Eddie Chuculate

This Indian Kid tells Eddie Chuculate’s life growing up in Oklahoma as a Creek and Cherokee Indian. Chuculate is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation and is also of Cherokee descent. His ancestors were from Alabama and North Carolina, all forced from their lands, some during the Trail of Tears. He spent his impoverished childhood moving between his mother and grandmother but lived mainly in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He was often separated from his brother and two sisters.
The book targets 7th- through 9th-grade students, but I enjoyed it immensely. Though his writing is spare, Chucalate is a virtuoso in his interpretation of everyday life. When he was awarded the PEN/O. Henry prize in 2007, author Ursula K. Le Guin wrote of Chuculate’s “calm, beautiful, unexplaining accuracy of description.” He does not overly dramatize his life despite challenges others might lament. He writes simply and from a place of love. I heard Chuculate say that from the shame and embarrassment of something his uncle said to his best friend, a Black boy, when they were in sixth grade sprang this book. That incident is described in the book. I cannot say enough about my veneration of Eddie Chuculate’s writing.
Thank you so very much to NetGalley, Scholastic Focus Publishing, and Eddie Chuculate for the ARC of this book.… (plus d'informations)

Seven interconnected stories muse on race, family, art, and addiction in Chuculate’s debut. The protagonist of most of these stories is Jordan, a young Native American boy raised on a farm by his impoverished grandparents. In subsequent stories, we meet several of Jordan’s relatives, including his uncle, Johnson Freebird, a famous Indian artist who falls prey to alchoholism. In another story Jordan, now a famous Indian artist in his own right, tries desperately to reconnect with his father, Shorty, a down-an-out alcholic always one step away from homelessness and two away from the grave. Ironically, their main connection is the addiction they both share—an addiction that may end Jordan’s career the way it ended Johnson Freebird’s. The drama of living a creative life while struggling with one’s own personal and familial demons is powerfully displayed here by Chuculate’s straightforward and unsentimental prose.… (plus d'informations)