Journey Into Mohawk Country
O'Connor, writer and illustrator of the entertaining children's bookKapow!puts pictures to the actual diary entries of Dutch trader Van den Bogaert, who set off through New York's Indian territory in 1634, searching for a source of valuable beaver pelts. More than simply illustrating the account, O'Connor fills it with a new life--expanding on ideas only touched upon, creating action and conflict, and casting some welcome humor into the Dutchman's somewhat dry original commentary. While not exactly fast paced, the odyssey is filled with unusual details and insights about the Native Americans--the frequency of bear meat in their diet, their practice of treating certain illness by vomiting on the patient, their attitudes toward the foreigners. O'Connor himself seems well versed on the subject, and his pictures conjure an authentic sense of a sparse and demanding landscape as they offer a glimpse into a lost culture. The diary is absent of racism, but there is a single frame of nudity and a bloodless depiction of a scalping.Jesse KarpCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved