The Young Healer
When her younger brother lays dying in the hospital, Feather's Lakota grandfather, a tribal healer, comes to take her on a healing quest all around wintery New York City. As he explains to her, she has the gift of healing and she must perform the rituals with him to cure Peter. While Feather wishes to go directly to the hospital, her Grandfather takes a seemingly mindless, slow, meticulous path around the city. The juxtaposition of old Indian ways, especially the slow indirectness of it all, against the modern New York with taxis, pizza places, herbal medicine shops, tall buildings and rush, rush, rush produces an air of calmness so necessary to making the healing work. At some moments, it is reminiscent of Witi Ihimaera'sThe Whale Rider, (Harcourt, 2003) which describes a young Maori girl who must become a healer modern [sic] New Zealand. --BayViews