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Summary
Summary
Morning Girl, who loves the day, and her younger brother Star Boy, who loves the night, take turns describing their life on an island in pre-Columbian America; in Morning Girls last narrative, she witnesses the arrival of the first Europeans to her world.
Author Notes
Michael Dorris, Author Michael Dorris received an undergraduate degree in English, with honors, from Georgetown University and a graduate degree in anthropology from Yale. He taught for fifteen years at Dartmouth College and founded the Native American Studies Program there.
His novels include "A Yellow Raft in Blue Water" and "The Crown of Columbus," co-authored with Louise Erdrich. "The Broken Cord," which was named Best Non-Fiction of the Year by the National Book Critics Circle, brought attention to the disorder Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. He has also written novels for young adults, which include "Guests," "Sees Behind Trees," and "Morning Girl," which won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Youthful brother and sister narrators are a great choice to interpret Dorris's novel, written from the point of view of Morning Girl and Star Boy, two Taino siblings living on a Bahamian island in 1492. A string of images of everyday life and the dynamics between family members introduce listeners to what this part of the world was like before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Eliza and Riley achieve a commendably comfortable level with the text, something that is sure to appeal to many young listeners. Riley's boyish, high-pitched voice and sometimes excitable tone is perfect for the classic "rambunctious little brother" role. In a brief epilogue (narrated by Terry Bregy), Dorris signals the arrival/encroachment of European explorers. The way this text and recording bring alive a lesser-known side of a well-studied bit of world history may well spark discussion in classrooms and family kitchens. Ages 8-up. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Rising above the glut of celebratory Columbus books, the brief, lyrical novel alternates between the first-person voices of twelve-year-old Morning Girl and her younger brother, Star Boy, who are Taino Indians living on a Bahamian island in 1492. Through the course of events, the siblings not only achieve understanding of each other but begin to understand their places in the wider community. A book not to be missed. From HORN BOOK 1992, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
/*STARRED REVIEW*/ Gr. 5-9. From Virginia Woolf to Ann Beattie, most great adult writers get whimsical and preachy when they try to write for children. Dorris, however, is neither cute nor condescending. With spare, lovely words his first children's book tells a surprising story about people who love and hurt. As in his adult novels--A Yellow Raft in Blue Water and The Crown of Columbus, which he wrote with his wife, Louise Erdrich--his native American characters are rooted in a precise time and place, and they reach out to all of us. In fact, that's his underlying theme: the power, or failure, of people to imagine the lives of others. Perfect for reading aloud (and easily paired with Jacobs' nonfiction The Tainos: The People Who Welcomed Columbus), this historical novel starts off quietly. In alternating first-person narratives, a brother and sister tell of incidents in their growing up on an island: quarreling, coming together, withstanding tropical storm and public ridicule. Morning Girl wishes she didn't have a younger brother, Star Boy. He's just a noisy intruder, disturbing her closeness with her parents. Then, in a moment of shared grief, she suddenly sees her brother as a person. She recognizes his pain and that it's like her own, and he sees that she sees him. The reflections go on and on throughout the story, reaching from brother and sister to the wider family, their community, and their island world. "I watched the way you watch when you know you want to remember," Star Boy says when he's thinking of telling a story about what's happening to him. In another shining moment, Morning Girl sees herself for the first time by looking into the dark brown circles of her father's eyes. Star Boy tries to hide when he has been bad and caused damage to his father's canoe, but his family comes to find him, and they make him forgive himself and return home. Later, when he braves a fierce storm alone, he's exultant and proud, but the community taunts him for getting beyond himself. His sister stands up for him; even so, he withdraws in shame and spends the night alone on the beach. The next morning his mother is there. "Tell me what you learned," she asks, her words low and like a dream. "At night," he answers in that same whispery tone, "at night you must be your own friend." The characters are more idealized than those in Dorris' adult novels, though there's no reverential talk about vision quests or what Dorris has called the "basketweaving and mysticism" stereotype of native American culture. Yet Dorris shows that each of us does, actually, go on a vision quest. Like teenage Rayona in Yellow Raft, these kids do come of age in harmony with the rich opposites of their world. We see them grow from separateness to security, and then each finds the strength to be alone. The shock of the ending comes quite casually. Columbus "discovers" them. The year is 1492, and he names the place the "Indies." First we see the encounter through Morning Girl's friendly eyes. She welcomes the strange visitors, laughing at their dress and language, sure "that we could find ways to get along together." But the book ends with a passage quoted from Columbus' diary. Through the conqueror's ethnocentric view, these people we have come to know appear to be "a people very poor in everything." They have neither weapons nor religion. He's sure they will make good servants, and he will teach them to speak. (Reviewed Aug. 1992)1562822845Hazel Rochman
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-- In this story, told in alternating chapters by a brother and a sister, the bonds of a family living on an island in a primitive time are strengthened by discordant waves of daily occurrences. As Morning Girl and Star Boy, named for their predilections, relate significant events in their simple lives, the imagery washes across the pages like the tides and shapes a place that is far away in time and distance. Statements such as ``he told a lie and never untied it'' and the stars were like ``grains of white sand'' reflect an innocence and purity. Three events tighten familial ties and underscore the universality of families everywhere: the loss of a new sister at birth, a tropical storm that almost blows Star Boy away, and his childish boasting that brings him shame until his sister stands by him. In the final chapter, Morning Girl is swimming when a canoe of strangers arrives and she is the first to welcome them to the island. The two-page epilogue places the story in context as the realization of who the visitors are jolts readers with the historical impact. Led by the captain of the ship Nina, the men plant flags to take possession of the Bahamian island in 1492. Dorris has written a reverberating story of coming-of-age, both for the two characters and for the world.-- Julie Cummins, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Like the quiet lap of waves on the sand, the alternating introspections of two Bahamian island children in 1492. Morning Girl and her brother Star Boy are very different: she loves the hush of pre-dawn while he revels in night skies, noise, wind. In many ways they are antagonists, each too young and subjective to understand the other's perspective--in contrast to their mother's appreciation for her brother. In the course of these taut chapters concerning such pivotal events as their mother's losing a child, the arrival of a hurricane, or Star Boy's earning the right to his adult name, they grow closer. In the last, Morning Girl greets-- with cordial innocence--a boat full of visitors, unaware that her beautifully balanced and textured life is about to be catalogued as ``very poor in everything,'' her island conquered by Europeans. This paradise is so intensely and believably imagined that the epilogue, quoted from Columbus's diary, sickens with its ominous significance. Subtly, Dorris draws parallels between the timeless chafings of sibs set on changing each other's temperaments and the intrusions of states questing new territory. Saddening, compelling--a novel to be cherished for its compassion and humanity. (Fiction. 8+)
