Review by Booklist Review
Ages 6-8. Determined to stop the white people from moving westward, a group of daring Cheyenne Indians ambushes and derails a freight train.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In PW 's words, ``Goble's incomparable paintings, full of vitality and color, illustrate a true story, the Cheyennes' sole victory over encroaching whites whose railroads `tear open our Mother, the earth.' His final picture mutely and eloquently records the difference between attitudes of the conquerors and the Native Americans who respected the land.'' Ages 5-8. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-3 Goble has taken several accounts of the 1867 Cheyenne attack of a Union Pacific freight train (listed on the verso of the title page) and combined them into a story from the Indians' viewpoint. As the Cheyenne Prophet Sweet Medicine had foretold, strange hairy people were invading the land, killing women and children and driving off the horses. Descriptions of the iron horse inspired curiosity and fear in the young braves who decided to go out and protect their village from this new menace. Keeping fairly close to actual Indian accounts, Goble presents the braves' bold attack on the train, glossing over the deaths of the train crew. The highlight of the book is the portrayal of the young braves as they explore the contents of the train. They toss meaningless rectangles of green paper into the air and spread bolts of colorful cloth across the prairie. Deciding they had nothing more to fear, the braves return home, little realizing what the future holds. The art, done in India ink and watercolors, is delicately colored with lots of open white space. A beautifully illustrated story. Karen Zimmerman, I.D. Weeks Library, University of South Dakota, Vermillion (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Goble's unmistakable graphic style--white outlines around blocks of color, pattern and silhouette and gracious white spaces--has never been used to better advantage. The successful derailment of a freight train by Cheyenne Indians is the unusual subject for this picture book, which achieves a surprising array of effects, some the more powerful for their sensitive understatement. A shaman had prophesied an influx of hairy people from the East. When white men arrived (the US Army, coming to drive Indians onto reservations), the Indians put up the kind of fight beleaguered people can be expected to make. The story's conflict is centered on an attempt to stop the steam-powered train, the Iron Horse, stories of which had terrorized children and adults alike. In a stunning drawing done from an overhead perspective, the freight cars are shown splayed every which way, with a man's body, bristling with arrows, fallen at the side. The celebration of the Indian braves, trailing behind them bolts of printed fabric they have' taken from the slaughtered Iron Horse, is a visual and emotional delight. The Indians were bound to lose this battle; the final drawing, which shows an Amtrak train racing across a landscape littered with soda bottles and cans, laced overhead with power lines and crossed by the ominous shadows of military jets, gives reason to consider the true right and wrong of the conflict. Once again, Goble distinguishes himself as a sensitive and honest storyteller and historian, and as an artist of enduring merit. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
