Review of Laughing Boy

This book was in the Young Adult section of my library. This surprised me because I thought most Pulitzer Prize winning books were written for adults and I think this one was, but was in the wrong section. As I read it I felt strongly that I wouldn't want my young adult reading it. It wasn't a bad book at all, but the underlying theme was questionable.

This book is about a young Navajo boy named Laughing Boy. He fell in love with a girl named Slim Girl. Their meeting and courtship was unusual to us, but it must have been common at that time for their culture. Slim Girl had been taken away from her parents as a young girl to California and raised to be white. At the time of their meeting she is trying to get back to her roots and needs Laughing Boy to help her. I think that initially that's why she wanted to marry Laughing Boy. She saw that he had interest in her and she thought he could help her, but she does fall in love with him.

While she was living in California with the white folks she met a rancher that she fell in love with, had relations with and became pregnant. He of course left her, because in this book white people are bad people. She was lonely and pregnant (she did loose the baby) and came to a small town and was helped by the local prostitutes who of course were white. They taught her their trade and she realized that she could use rich men to get what she wanted. She continued this practice so that her and Laughing Boy could have lots of money before they returned to live with his family. Unfortunately, she was caught in the act and Laughing Boy had to do the honorable thing for their culture and that was to kill her, but he loved her so much he couldn't and just shot her in the arm with his bow and arrow.

When he returned to their house to pack up and leave she was there and told him her whole story. He forgave her and they decided to go back to be with his family. Unfortunately on the way a jealous Navajo sees them and kills her.

It was good for me to read this story because I grew up in a town surrounded by Native Americans and I never really gained an appreciation for their culture. Through this book I was able to see into their early culture and gain an admiration for the Native Americans. The main theme of Laughing Boy is a love story. It's set in a place where true love seems unlikely, but these two do truly love each other and find joy in building their world. Many times Slim Girl wants to change, but she is able to get money and other things that made their life simpler. She does try to get back to her roots by weaving Navajo rugs, she learns to do it well enough she is able to sell them and make money with them. After she is killed Laughing Boy has his mourning period and travels on to a new village where he is unknown and decides to settle there. He decides that Slim Girl wants him to live on and be happy and that's what he does.

Scarlet Sister Mary Review

This book is about an African American girl, Mary, who lives in a community that is an old plantation, several decades after slavery is abolished. The big house of the plantation is run down and not in use anymore but there is a community that lives in the old slave quarters. Overall it seems like a happy life they have. They work hard and care for one another. Mary lives with an old lady, Maum Hannah, and her son Budda Ben (who is crippled because his mom dropped him when he was a baby). I don't think she's related to them, but something happened to her parents and so she comes to live with them. At the start of the book Mary is around 15 or 16 and she is getting ready to marry the man she is in love with, July. She is also a member of the church and is a good person, but on her wedding night she sins, by dancing, and is kicked out of the church. She is also pregnant before she gets married and this is where she becomes Scarlet Sister Mary. She and July are happy for a while, but then he gets lured away by another woman who is in love with him, Cinder, and July leaves Mary. Mary becomes bitter and just begins to sleep around with whatever man she can get (with the help of a love potion given to her by a witch doctor). She begins to have many children, in the end I think she ends up with 9. She doesn't seem to care too much for doing what's right and kind of laughs at people who thinks she is sinning. In the end of the book she has twins and her grown daughter also has a baby girl, who she hides in the corner and is ashamed to claim, but Mary takes her in and cares for her like she's her own. July comes back after many years and tries to get Mary to take him back, but she refuses him and sends him away. Also her oldest son, Unexpected or Unex for short (and the only one who is July's), comes back and he has a baby with him. The baby's mother died (he was married to her, which I thought was nice) and he just couldn't care for it alone. He gets sick shortly after arriving back home and dies. Mary is so sad and realizes that she is really a sinner. After they bury Unex, she has a vision of nine white cloths (one for each of her children, because they were all conceived in sin)and they all have scarlet stripes on them. She has to pray and pray for forgiveness until they all become clean and she is forgiven. She then joins back up with the church and is baptized again, because she is the worst sinner any of the other church members have seen.

The ending of the book is the only reason I gave this book two balls of yarn. I liked the overall message of the book. That although she lived in sin she could be forgiven, but only after she humbled herself and prayed for forgiveness all day and night. Otherwise the book kind of drags on and often repeats itself. When she is upset after July leaves it goes on and on about her sorrow and her despair. I got to a point where I thought, "just move on, girl!". I liked the characters and the story line, but the book would have been half the size if the author didn't repeat the same emotions and the same situations over and over. I did like how industrious everyone was and how they all helped each other. If someone was sick or needed help, a neighbor or friend was there immediately to help. This helped me to care about the characters, especially Mary who took in all those babies. She had twins and then her daughter's daughter and then her son's daughter. She had four babies all at once and didn't even think twice about how she was going to care for them and if she was going to get any breaks, she just took them in. I didn't however like her philosophy of men, that they would stay until the next great thing (or in other words, woman) came along and then they would move on, so a girl should just please him one time and let him move on, this I don't agree with - for obvious reasons.