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Content snapshot
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Violence
Some
Frontier danger; an attack by outlaws on the road; a realistic portrayal of post-Civil War Texas violence
Language
Barely any
Mild language; period-appropriate Texas frontier voice
Sexual Content
None
No romantic or sexual content
Substance Use
Barely any
Period drinking
Emotional Intensity
Barely any
A child torn between identities she did not choose; the loneliness of an old man in a changing world
What this book is about
Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd is seventy-two years old and earns his living by riding from town to town in post-Civil War Texas, reading newspapers aloud to whoever can pay a dime. He is asked to transport Johanna Leonberger — a ten-year-old girl who was captured by the Kiowa four years ago — back to her German-immigrant relatives in South Texas. Johanna does not want to go. She does not remember being white; she is Kiowa. Paulette Jiles's slim, beautiful novel is a story of two people who cannot speak each other's language but forge something like family across hundreds of miles of dangerous frontier. One of the quietest and loveliest novels of its year.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
depiction of Kiowa captivity and frontier violence
themes of forced assimilation
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