Review: Befriending Witches
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 20, 2013
A young teacher takes a job on a reservation and finds her students quiet and unassuming.  They do not take the stage but respond to direct encouragement.She develops a rapport with a student who she finds is being bullied and harassed but refuses to identify his tormentors.  It turns out his family is being ostracized by some in the tribe as witches, and are considered responsible for deaths of children and adults in the area.The family refuses to pursue the case, but asks the teacher to walk the child home from school whenever one of them cannot.Every instinct she has says that something is very wrong, and that this family is being unreasonably targeted.  Being an outsider she cannot get in, and having no evidence and no cooperation, she is fraught with anxiety and a sense of helplessness. She goes to everyone, tribal council, police, people in the town, but no one seems willing to  investigate and stop the harassment of this family.A fellow teacher, a native American, who had been adopted and grew up off the reservations, also says not to keep pursuing this. She is falling in love with him, but his seeming inability to share her point of view creates a barrier (she later finds out, he has reason to hold back and is concerned that interference will cause escalation).You could see her anger develop, and her emotions were especially tied in, as the boy was about the age of the son she was forced to give u for adoption.Events continue to escalate and it is  quite a story.This was a good mystery and a very good read.