occasional ordinary pageful of text that we're used to in our usual books.

Among the points of view are the obvious Captains Meriweather Lewis and William Clark, as well as Sacagawea, York (Clark's slave), two brothers; Reuben and Joseph, two half-Indians (no relation), Seaman (Lewis's dog), a teenager named George Shannon (who lied about his age), and a few others.

I especially enjoyed the entries by Reuben and Joseph, and Shannon. Reuben and Joseph because they were clumped together within the same entry most of the time (nearly everyone else got their own), and you could practically hear them fighting, arguing, and making up, just like I'm sure real brothers do (I don't have any brothers, but my sisters and I are the same way lol). And Shannon because he... Well, he talks a lot. Those three were really funny sometimes, and just had a way of lightening up an occasionally dense moment.

What I really like about this book is that all the characters are real. Not just real as in, they existed, but the author wrote out a story about our history, our heritage, something that most kids might cringe at, in an incredibly fascinating way. It's mostly historically accurate, but it's not told in the extra dense way the average history book is. The characters are alive. They're relatable. They do smart stuff and they do stupid stuff. They fall in love. They get annoyed. They threaten to kill anyone who steals their stuff again, even if it starts a full-out war with an Indian nation. They're real.

This story, New Found Land, I highly recommend to anyone who's ever taken an interest in Lewis and Clark, as well as anyone who hasn't, but simply enjoys a good, well-written book.

However, it is a little bit graphic at times, so I'd recommend it mostly to people over 12 or 13, depending on what they're used to.

Til tomorrow!

-Kj