How I Became a Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Story

by Tim Tingle

Overview

Told in the words of Isaac, a Choctaw boy who does not survive the Trail of Tears, How I Became a Ghost is a tale of innocence and resilience in the face of tragedy. From the opening line, “Maybe you have never read a book written by a ghost before,” the reader is put on notice that this is no normal book. Isaac tells the story of his tribe's removal from the only land its people have ever known, and how that journey to what would become Oklahoma led him to become a ghost—one with the ability to help those he left behind. Isaac leads a remarkable foursome of Choctaw comrades: a tough-minded teenage girl, a shape-shifting panther boy, a lovable five-year-old ghost who only wants her mom and dad to be happy, and Isaac's talking dog, Jumper. The first in a trilogy, How I Became a Ghost thinly disguises an important and oft-overlooked piece of history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781937054557
Publisher:	Roadrunner Press
Publication date:	09/28/2015
Pages:	141
Sales rank:	65,597
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Tim Tingle is an Oklahoma Choctaw, an award-winning author, and a storyteller who has presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. His great-great-great-grandfather, John Carnes, walked the Trail of Tears in 1835. In 1993, Tingle retraced the Trail to Choctaw homelands in Mississippi and began recording stories of tribal elders. His first book, Walking the Choctaw Road, was the result, and in 2005 it was named Book of the Year in Oklahoma and Alaska. Tingle's first children's book, Crossing Bok Chitto, a Sequoyah Award finalist, garnered more than twenty state and national awards, including Best Children's Book from the American Indian Library Association; it was also a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice title. How I Became a Ghost was inspired by memories of Choctaw elders.

Editorial Reviews

A 10-year-old Choctaw boy recounts the beginnings of the forced resettlement of his people from their Mississippi-area homelands in 1830. He begins his story with a compelling hook: "Maybe you have never read a book written by a ghost before. I am a ghost. I am not a ghost when this book begins, so you have to pay very close attention." Readers meet Isaac, his family and their dog, Jumper, on the day that Treaty Talk changes everything. Even as the Choctaw prepare to leave their homes, Isaac begins to have unsettling visions: Some elders are engulfed in flames, and others are covered in oozing pustules. As Isaac and his family set out on the Choctaw Trail of Tears, these visions begin to come true, as some are burned to death by the Nahullos and others perish due to smallpox-infested blankets distributed on the trail. But the Choctaw barrier between life and death is a fluid one, and ghosts follow Isaac, providing reassurance and advice that allow him to help his family and others as well as to prepare for his own impending death. Storyteller Tingle's tale unfolds in Isaac's conversational voice; readers "hear" his story with comforting clarity and are plunged into the Choctaw belief system, so they can begin to understand it from the inside out. The beginning of a trilogy, this tale is valuable for both its recounting of a historical tragedy and its immersive Choctaw perspective. (Historical fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews