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Summary
Summary
It's August 1846 in the northern Midwest territory and Josette Dupre has just turned thirteen. The daughter of a French trader and an Ojibwe woman, she has bigger dreams than most girls of the day, dreams of traveling East for a higher education. But her hope of fulfilling these dreams comes to an abrupt halt when her mother dies.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-In the mid-1800s, Josette, 13, dreams of going to Montreal to continue her education. A Metis girl whose mother has recently died, she lives in St. Eustache, west of the Red River Settlement, with her father and two younger brothers. The teen loves going to school and helping her French-speaking teachers translate words into Ojibwe. All of that ends, however, when her father decides that the family will join a cart train headed to St. Paul, MN. Nearly a year after they arrive in town, a teacher comes to establish a school and asks Josette to help her with the children's learning. The story is told in diary format, and an afterword provides background. Josette is an interesting character who's bright and friendly, but she often seems older than her years. Additionally, too many characters populate the novel, and much of the story is told and not shown. Nevertheless, the book portrays a group of people little covered in American literature. It might be of interest in Minnesota and parts of Canada.-S K Joiner, Brazoria County Library System, Angleton, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
In 1846, Josette--the daughter of an Ojibwe mother and French father--reluctantly abandons her studies after her mother dies and her family decides to move from Canada to Minnesota. Historical facts are seamlessly incorporated into Josette's story, which is presented as detailed journal entries. Author's notes give background on MTtis (people of French and Native American descent) culture and explain Sommerdorf's inspiration. Glos. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Thirteen-year-old Josette Dupre, daughter of a French voyageur and an Ojibwe woman, has a dream of some day going to school in Montreal for a higher education, but when her mother dies and her father takes a job on a buffalo hunt, she knows that dream may escape her. The buffalo hunt leads to a job as a teamster, taking furs and meat down to St. Paul, a rough town in 1846. There, Josette meets Harriet Bishop, the new teacher in town. Since Josette knows French, Ojibwe and some English, she's hired as an interpreter at the school. Harriet becomes her mentor, telling her, "Don't give up your dreams." Written as Josette's diary, this is a good story trapped in the wrong format. The flat prose never sounds like Josette's voice, hampering the telling from the start. However, this story of the Mtis, persons of mixed French and Indian heritage, will appeal to those who enjoy historical coming-of-age tales. (foreword, acknowledgments, afterword, glossary) (Historical fiction. 8-12) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Josette Dupre begins a journal on her twelfth birthday, in 1846. As her mother, an Ojibwa, dies, she charges Josette with caring for her younger brothers. Their father, a French Canadian voyageur, takes the children to a buffalo camp, where he joins the hunt. In the meantime, Josette tries to keep the boys out of trouble while learning how to carve up a buffalo and preserve its parts for later use. Later, the family joins a cart-train traveling south to St. Paul, a sparsely populated outpost where Josette minds the house, fills in as a teacher for the younger children, and observes the town's rapid growth. Inspired by a sentence in the autobiography of a teacher who arrived in St. Paul in 1847, the story provides a close look at conditions on the frontier and the attitudes of the people. The details of everyday life are the most vivid part of this historical novel, which concludes with an afterword and a glossary defining selected Ojibwa, Dakota, and French words. --Carolyn Phelan Copyright 2006 Booklist
