CROSSING BOK CHITTO: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship & Freedom

Scholastic Pess, 2009. 1st Paperback Edition 5th or later Printing. Soft cover. New/No Jacket Issued. Jeanne Rorex Bridges. CONDITION: UNREAD, but not quite perfect, c. 2009 Scholastic large paperback (stapled wraps), 16th printing. Wonderful color illustrations by Jeanne Rorex Bridges. Tiny edge wear to book cover top edge. This book has won awards from Texas, Native America, ALA, Oklahoma, etc. CONTENT: In a picture book that highlights rarely discussed intersections between Native Americans in the South and African Americans in bondage, a noted Choctaw storyteller and Cherokee artist join forces with stirring results. Set "in the days before the War Between the States, in the days before the Trail of Tears," and told in the lulling rhythms of oral history, the tale opens with a Mississippi Choctaw girl who strays across the Bok Chitto River into the world of Southern plantations, where she befriends a slave boy and his family. When trouble comes, the desperate runaways flee to freedom, helped by their own fierce desire (which renders them invisible to their pursuers) and by the Choctaws' secret route across the river. In her first paintings for a picture book, Bridges conveys the humanity and resilience of both peoples in forceful acrylics, frequently centering on dignified figures standing erect before moody landscapes. Sophisticated endnotes about Choctaw history and storytelling traditions don't clarify whether Tingle's tale is original or retold, but this oversight won't affect the story's powerful impact on young readers, especially when presented alongside existing slave-escape fantasies such as Virginia Hamiltons's The People Could Fly. Grades 2-4 and up.