Weetamoo: Heart of the Pocassets, Massachusetts - Rhode Island, 1653 (The Royal Diaries)
Grade 4-7-Using a diary format, Smith describes Weetamoo's life as a young teen in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1653. Constantly struggling with gender roles, she wants to hunt, and challenges boys to contests of skill. She surreptitiously follows her father as he meets with the Coat-men, or white settlers, at Plimoth Plantation. Eventually, she goes through a coming-of-age ceremony that involves a sweat lodge, fasting, and visions that foretell of later conflicts between the settlers and the Native Americans. Before the narrative comes to an abrupt end, she has matured into a future leader, or sachem, of the Pocasset tribe. A foreword explains that the real Weetamoo could not read or write, and would never have kept a diary. In the novel, Weetamoo makes line drawings on birchbark to illustrate her points, and often ponders learning to write as she observes the Coat-men, but she is not willing to convert to Christianity to do so. The final 50 pages provide further factual information, and readers may find Weetamoo's adult life more interesting than the fictionalized account of her youth. Michael Dorris's Morning Girl (Hyperion, 1992) provides a more original portrayal of early Native Americans.Debbie Whitbeck, West Ottawa Public Schools, Holland, MICopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.